Henderson v. Hembrook

• Decision Date: 02 February 2021
• Docket Number: Case # 18-CV-6091-FPG
• Parties: MICHAEL JOSHUA HENDERSON, Plaintiff, v. BRIAN HEMBROOK, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of New York

MICHAEL JOSHUA HENDERSON, Plaintiff, v. BRIAN HEMBROOK, et al., Defendants.

Case # 18-CV-6091-FPG

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

February 2, 2021

DECISION AND ORDER

INTRODUCTION

Pro se Plaintiff Michael Joshua Henderson filed this case pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of his constitutional rights while he was an inmate at Attica Correctional Facility ("Attica"). ECF No. 1. Henderson's Complaint contained over 400 pages and alleged twenty-five claims against fifty-nine defendants. ECF Nos. 1-2. After granting his motion to proceed in forma pauperis, the Court screened Henderson's Complaint under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915A and 1915(e)(2)(B), found that it did not comply with the requirements of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 8, and directed him to file an amended complaint. ECF No. 7.

Henderson's amended complaint filled fifty-three pages and alleged twenty-seven claims against forty-four defendants. ECF No. 26. The Court screened the amended complaint, found that three retaliation claims were sufficient to proceed against two Defendants, Brian Hembrook and John Schuck, and dismissed the remaining claims with prejudice. ECF No. 28. Henderson moved for reconsideration of the Court's order screening his amended complaint, seeking reconsideration of its dismissal of two causes of action against two Defendants, Ann Marie Sullivan and Deborah McCulloch. ECF No. 29. The Court permitted one previously screened claim to proceed to service: that a rule at the Central New York Psychiatric Center ("CNYPC") is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague and violates Henderson's right to freedom of intimate association. ECF No. 31.

Now before the court is a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), ECF No. 40, filed by Defendants Hembrook, Schuck, Sullivan, and McCulloch (collectively, "Defendants"). Defendants seek dismissal of the claim against Schuck, any claims for monetary damages against Defendants in their official capacities, and the claims against Sullivan and McCulloch. Id. The Defendants' motion to dismiss is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

RELEVANT FACTS¹

I. Claim Against Schuck

Henderson claims that Schuck retaliated against him by confining him to his cell for twenty-three hours per day for three days because of Henderson's prior grievances, formal complaints, and two lawsuits. ECF No. 26 at 32.² Schuck admitted, while interviewing Henderson regarding two grievances, that the confinement was because of the grievances. Henderson alleges that he filed two grievances regarding Schuck's retaliation, but the Inmate Grievance Resolution Committee ("IGRC") never mailed Henderson its decision. Id. at 33. Henderson claims this prevented him from filing any appeal. Id.

II. Claims Against Sullivan and McCulloch

Henderson claims that Attica officials retaliated against him "through an illegal mail watch" and compelled him and his girlfriend, "DB," to sever all communication by requiring them to sign a "negative correspondence." ECF No. 26 at 36. Henderson alleges that he and DB haveknown each other for years, that she has been supporting him during his incarceration, that he was going to ask her to marry him, and that they "share a close familial relationship." Id. at 36.

Henderson claims that Sullivan and McCulloch promulgated a rule at CNYPC that is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague and violates Henderson's right to freedom of intimate association in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. Id. at 36-37. He claims that DB is an employee of CNYPC, is subject to the CNYPC rule, and the CNYPC rule prevents her from corresponding with him. Id. Henderson alleges that the CNYPC rule has severed his relationship with DB forever, prevents them from communicating without being subject to discipline, including the termination of DB's employment, and will continue to cause irreparable harm if enforcement of the CNYPC rule is not enjoined. Id. at 37.

LEGAL STANDARD

Rule 12(b)(6) provides that a party may move to dismiss a complaint for "failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). In reviewing a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a court must "draw all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff['s] favor." Faber v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 648 F.3d 98, 104 (2d Cir. 2011). To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual material, accepted as true, to "state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (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." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). The application of this standard is "a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679.

