Meeks v. Schofield, Case No. 3:12–cv–545.
| Decision Date | 31 March 2014 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 3:12–cv–545. |
| Citation | 10 F.Supp.3d 774 |
| Parties | Danny Ray MEEKS, Plaintiff, v. Derrick D. SCHOFIELD et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Middle District of Tennessee |
Danny Ray Meeks, Clifton, TN, pro se.
James L. Pope, Tennessee Attorney General's Office, Nashville, TN, for Defendants.
Before the court are the plaintiff's objections to the Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) (ECF No. 363) issued by Magistrate Judge John Bryant recommending that the defendants' motion for summary judgment (ECF No. 284) be granted.
In addition to the defendants' motion for summary judgment and the plaintiffs' objections thereto, numerous other motions are also pending at this time, including the defendants' motion to strike the affidavit of William Shatswell (ECF No. 303); the plaintiff's “Motion for Leave of the Court to File Comprehensive Amendment Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. Proc. 15(a)(2) as Justice So Requires,” seeking to supplement the complaint to allege “additional and continuing violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act” (ECF No. 320) along with two additional motions asking the court to grant that motion (ECF Nos. 353, 355); and the plaintiff's “Motion for Court to Grant Plaintiff a Copy of TDOC/ADA Compliance Guide, Volumes I and II” (ECF No. 356).
Insofar as these motions may be germane to the motion for summary judgment, the court finds it prudent to address them at this juncture. The plaintiff has sought repeatedly to amend his complaint, and the present motions reiterate arguments that have already been rejected. The motion to amend (ECF No. 320) and the additional motions asking that the court grant that motion (ECF Nos. 353, 355) will therefore be denied. The motion for a copy of the ADA Compliance Guide (ECF No. 356) will be denied as moot, discovery in this action having been completed. And the defendants' motion to strike the declaration of William Shatswell (ECF No. 303) will be denied on the basis that neither the defendant's motion nor the attached exhibit is verified. Notwithstanding, the court does not find Shatswell's declaration to be material to the motion for summary judgment.
Regarding the plaintiff's objections to the R & R, when a magistrate judge recommends the disposition of a motion for summary judgment, the district judge must “make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made.” 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B). See also Fed.R.Civ.P. 72(b) (). The plaintiff has filed voluminous objections to the R & R, essentially objecting to every finding of fact and conclusion of law in the R & R. Rather than attempt to interpret and respond to each individual objection in the plaintiff's fifty-one-page document, the court has considered de novo the defendants' motion for summary judgment.
Having conducted such a review, the court finds, for the reasons set forth herein, that the defendants are entitled to summary judgment in their favor as to all claims asserted against them. Their motion will be granted and this matter dismissed in its entirety.
Plaintiff Danny Ray Meeks, a prisoner proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis, filed this action asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Americans with Disabilities Act 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq. (“ADA”), the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq. (“RA”), and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”). The plaintiff seeks declaratory and injunctive relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages. The defendants named in the original verified complaint included Derrick Schofield, Commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Correction (“TDOC”), Mike Christensen, the ADA officer at the Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility (“DSNF”) in Nashville, Tennessee, Chris Abingambe (incorrectly spelled as “Aibangbee” in the original complaint), Dennis Davis, identified as a Grievance Board Chairman at DSNF, and TDOC itself. (ECF No. 1.)
