Lopez v. Cipolini

• Decision Date: 30 September 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–CV–2441 (KMK).,14–CV–2441 (KMK).
• Citation: 136 F.Supp.3d 570
• Parties: Jason LOPEZ, Plaintiff, v. Sergeant CIPOLINI and Correction Officer Burguess, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of New York

136 F.Supp.3d 570

Jason LOPEZ, Plaintiff,

v.Sergeant CIPOLINI and Correction Officer Burguess, Defendants.

No. 14–CV–2441 (KMK).

United States District Court, S.D. New York.

Signed Sept. 30, 2015.

Jason Lopez, New York, NY, pro se.

Maria Barous Hartofilis, Esq., Assistant Attorney General of the State of New York, New York, NY, for Defendants.

OPINION AND ORDER

KENNETH M. KARAS

, District Judge:

Pro se Plaintiff Jason Lopez ("Plaintiff") filed the instant Amended Complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983

against Sergeant Cipolini ("Cipolini") and Correction Officer Burguess ("Burguess") (collectively, "Defendants"). Plaintiff alleges that Cipolini violated Plaintiff's Free Exercise Clause rights under the First Amendment, the Religious Land and Institutionalized Person Act ("RLUIPA"), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc et seq., and the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause when he prohibited Plaintiff from attending religious services on two different occasions. (Am. Compl. ¶ II.D (Dkt. No. 33).) Plaintiff also alleges that Cipolini harassed Plaintiff based on this conduct. (See Letter from Plaintiff to Court (Sept. 17, 2014) ("Pl.'s Sept. 17, 2014 Letter"), at unnumbered 2 (Dkt. No. 24).) Plaintiff alleges that Burguess violated her Eighth Amendment rights by verbally harassing Plaintiff during recreation, (Am. Compl. ¶ II.D), and, further, violated Title VII and the Equal Protection Clause when Burguess fired Plaintiff from her work position in the prison, (Pl.'s Sept. 17 Letter, at unnumbered 2). Before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Complaint Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). (See Mot. To Dismiss ("Mot.") (Dkt. No. 38).)¹ Defendants claim that Plaintiff's Action is barred for failure to exhaust available administrative remedies, pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), and, alternatively, that Plaintiff's claims cannot survive on the merits. (Id. ) For the following reasons, Defendants' Motion is granted in part and denied in part.

I. Background

A. Factual Background

The following facts are drawn from Plaintiff's Amended Complaint, (Dkt. No. 33), and papers submitted in response to Defendants' request for a pre-motion conference, (Dkt. No. 22), and are taken as true for the purpose of resolving the instant Motion. Plaintiff is a male-to-female transgender individual,² and was housed in Downstate Correctional Facility, an all-male prison, during the time of the alleged events.³ (Am. Compl. Ex. B (Dkt. No. 33).)

On February 9, 2014, at approximately 8:30 a.m., Cipolini "told [Plaintiff] in [ ] front of the inmates going to religious services [that] [Plaintiff] could not attend because of [her][h]air and [her] sexuality." (Pl.'s Sept. 17, 2014 Letter, at unnumbered 2; see also Am. Compl. ¶¶ II.C–D.) On February 16, 2014, at approximately the same time, "[w]hile going to Catholic services [,] ... Cipolini had [Plaintiff] escorted out of [the] services[,] stating [that she was] not authorized to go to any relig[i]ous service." (Am. Compl. ¶¶ II.C–D.) On March 28, 2014, at approximately 1:30 p.m., Plaintiff "was setting up for gallery recreation" when Burguess "asked [Plaintiff] to lock in because [Burguess] needed two men to work." (Id. ) Other inmates witnessed the incident. (Id. ) Burguess also "fired [Plaintiff] [from] [her] [two-and-a-half] month position," stating that Downstate Correctional Facility was a "[m]en's facility." (Pl.'s Sept. 17, 2014 Letter, at unnumbered 2.)⁴ As a result of Defendants' conduct, Plaintiff suffered mental anguish and went to see the mental health doctor at the prison. (Am. Compl. ¶ III.) Plaintiff is asking for one million dollars to compensate her for her mental anguish and requests that the Court acknowledge that Defendants discriminated against her and publicly humiliated her. (Id. )

