Eddins v. State
Decision Date | 16 January 2015 |
Docket Number | 2140184. |
Citation | 169 So.3d 1057 |
Parties | Gregory James EDDINS v. STATE of Alabama. |
Court | Alabama Court of Civil Appeals |
Gregory James Eddins, pro se.
Luther Strange, atty. gen., and P. David Bjurberg and Andy S. Poole, asst. attys. gen., for appellee.
Gregory James Eddins is currently incarcerated at the Donaldson Correctional Facility (“the prison”) in Jefferson County, serving a 30–year sentence that began in 2004. In this case, he appeals from a judgment of the Jefferson Circuit Court dismissing his action requesting that the State of Alabama (“the State”) provide him with adequate medical treatment for diabetes while he is incarcerated.
Eddins originally filed the action in the Madison Circuit Court in January 2014, using a form titled “Petition for Relief from Conviction or Sentence,” purportedly pursuant to Rule 32, Ala. R.Crim. P. In his verified petition, Eddins alleged that in September 2010, while he was incarcerated, laboratory tests indicated that he has diabetes. He also alleged that annual laboratory tests performed since 2010 support his claim that he is diabetic. Nonetheless, Eddins says, he is not being treated for diabetes
, and, thus, he asserts, he runs the risk of going blind, losing a limb, going into a diabetic coma, or dying. Among the relief Eddins requested in his petition is an order directing the State—presumably the Alabama Department of Corrections (“the DOC”)—to provide him with necessary or appropriate medical care to treat his diabetes.
The Madison Circuit Court dismissed Eddins's petition on the ground that it failed to state a claim for which relief could be granted and failed to raise any material issues. Eddins appealed, and this court reversed the judgment of the Madison Circuit Court, determining that, although Eddins sought relief in the form of a Rule 32 petition for relief from his conviction or sentence, the substance of Eddins's petition was actually a cognizable civil action alleging that the State had acted with deliberate indifference to his medical needs. Eddins v. State, 160 So.3d 18, 19 (Ala.Civ.App.2014). In Eddins, we cited a number of authorities standing for the proposition that the substance of a plaintiff's complaint, not the style the plaintiff attaches to the complaint, controls in determining the claims alleged. See, e.g., Assurant, Inc. v. Mitchell, 26 So.3d 1171, 1175 (Ala.2009) ; Elizabeth Homes, L.L.C. v. Cato, 968 So.2d 1, 8 (Ala.2007) ; and Bailey v. Faulkner, 940 So.2d 247, 253 (Ala.2006).
Additionally, we wrote:
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Buford v. Ala. Dep't of Corr.
...The plaintiff cites no authority in support of his first proposition, and Alabama law clearly rejects it. E.g., Eddins v. State, 169 So. 3d 1057, 1059 (Ala. Civ. App. 2015) ("[A] habeas corpus petition cannot be used to challenge the conditions of confinement."); Looney v. State, 881 So. 2d......