Jones v. Valdez

• Decision Date: 25 January 2017
• Docket Number: No. 3:16-cv-215-O-BN,3:16-cv-215-O-BN
• Citation: Jones v. Valdez, No. 3:16-cv-215-O-BN (N.D. Tex. Jan 25, 2017)
• Parties: KELVIN JONES (# 15032052), Plaintiff, v. SHERIFF LUPE VALDEZ, ET AL., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Texas

KELVIN JONES (# 15032052), Plaintiff, v. SHERIFF LUPE VALDEZ, ET AL., Defendants.

No. 3:16-cv-215-O-BN

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS DALLAS DIVISION

January 25, 2017

FINDINGS, CONCLUSIONS, AND RECOMMENDATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

This civil rights action, filed by Plaintiff Kelvin Jones, an inmate at the Dallas County Jail (the "Jail"), has been referred to the undersigned United States magistrate judge for pretrial management under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and a standing order of reference from United States District Judge Reed C. O'Connor.

After initial screening, the Court dismissed all of Jones's claims except for his Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference claim. See Jones v. Valdez, No. 3:16-cv-215-O-BN, 2016 WL 2763883 (N.D. Tex. May 13, 2016). That claim was allowed to proceed, the three defendants Jones identified as associated with that claim were served, and they now have answered. See Dkt. Nos. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, & 17.

As directed by the Court, see Dkt. No. 22, those defendants - Kevin Alaggio, RN (who Jones identifies as "Kevin Allegio, RN"); Colleen Eickmeier, RN (who Jones identifies as "Colleen Egmeyer, RN"); and Christine Joll, RN, all three supervisory employees of the Jail Health Department ("Defendants") - have moved for summary judgment as to their affirmative defenses of qualified immunity, see Dkt. Nos. 25 & 26. The Court afforded Jones an opportunity to request limited discovery in order to respond to Defendants' qualified immunity defenses, see Dkt. Nos. 30 & 32, but his motion for leave [Dkt. No. 33] was denied because the discovery requested was not "narrowly tailored to uncover only those facts needed to rule on the immunity claims of Defendants," Dkt. No. 37 at 4 (citations, internal quotation marks, and bracket omitted). Jones has responded to the Defendants' request for summary judgment as to their qualified immunity defenses, see Dkt. No. 38, but Defendants did not file a reply brief, and the time to do has passed, see Dkt. No. 37.

The undersigned issues the following findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendation that the Court should grant the motion for summary judgment as to Defendants' qualified immunity defenses and dismiss Jones's remaining claims (for deliberate indifference) - as well as this action - with prejudice.

Applicable Background

Jones's Eighth-Amendment contentions turn on the care he received after an alleged slip-and-fall in a shower area at the Jail on September 6, 2015. See, e.g., Dkt. No. 6 at 7. As a result of the fall, Jones claims he "was terribly injured and remain[s] injured" and he has incurred "4 month's of pain and wrong meds." Id.

Jones states that he "went thru the proper channels" as to these allegations, and included in his complaint is a copy of a grievance response dated January 18, 2016, providing that "records indicate that a request has been submitted to the provide toorder vitamins and refer you to the ortho spine services for evaluation." Dkt. No. 3 at 10 (all caps omitted). On the grievance response, Jones writes that, as of December 26, 2015, he had not received an MRI. See id. ("I don't see a doctor concerning my spine until January. I sustained bad injury to my whole back in November or earlier I can't remember due to the injury to my head so I know this I have been in constant pain since.").

Jones's version of events is drawn from his complaint [Dkt. No. 3], which includes a declaration signed "under penalty of perjury [that] all facts presented [therein] are true and correct," id. at 5, and his verified responses to the Court's first questionnaire [Dkt. No. 6] because Jones failed to respond substantively to Defendants' summary judgment motion, see Dkt. No. 38. As such, in considering the motion for summary judgment, the undersigned has credited the complaint and applicable questionnaire responses as "competent summary-judgment evidence." Leggett v. Lafayette, 608 F. App'x 187, 190 (5th Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (citing Ion v. Chevron USA, Inc., 731 F.3d 379, 382 n.2 (5th Cir. 2013); Tolan v. Cotton, 134 S. Ct. 1861, 1866 (2014) (per curiam)).

Legal Standards

Qualified Immunity Generally

"Qualified immunity attaches when an official's conduct 'does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'" White v. Pauly, ___ S. Ct. ___, No. 16-67, 2017 WL 69170, at *4 (U.S. Jan. 9,2017) (per curiam) (quoting Mullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305, 308 (2015) (per curiam)); accord Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982). This "gives government officials breathing room to make reasonable but mistaken judgments, and protects all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law." Stanton v. Sims, 134 S. Ct. 3, 5 (2013) (per curiam) (quoting Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2085 (2011); internal quotation marks omitted); accord City & Cty. of San Francisco v. Sheehan, 135 S. Ct. 1765, 1774 (2015); see also Mullenix, 136 S. Ct. at 308 ("[a] clearly established right is one that is 'sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right'"(quoting Reichle v. Howards, 132 S. Ct. 2088, 2093 (2012))).