With respect to Cipolini, Plaintiff "wrote to [her] lawyer and stated what had happen[ed]." (Id. ¶ IV.E.1.) "[Plaintiff's lawyer,] in t[u]rn [,] wrote to the [s]uperintendent[,] but it did not help because [Plaintiff] was [ ][f]urther harassed and [d]iscriminated [against] instead." (Id. ¶ IV.F.2.) No grievance against Cipolini was filed. (Id. )⁵ With respect to Burguess, Plaintiff filed a grievance about the incident on March 28, 2014, and after receiving an adverse response, she appealed the decision on April 23, 2014. (Id. ¶¶ IV.E.1, IV.E.3); (Letter from Plaintiff to Court (Oct. 29, 2014) ("Pl.'s Oct. 29, 2014 Letter"), at unnumbered 1 (Dkt. No. 29).) Plaintiff pleads that she "appealed [her] appeal [but] did not get [an] answer [ ] [through] the proper grievance prot[o]col[.] [The Central Office Review Committee ("CORC") ] had 45 days to give [her][a] decision [but] it took them 161 days to get [her] decision back." (Id. ¶ IV.E.3.) Plaintiff subsequently provided the Court with a copy of her adverse appeal decision from the CORC, which indicates the "date filed" was April 14, 2014 and the CORC appeal was decided on September 3, 2014. (Pl.'s Oct. 29, 2014 Letter, at unnumbered 2.)⁶

B. Procedural Background

Plaintiff filed the original Complaint on April 7, 2014 against Defendants Cipolini, Burguess, and the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision ("DOCCS"). (Dkt. No. 2.)

The Court granted Plaintiff's request to proceed in forma pauperis on May 14, 2014. (Dkt. No. 7.) The Court issued an Order dismissing Plaintiff's claims against the DOCCS on May 20, 2014. (Dkt. No. 9.) On June 11, 2014 the Court received a letter from Plaintiff dated May 30, 2014 requesting $1.2 million in damages for the mental anguish that she suffered when Defendants discriminated against and humiliated Plaintiff based on her appearance and sexual orientation. (Dkt. No. 11.) The Court issued an Order on June 16, 2014 allowing Plaintiff more time to amend her Complaint, given the further information Plaintiff submitted in her May 30, 2014 Letter. (Dkt. No. 16.) The Court did not receive an amended complaint from Plaintiff pursuant to the June 16, 2014 Order. Defendants submitted a letter for a pre-motion conference on September 12, 2014, indicating the grounds on which Defendants would move to dismiss. (Dkt. No. 22.) Thereafter, Plaintiff submitted numerous papers in response to Defendants' September 12, 2014 Letter, including a letter explaining the steps that Plaintiff took to grieve her claim against Burguess. (Dkt. Nos. 24–26, and 29.) On November 12, 2014, based on the information that Plaintiff submitted in her October 6, 2014 Letter and the CORC's decision appended thereto, the Court issued an Order directing Plaintiff to show cause as to why her Complaint should not be dismissed for failure to exhaust the relevant administrative remedies. (Dkt. No. 31.) In response, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Compensation, (Dkt. No. 32), and an Amended Complaint on November 17, 2014, (Dkt. No. 33). Pursuant to a Scheduling Order issued by the Court on December 17, 2014, (Dkt. No. 37), Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss and accompanying papers on January 30, 2015, (Dkt. Nos. 38–41). Plaintiff did not submit papers in opposition to the Motion.⁷

II. Discussion

A. Standard of Review

The Supreme Court has held that although a complaint "does not need detailed factual allegations" to survive a motion to dismiss, "a plaintiff's obligation to provide the grounds of his [or her] entitle[ment] to relief requires more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)

(second alteration in original) (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, the Court has emphasized that "[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level," id., and that "once a claim has been stated adequately, it may be supported by showing any set of facts consistent with the allegations in the complaint," id. at 563, 127 S.Ct. 1955. A plaintiff must allege "only enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Id. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955. But if a plaintiff has "not nudged [his or her] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible, the[ ] complaint must be dismissed." Id.; see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) ( "Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will ... be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense. But where the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged—but it has not ‘show[n]’—‘that the pleader is entitled to relief.’ " (alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(2)

)).

In considering Defendants' Motion to Dismiss, the Court is required to consider as true the factual allegations contained in the Amended Complaint. See Ruotolo v. City of New York, 514 F.3d 184, 188 (2d Cir.2008)

("We review de novo a district court's dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), accepting all factual allegations in the complaint and drawing all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor." (italics and internal quotation marks omitted)); Gonzalez v. Caballero, 572 F.Supp.2d 463, 466 (S.D.N.Y.2008) (same). Moreover, a pro se litigant's submissions "are held to less stringent standards than [those] drafted by lawyers. Courts liberally construe pleadings and briefs submitted by pro se litigants, reading such submissions to raise the strongest arguments they suggest." Johnson v. Schriro, No. 12–CV–7239, 2013 WL 5718474, at *2 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 15, 2013) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

Generally, "[i]n adjudicating a Rule 12(b)(6)

motion, a district court must confine its consideration to facts stated on the face of the complaint, in documents appended to the complaint or incorporated in the complaint by reference, and to...