Meeks alleges that he suffers from paruresis, a mental anxiety disorder that makes it very difficult for him to urinate without complete privacy. He claims that defendant Mike Christensen knew he suffered from this disorder and that, in the spring of 2011, Christensen was disgruntled with the plaintiff because he had been required to make available to the plaintiff the ADA Compliance Guide (“ADA/CG”) used by TDOC, as a result of a discovery order issued in another federal lawsuit in which the plaintiff was involved at that time. The plaintiff claims that Christensen had the doors removed from the bathrooms in the plaintiff's housing unit, knowing that this would cause the plaintiff great distress, in retaliation for the plaintiff's having obtained discovery of the ADA/CG. Upon initial review of the complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A, the court found that the plaintiff's claim that defendant Christensen caused the removal of the bathroom doors stated a cognizable retaliation claim under § 1983. (ECF No. 5, at 3). The court also found that the complaint stated a potentially viable claim against defendant Davis under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of plaintiff's right to privacy, as a result of Davis's alleged disclosure of the plaintiff's paruresis to other inmates. The court allowed Meeks's related claims under the ADA and the RA to survive against TDOC, but dismissed claims under these two statutes against the individual defendants upon a finding that, as a matter of law, neither the ADA nor the RA authorized suit against public employees or supervisors in their individual capacities. (ECF No. 5, at 4.) The claims against the remaining defendants were dismissed for failure to state a claim. (Id. at 6.) The matter was referred to the magistrate judge for case management and decisions on all non-dispositive pretrial matters and for issuance of a Report & Recommendation on any dispositive matters.
After referral and before the defendants answered, the plaintiff filed an amended verified complaint supplementing his original claims against defendant Davis and including new claims against defendants Julia Campbell, Housing Unit Supervisor of Unit 15 and Chair of the DSNF Disciplinary Board, and DSNF Warden Jewel Steele. (ECF No. 28.) In his amended complaint, the plaintiff states that he asked Chris Abingambe in August 2011 why he was being transferred from the “support staff housing unit” (Unit 4) to a “medical housing unit” (Unit 15) and was told that, if he wanted to remain in Unit 4, he needed to “drop his lawsuit and stop filing grievances about the removal of the bathroom doors.” (ECF No. 28, at 6 ¶ 12.) In other words, in the amended complaint, Meeks alleges that the transfer to Unit 15 was not only a violation of the ADA but also was in retaliation for his ADA complaints regarding the removal of the bathroom doors. Meeks alleges that he pleaded with defendant Christensen to replace just one bathroom door instead of moving him to Unit 15, but Christensen refused, stating, (Id. ¶ 13.) Meeks was moved to Unit 15 shortly thereafter.
The plaintiff alleges that the ADA/CG was still in his possession, and the other lawsuit remained pending, on November 3, 2011, when defendant Julia Campbell conducted a search of the plaintiff's cell in Unit 15. During this search, Campbell seized the plaintiff's copy of the ADA/CG along with other legal materials in his possession that pertained to other inmates. On the same day, Campbell searched another inmate's cell but did not seize any of the legal material in that inmate's possession. Although the plaintiff insists he was an “approved legal helper,” he apparently did not dispute that he was in violation of prison policy permitting an inmate to provide legal assistance to only one other inmate at a time and only if the warden has given prior written consent. (See Am. Complaint, ECF No. 28, at 13 ¶ 38 ().) He also concedes that he was disciplined for being in possession of other inmates' legal materials in violation of prison regulations and that the decision of the disciplinary board was upheld on appeal. He insists that his dispute with the board's decision is that it violated his “constitutionally protected First Amendment right of access to file his grievances into the courts.” (Id. at ¶ 39.)
He further indicates, however, that the other inmate whose cell was searched the same day, Donald Jett, was also improperly in possession of other inmates' legal material, but he was not written up or subject to any disciplinary action, and the legal materials that were improperly in that inmate's possession were not confiscated. (See Jett Decl., ECF No. 28–1, at 3.) On this basis, Meeks asserts that the search of his cell was pretextual and that the true reason for the search was to remove the ADA/CG from his possession.
On November 4, 2011, the plaintiff and the rest of the inmate population were informed that any inmate whose materials were seized from Meeks's cell in Unit 15 could go directly to Disciplinary Board Chairman Dennis Davis's office to retrieve it, but that they would be subject to disciplinary action if Meeks was not authorized to have their legal materials in his possession. Meeks alleges this action by Davis was also retaliatory and that it chilled the desire of all DSNF inmates to file any legal action and “turned many inmates against” Meeks. (ECF No. 28, at 8–9, ¶ 18.) The...
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