A court must " assess the reasonableness of each defendant's actions separately, even if those defendants acted in unison." Pratt v. Harris Cty., Tex., 822 F.3d 174, 181 (5th Cir. 2016) (citing Meadours v. Ermel, 483 F.3d 417, 422 (5th Cir. 2007)). And, while review of a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity is accomplished in two steps, a court may conduct the required two-step examination in any order. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236.

Regardless of which prong is addressed first, a court must decide "whether the facts, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, show the officer's conduct violated a federal constitutional or statutory right." Luna v. Mullenix, 773 F.3d 712, 718 (5th Cir. 2014) (citing Tolan, 134 S. Ct. at 1865; Flores v. City of Palacios, 381 F.3d 391, 395 (5th Cir. 2004)), reversed on other grounds, 136 S. Ct. 305 (2015). Putdifferently, under the first prong, a court simply must decide "whether the plaintiff has alleged a violation of a constitutional right." Charles v. Grief, 522 F.3d 508, 511 (5th Cir. 2008).

A court also must decide "whether the defendant's actions violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Flores, 381 F.3d at 395. This second prong of the analysis requires a court to determine "whether the defendant's conduct was objectively reasonable in light of the clearly established law at the time of the incident." Charles, 522 F.3d at 511. That is, "whether it would have been clear to a reasonable [state employee] in the [defendants'] position that their conduct was unlawful in the situation they confronted." Wood v. Moss, 134 S. Ct. 2056, 2067 (2014) (quoting Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001); internal quotation marks and brackets omitted from original)).

Resolving Qualified Immunity at Summary Judgment

As soon as a defendant invokes his entitlement to qualified immunity, "the burden is on the plaintiff to demonstrate the inapplicability of the defense." McClendon v. City of Columbia, 305 F.3d 314, 323 (5th Cir. 2002) (en banc) (per curiam); see Harris v. Serpas, 745 F.3d 767, 771 (5th Cir. 2014) ("Once the defendant raises the qualified immunity defense, 'the burden shifts to the plaintiff to rebut this defense by establishing that the official's allegedly wrongful conduct violated clearly established law.'" (quoting Brumfield v. Hollins, 551 F.3d 322, 326 (5th Cir. 2008))).

"Despite this burden-shifting, all reasonable inferences must be drawn in thenon-movant plaintiff's favor." Hyatt v. Thomas, 843 F.3d 172, 177 (5th Cir. 2016) (citing Brown v. Callahan, 623 F.3d 249, 253 (5th Cir. 2010)). That said, a plaintiff's burden at summary judgment "'to rebut a claim of qualified immunity once the defendant has properly raised it in good faith'" "'is a 'demanding [one].'" Mendez v. Poitevent, 823 F.3d 326, 331 (5th Cir. 2016) (respectively quoting Cole v. Carson, 802 F.3d 752, 757 (5th Cir. 2015); Vincent v. City of Sulphur, 805 F.3d 543, 547 (5th Cir. 2015)).

And the qualified immunity defense is appropriately resolved at the summary judgment stage when (1) a plaintiff has established that the defendant has engaged in the complained-of conduct or (2) the court "skip[s], for the moment, over ... still-contested matters to consider an issue that would moot their effect if proved." Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818; see also Haverda v. Hays Cty., 723 F.3d 586, 599 (5th Cir. 2013). "'If resolution of [qualified immunity] in the summary judgment proceedings turns on what the defendant actually did, rather than on whether the defendant is immunized from liability ..., and if there are conflicting versions of his conduct, one of which would establish and the other defeat liability, then the case is inappropriate for summary judgment.'" Haverda, 723 F.3d at 599 (quoting Barker v. Norman, 651 F.2d 1107, 1123-24 (5th Cir. Unit A July 1981)).

Accordingly, a court's qualified immunity inquiry at the summary judgment stage requires that the court "accept the plaintiff's version of the facts (to the extent reflected by proper summary judgment evidence) as true." Haggerty v. Tex. S. Univ.,391 F.3d 653, 655 (5th Cir. 2004); see also Tolan, 134 S. Ct. at 1863 ("[I]n ruling on a motion for summary judgment, the evidence of the nonmovant is to be believed, and all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor."); Anderson v. Valdez, ___ F.3d ___, No. 15-40836, 2016 WL 7667301, at *12 (5th Cir. Nov. 9, 2016) (observing that "[e]ven in the context of qualified immunity, 'the facts alleged' must be '[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury'" (quoting Tolan, 134 S. Ct. at 1865)).

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