G.H. v. Marstiller

• Decision Date: 06 December 2019
• Docket Number: CASE NO.: 4:19cv431-MW/CAS
• Citation: 424 F.Supp.3d 1109
• Parties: G.H., a minor, BY AND THROUGH his parent and legal guardian, Gregory HENRY, et al., Plaintiffs, v. Simone MARSTILLER, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Florida

424 F.Supp.3d 1109

G.H., a minor, BY AND THROUGH his parent and legal guardian, Gregory HENRY, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.Simone MARSTILLER, in her official capacity as Secretary of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, et al., Defendants.

CASE NO.: 4:19cv431-MW/CAS

United States District Court, N.D. Florida, Tallahassee Division.

Signed December 6, 2019

Dante Pasquale Trevisani, Laura Anne Ferro, Florida Justice Institute Inc, Leonard J. Laurenceau, Kelly Jean Knapp, Southern Poverty Law Center, Miami, FL, Christopher Michael Jones, Andrea Costello, Florida Legal Services Inc, Newberry, FL, Jennifer Morrissey Painter, Florida Legal Services, Orlando, FL, Lisa S. Graybill, Southern Poverty Law Center, New Orleans, LA, Shalini Goel Agarwal, Southern Poverty Law Center, Tallahassee, FL, for Plaintiffs.

Barbara Willman Davis, Elliott Van Mitchell, Henry B. Campbell, John Marc Tamayo, Jonathan Barnet Trohn, Robert Joseph Aranda, Campbell Trohn Tamayo & Aranda, Lakeland, FL, for Defendants.

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS' MOTION TO DISMISS, AND ALTERNATIVELY, MOTION FOR A MORE DEFINITE STATEMENT

Mark E. Walker, Chief United States District Judge

This Court has considered, without hearing, Defendant Florida Department of Juvenile Justice ("DJJ") and Defendant Simone Marstiller's (collectively, "Defendants") motion to dismiss. ECF No. 13. Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiffs' complaint in toto, and alternatively, requests this Court to require Plaintiffs to make a more definite statement of their claims. ECF No. 13, at 35. Additionally, Defendants' move to dismiss the complaint as to Defendant Marstiller. ECF No. 13, at 7.

Plaintiffs have alleged four counts in their complaint seeking relief for violation of their rights protected by the Fourteenth and Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution, ECF No. 2, at 50–53, and their rights protected by the Americans with Disability Act ("ADA") and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act ("RA"), ECF No. 2, at 53–55. For the reasons provided below, Defendants' motion is DENIED .

I. Standard for Motion to Dismiss

This Court accepts the allegations in the amended complaint as true and construes them in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. See Hunt v. Aimco Props., L.P. , 814 F.3d 1213, 1221 (11th Cir. 2016). "To withstand a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must include ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Id. (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). "A ‘claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.’ " Id. (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) ). "Plaintiff's allegations must amount to ‘more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.’ " Id. (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ).

II. Factual Background

This is a civil rights case arising from statewide policies and practices of isolating children in solitary confinement. Plaintiffs allege that Defendants repeatedly isolate children for days at a time, with no time limit, in locked cells. ECF No. 2, ¶¶ 48, 51. The isolation imposes certain conditions such as lack of meaningful social interaction, environmental stimulation, outdoor recreation, education, sanitation, or access to personal property. ECF No. 2, ¶¶ 53–57. The isolation, along with the conditions imposed, subject them, and over 4,000 children placed in isolation every year, to a substantial risk of serious harm to their psychological and physical health and safety in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment and that policymakers have exhibited deliberate indifference towards these risks. ECF No. 2, ¶¶ 47–51, 53–77, 87–95, 117–30. Finally, Plaintiffs allege that Defendants discriminate against children with disabilities through the same policies and practices and, therefore, violate the rights protected by ADA and RA. ECF No. 2, ¶¶ 96–101, 131–49

III. Defendant Marstiller

Before getting into the meat of Defendants' motion—failure to state a claim for each cause of action—this Court will tackle Defendants' request that this Court dismiss the complaint against Defendant Marstiller. Defendants argue that the complaint should be dismissed as to Defendant Marstiller, sued in her official capacity, because such claims are redundant. ECF No. 13, at 7. This Court disagrees.

