Hunnicutt v. Peters
| Decision Date | 15 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | CV 20-206 MV/CG |
| Parties | CARNELL HUNNICUTT, SR., Plaintiff, v. DANIEL PETERS, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Mexico |
THIS MATTER is before the Court on Plaintiff Carnell Hunnicutt, Sr.'s Amended Complaint (the “Complaint”), (Doc. 3), filed April 2, 2020 Answers filed by each of the Defendants (collectively, the “Answers”), (Doc. 19); (Doc 50); (Doc. 53); (Doc. 104); (Doc. 118); (Doc. 120); Defendant Summit Food Services' Motion for Summary Judgment (the “Motion for Summary Judgment”), (Doc. 49), filed August 10, 2021, and the attendant briefing; the Martinez Report of Defendants New Mexico Corrections Department (“NMCD”) and Southern New Mexico Correctional Facility (“SNMCF”), (Doc. 77), filed October 27 2021, and the attendant briefing; Mr. Hunnicutt's Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction, (Doc. 21), and his Memorandum of Law in Support of Plaintiff's Motion for a Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunction, (Doc. 22), both filed June 28, 2021, and the attendant briefing; the motions for joinder filed by Prospective Plaintiffs Bobby Beale, (Doc. 29), Erminio Acosta, (Doc. 31), Brett Woolf, (Doc. 38), and Aaron Morrisette, (Doc. 40), and the attendant briefing; and the motions to dismiss filed by Defendants Warden Ronald Martinez, K.D. Miller, Astrid Castillo, Mary Williams, and Joshua Sigala, (Doc. 84); (Doc. 85); (Doc. 87); (Doc. 88); (Doc. 106), and the attendant briefing.
This matter was assigned to the undersigned on March 9, 2020. Thereafter, on June 30, 2021, District Judge Martha Vazquez referred this case to the undersigned to perform legal analysis and recommend an ultimate disposition. (Doc. 25). The Court, having reviewed the filings, the record, and the relevant law, RECOMMENDS that Defendant Summit Food Services' Motion for Summary Judgment, (Doc. 49), and the relief requested in SNMCF and NMCD's Martinez Report, (Doc. 77), be GRANTED. The Court further RECOMMENDS that Mr. Hunnicutt's Complaint, (Doc. 3), be DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE and that the remaining motions be DENIED AS MOOT.
Mr. Hunnicutt is currently incarcerated at SNMCF, where he was transferred in 2018. See (Doc. 3 at 4); (Doc. 49 at 2). He is Jewish and, at his request, is on the facility's Kosher diet. Id. As part of its contract with SNMCF, Defendant Summit Food Services (“Summit”) provides on-site preparation and service of the prison meals, including the Kosher meals. (Doc. 49 at 2); (Doc. 56 at 3); (Doc. 61 at 2). This case arises from what Mr. Hunnicutt alleges are deficiencies with the Kosher meals Summit has provided during his time at SNMCF. Mr. Hunnicutt has also brought claims against Defendants NMCD, SNMCF, and various individuals.
Summit provides Kosher breakfast and lunch meals, consisting of “cold and hot cereal, eggs, peanut butter, muffins, cinnamon raisin rolls, carrots, celery, cheese, tuna, and cookies.” (Doc. 49 at 3). Summit provides Kosher dinner meals, which are “certified Kosher pre-packaged box dinner entrees prepared by ‘My Own Meals[.]'” Id. at 6. This Kosher diet provides Mr. Hunnicutt with approximately 2, 800 calories daily. (Doc. 3 at 3); (Doc. 61 at 10). According to Mr. Hunnicutt, the meals are often monotonous and contain meat only three days a week, while the general non-Kosher population receives meat in their diet 15 to 18 times a week. (Doc. 3 at 8); (Doc. 49 at 22); (Doc. 77 at 3); (Doc. 101 at 2).
On a number of occasions, particularly while he was placed in segregation, Mr. Hunnicutt received only cold meals. (Doc. 3 at 12); see also (Doc. 56 at 4). In explaining this, Defendants NMCD and SNMCF state the meals are normally heated prior to being delivered to segregation, which is a temporary housing unit, because microwaves cannot be provided to a temporary housing unit. (Doc. 77 at 6). There have also been several occasions when Mr. Hunnicutt did not receive any Kosher meal at all, including an incident on August 23, 2018, where he was served “the same pre-packaged meal three days in a row, ” and was not provided a Kosher menu. (Doc. 3 at 5, 24). A similar incident occurred on February 5, 2019. Id.
Further, on a number of occasions, Mr. Hunnicutt has been excluded from certain special accommodations that have been made for non-Kosher inmates. For instance, Mr. Hunnicutt states he and other prisoners receiving religious diets have been excluded from food sales at the commissary as “no kosher or halal foods are made available, ” and he is therefore unable to “supplement his vegetarian diet with kosher meats.” Id. at 25.