Where the plaintiff is proceeding pro se, the complaint, "however inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal pleadings drafted by lawyers." Erickson v. Pardus,551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Triestman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 470 F.3d 471, 474 (2d Cir. 2006) ("It is well established that the submissions of a pro se litigant must be construed liberally and interpreted to raise the strongest arguments that they suggest." (internal quotation marks omitted)). That said, even a pro se complaint must be dismissed if it does not contain "sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (internal quotation marks omitted).

DISCUSSION

I. Claim Against Schuck

Schuck argues that the remaining claim against him should be dismissed because of Defendant's failure to exhaust administrative remedies. ECF No. 40-2 at 14-16. Schuck argues that, even if Henderson did not receive the IGRC's decision regarding his grievances, he still could have appealed the IGRC's failure to respond. Id.; see Morrison v. Parmele, 892 F. Supp. 2d 485, 487-88 (W.D.N.Y. 2012) (detailing grievance procedure for inmates in the custody of the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision ("DOCCS")).

The Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") requires an inmate to exhaust all available administrative remedies before filing suit in federal court. 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); see also Ross v. Blake, 136 S. Ct. 1850, 1856 (2016) (holding that exhaustion is "mandatory"). "The PLRA exhaustion requirement 'applies to all inmate suits about prison life, whether they involve general circumstances or particular episodes, and whether they allege excessive force or some other wrong.'" Espinal v. Goord, 558 F.3d 119, 124 (2d Cir. 2009) (quoting Porter v. Nussle, 534 U.S. 516, 532 (2002)). To properly exhaust administrative remedies, an inmate must comply with the facility grievance "system's critical procedural rules." Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 95 (2006). To properly exhaust their administrative remedies, inmates in the custody of DOCCS, likeHenderson, must appeal even where they have filed a grievance but received no response. Cico v. Wenderlich, 714 F. App'x 96, 97-98 (2d Cir. 2018) (summary order); see also Taylor v. Kennedy, No. 14-CV-4708, 2016 WL 4702436, at *5 (E.D.N.Y. Sept. 7, 2016) ("Courts in this circuit routinely find a failure to exhaust where a prisoner fails to complete the [applicable] process after receiving no response.").

The PLRA's mandatory exhaustion requirement "contains one significant qualifier: the remedies must indeed be 'available' to the prisoner." Ross, 136 S. Ct. at 1856. In Ross, the Supreme Court identified "three kinds of circumstances in which an administrative remedy, although officially on the books, is not capable of use to obtain relief": (1) when the procedure "operates as a simple dead end—with officers unable or consistently unwilling to provide any relief to aggrieved inmates," (2) when the procedure is "so opaque that it becomes, practically speaking, incapable of use," and (3) when prison administrators thwart the use of the procedure "through machination, misrepresentation, or intimidation." Id. at 1859-60. Aside from these circumstances, "the PLRA's text suggests no limits on an inmate's obligation to exhaust—irrespective of any 'special circumstances.'" Id. at 1856.

The Second Circuit addressed the "opaqueness" unavailability exception in Williams v. Priatno, 829 F.3d 118 (2d Cir. 2016). There, the court held that a grievance program is functionally unavailable in the "extraordinary circumstance[]" where an inmate confined in the special housing unit hands a corrections officer a grievance but the corrections officer fails to file it. Id. at 120, 124. The court explained that "the regulations only contemplate appeals of grievances that were actually filed," rendering it "practically impossible for [the plaintiff] to ascertain whether and how he could pursue his grievance." Id. In other words, "some mechanism exists to provide relief, but no ordinary prisoner can discern or navigate it." Id. at 123-24 (internal quotation marks omitted).Therefore, "the regulatory scheme . . . [was] so opaque and so confusing that . . . no reasonable prisoner c[ould] make use of it." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

Here, Schuck raises his failure to exhaust argument via a motion to dismiss. "[F]ailure to exhaust is an affirmative defense under the PLRA, and . . . inmates are not required to specially plead or demonstrate exhaustion in their complaints." Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 216 (2007). Accordingly, a complaint may only be dismissed under Rule 12(b)(6) where the failure to exhaust appears on its face. Id. "As when non-exhaustion is not clear on the face of a complaint, dismissal is similarly inappropriate when one of the . . . exceptions may well be applicable." McIntosh v. United States, No. 14-CV-7889, 2016 WL 1274585, at *13 n.15 (S.D.N.Y...