Plaintiffs sue Defendant Marstiller in her official capacity under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of their Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. ECF No. 2, at 50, 52. On the other hand, Plaintiffs sue Defendant DJJ for violations of their rights protected by the ADA and RA. ECF No. 2, at 53, 55. There is no redundancy here. While it would be redundant for Plaintiffs to sue both the Secretary in her official capacity and the state agency for the same claims, see, e.g. , Taylor v. Fla. Dep't of Corr. , Case No. 2:10-cv-641-ftm-38UAM, 2013 WL 12213191, at *7 (M.D. Fla. Aug. 14, 2013), that is not the case here.

Additionally, if this Court were to dismiss claims against Defendant Marstiller, Plaintiffs would be barred from seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Generally, "[a] state, a state agency, and a state official sued in [her] official capacity are not ‘persons’ within the meaning of § 1983 ...." Edwards v. Wallace Cmty. Coll. , 49 F.3d 1517, 1524 (11th Cir. 1995) (citation omitted). But, when prospective relief, including injunctive relief, is sought, "a state official sued in [her] official capacity is person for purposes of § 1983." Id. Here, Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief and have, therefore, properly sued Defendant Marstiller in her official capacity under § 1983.

For these reasons, this Court will not dismiss Plaintiffs' claims against Defendant Marstiller.

IV. First and Second Cause of Action ( 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ; Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment)

Plaintiffs' claims under the Fourteenth and Eighth Amendment are evaluated under the same standard. See Bozeman v. Orum , 422 F.3d 1265, 1271 (11th Cir. 2005), abrogated on other grounds by Kingsley v. Hendrickson , 576 U.S. 389, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 192 L.Ed.2d 416 (2015). "The Eighth Amendment ‘set[s] limits on the treatment and conditions states may impose on prisoners.’ " Quintanilla v. Bryson , 730 F. App'x 738, 746 (11th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted). "[U]nder the Eighth Amendment, the State must respect the human attributes even of those who have committed serious crimes." Id. (citation omitted). The Eighth Amendment also prohibits ‘inflictions of pain ... that are totally without penological justification.’ " Id. (citation omitted).

A two-part analysis governs Eighth Amendment challenges to conditions of confinement. Id. "First, the conditions of confinement must be objectively ‘serious’ or ‘extreme,’ " i.e., "the prisoner ‘must show that a condition of his confinement pose[s] an unreasonable risk of serious damage to his future health or safety.’ " Id. (citation omitted). "Second, the prisoner must show that the defendant prison officials subjectively acted with ‘deliberate indifference’ with regard to the conditions at issue." Id. (citation omitted). And while solitary confinement does not, in and of itself, constitute cruel and unusual punishment, "[c]onfinement ... in an isolation cell is a form of punishment subject to scrutiny under Eighth Amendment standards." Id. (citation omitted).

Defendants argue that Plaintiffs have failed to allege sufficient facts to satisfy either prong of the test. This Court disagrees. This Court finds that Plaintiffs have "nudged [their] claim across the line from conceivable to plausible." Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955. That is to say, Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that the isolation along with the conditions they have been subjected to deprived them of basic human needs that resulted in a substantial risk of serious harm and that Defendant Marstiller was deliberately indifferent with regards to the conditions at issue. But before this Court goes into the detailed analysis with respect to the two prongs of the test, this Court will tackle certain arguments raised by Defendants.

First, Defendants argue that there is no different constitutional standard for juveniles. ECF No. 13, at 21. That is, Defendants argue, the Constitution does not require detention center to treat adults and juveniles different in order to maintain security and order. ECF No. 13, at 21. Pure malarkey. There can be no doubt that the Constitution requires different treatment between adults and juveniles in the context of the Eighth Amendment. The Supreme Court has repeatedly emphasized that fundamental differences between adults and children are consequential in the Eighth Amendment context. See, e.g. , Roper v. Simmons , 543 U.S. 551, 569, 573–74, 125 S.Ct. 1183, 161 L.Ed.2d 1 (2005) (recognizing the "comparative immaturity and irresponsibility of juveniles" and finding that "differences between juvenile and adult offenders are too marked and well understood" such that the death penalty cannot be imposed against juveniles under the Eighth Amendment); Graham v. Florida , 560 U.S. 48, 68, 130 S.Ct. 2011, 176 L.Ed.2d 825 (2010) ("[D]evelopments in psychology and brain science continue to show fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds."); Miller v. Alabama , 567 U.S. 460, 471, 476, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 183 L.Ed.2d 407 (2012) (observing that "[youth] is a moment and condition of life when a person may be most susceptible to influence and to psychological damage" and recognizing "children are constitutionally different from adults for sentencing purposes").

Why, then, should the case be different in the conditions of confinement context? Defendants' answer is simple—because none of these cases are about conditions of confinement—but...