Mr. Hunnicutt has also been excluded from holiday meals, because, according to Mr. Hunnicutt, Defendants “refuse[d] to provide kosher turkey, roast beef, hot dogs, and beef for the religious diets, ” on holidays. Id. at 15. On July 4, 2019, for instance, he and the other prisoners receiving religious diets received their “regular monotonous meal while a special meal was served to those on the general population menu.” Id. at 17. Other examples include Christmas 2018 and Rosh Hashanah 2019. Id. at 15-16, 18. According to Summit, their contract does not require them to provide Kosher meals identical to the holiday menus provided to the general population. (Doc. 61 at 4). Moreover, according to Defendants NMCD and SNMCF, Mr. Hunnicutt did not complete the request-and-approval process before Rosh Hashanah 2019, and Defendants themselves had a “mix-up” concerning Mr. Hunnicutt's meal on Christmas 2018. (Doc. 77 at 7-8, 10-11). However, on Passover in 2021, Mr. Hunnicutt was provided with unleavened corn tortillas instead of bread, and fruit instead of cake, in accordance with his religious observance. (Doc. 49 at 32).
Mr. Hunnicutt has also experienced issues with receiving proper Kosher meals on the Sabbath. (Doc. 56 at 19). On November 9, 2019, for instance, he “attempted to take [his] breakfast tray to consume after sundown in observance of the Sabbath” and was told he had to eat “in the dining hall” or not at all. Id. at 20-21. Further, despite the law that prohibits “an observant Jew . . . from working [on the Sabbath], . . . including turning on a stove or microwave[, ]” (Doc. 49 at 8), Mr. Hunnicutt has been “serv[ed] precooked foods on the Sabbath that require[] heating.” (Doc. 56 at 20). According to Summit, however, Mr. Hunnicutt is served Kosher cold breakfasts and lunches on the Sabbath, as well as pre-packaged box dinners that may be eaten cold or warm. (Doc. 49 at 8).
With regard to the preparation of its Kosher meals, Summit claims it uses a “notouch diet system” and “[o]nly the trained religious cooks touch the Common Fare meals.” (Doc. 49 at 5). The Common Fare Diet “covers Kosher, Halal, Muslim and vegetarian-based religious diets.” Id. at 27. Summit states “any foods prepared in the kitchen for the Common Fare Diet will utilize cookware and utensils that are stored separately and are washed, rinsed and sanitized separately.” Id. at 27.
According to Mr. Hunnicutt, however, Summit does not have a “no touch diet system, ” as this would consist of pre-packaged meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, that would require “no cooking of side dishes, no wrapping of foods, [and] no preparing of trays.” (Doc. 56 at 9). Rather, according to Mr. Hunnicutt, the only certified Kosher item he receives in a day are the “My Own Meals” dinner entrees, which are served with what he alleges are “inedible . . . and non-kosher” side dishes. Id. at 9-10.
Moreover, according to Mr. Hunnicutt, those who prepare the food are not properly-trained religious cooks. There is no culinary arts training program or food service management at SNMCF. (Doc. 3 at 4-5); (Doc. 49 at 27). In fact, Mr. Hunnicutt himself has worked in the SNMCF kitchen “on and off [from] 2018 to the present, and never witnessed training of any kind that resulted in meals being kosher, ” resulting in “Muslim[] cooks serving Jews meat and dairy in violation of Jewish dietary laws.” (Doc. 56 at 4-5). Neither he “nor anyone else was trained to prepare Common Fare Diets nor religious diets[.]” Id. at 6.
According to Mr. Hunnicutt, the other cooks “leave the cubby hole where food products are wrapped for Kosher/Halal diets filthy, ” and he arrives to work in the kitchen “at 3am to find food on the walls, floor, tables and perishables left out overnight from the second shift ‘Halal cook.'” Id. at 10. Other than himself and one other cook, no other cooks properly wash their dishes. Id. at 10. Mr. Hunnicutt has witnessed “only Muslims preparing Kosher/Halal meals, ” with utensils, equipment and cooking vessels “going from dairy/meats to preparing religious diets.” (Doc. 3 at 6). As a result of the lack of culinary arts training, he states he has witnessed Summit “allows non-Jews and nonMuslims [to] prepare meals for the Kosher/Halal diets who had no idea of kashrut[, Jewish dietary law], and . . . serve meat and cheese together to Jews.” Id. at 23.
According to Summit, they do "provide training to inmates who work in the kitchen as religious cooks on preparing Kosher and Halal meals." (Doc. 49 at 27). The training “follows Jewish Dietary Law . . . which is stricter than other diets.” Id. The training “includes instructions to keep meat and dairy products separate, to thoroughly clean the inmates' working area and to thoroughly wash all pans and utensils before using them.” Id. at 27.
Summit does acknowledge that there have been gaps in its service of Kosher food, including, for instance, “incidents...
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