Munt v. Schnell

• Decision Date: 31 July 2020
• Docket Number: Case No. 19-CV-1142 (NEB/ECW)
• Parties: JOEL MARVIN MUNT, Plaintiff, v. PAUL SCHNELL, DAVID REISHUS, SHERLINDA WHEELER, BRONSON AUSTRENG, GRAHAM BESONEN, NICK DESETELLE, LINDSEY MOSSER, PARKER, and WITTER, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Minnesota

JOEL MARVIN MUNT, Plaintiff, v. PAUL SCHNELL, DAVID REISHUS, SHERLINDA WHEELER, BRONSON AUSTRENG,GRAHAM BESONEN, NICK DESETELLE, LINDSEY MOSSER, PARKER, and WITTER, Defendants.

Case No. 19-CV-1142 (NEB/ECW)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MINNESOTA

July 31, 2020

ORDER AND REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION

This matter comes before the Court on (1) Plaintiff Joel Marvin Munt's First Amended Civil Rights Complaint (Dkt. 11 ("Amended Complaint")); (2) Munt's filing titled "Supplement to TRO Request" (Dkt. 20 ("TRO Supplement")); (3) Munt's First Motion for Expedited Temporary Restraining Order Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b) (Dkt. 22 ("TRO Motion")); (4) Munt's Amended First Motion for Expedited Temporary Restraining Order Pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(b) (Dkt. 25 ("Amended TRO Motion")); (5) Munt's Motion to Accept Amendment (Dkt. 36 ("Motion to Amend")); (6) the Motion to Dismiss filed by Defendants Paul Schnell, David Reishus, Sherlinda Wheeler, Bronson Austreng, Graham Besonen, Nick Desetelle, Lindsey Mosser, "Parker," and "Witter" (Dkt. 42 ("Motion to Dismiss")); (7) Munt's filing titled "Requests of the Court" (Dkt. 56 ("First Court Requests")); (8) Munt's filing titled "Request for Court Actions #2" (Dkt. 67 ("Second Court Requests")); (9) Munt's Motion to Strike Defendants' Reply in Support of the Motion to Dismiss (Dkt. 75 ("Motion to Strike")); and (10) Munt's filing titled "Motion for Sanctions #2" (Dkt. 77 ("Sanctions Motion")).

For the following reasons, the Court (1) recommends that the Motion to Dismiss be granted in part and denied in part; (2) recommends that the requests for a temporary restraining order ("TRO") in the TRO Supplement, TRO Motion, and Amended TRO Motion be denied; (3) recommends that the Sanctions Motion and the requests for sanctions in the First Court Requests and Second Court Requests be denied; and (4) denies the Motion to Amend, the motion for stay in the Second Court Requests, and the Motion to Strike.

For ease of explication, the Court will proceed as follows. First, it will discuss this case's background; in roughly chronological order, this section will discuss the Amended Complaint's allegations and recount the history of this action's pending requests and motions. Second, the Court will address certain requests and motions best handled before addressing the Motion to Dismiss. Third, the Court will resolve the Motion to Dismiss itself. Finally, the Court will turn to Munt's various requests for a TRO.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Amended Complaint

Munt commenced this action in April 2019 by filing his original Civil Rights Complaint. (See Dkt. 1.) He filed the Amended Complaint on July 17, 2019. (See Dkt. 11.) In an order dated July 30, 2019, the Court accepted the Amended Complaint as this action's operative pleading. (See Dkt. 12 at 2.)

1. Parties

When Munt filed the Amended Complaint, he was a prisoner incarcerated at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Oak Park Heights, Minnesota ("MCF-OPH"). (See Dkt. 11 at 4.)¹ The Amended Complaint names nine defendants, all affiliated with MCF-OPH in some way. (See id. at 1, 4-11.) Paul Schnell is the State of Minnesota's commissioner of corrections. (See id. at 6.) David Reishus is MCF-OPH's acting warden and Sherlinda Wheeler is its assistant warden of operations. (See id. at 6-8.) Bronson Austreng is MCF-OPH's program director. (See id. at 8.) Graham Besonen and "Witter" are lieutenants at MCF-OPH, Nick Desetelle is a sergeant assigned to MCF-OPH's "Complex 3,"² and Lindsey Mosser and "Parker" are MCF-OPH corrections officers. (Id. at 9-11.)

2. Points Concerning Amended Complaint Interpretation

Before discussing the Amended Complaint's allegations, the Court will make two observations about how it construes the pleading. First, at various points in the Amended Complaint, Munt refers to numerous other lawsuits he has filed. (See, e.g., id. at 12, 15-22.)³ These references are a problem because a complaint should be a standalonedocument. See Spears v. McCraw, No. A-17-CA-1105-RP, 2019 WL 3754218, at *4 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 8, 2019) ("A properly pleaded complaint must give 'fair notice of what the claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.' Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 698-99 (2009). Spears' references to the complaints in other actions fail to do so, thereby rendering improper any reliance on the allegations pleaded therein.") Indeed, this Court warned Munt early in this litigation—before he filed the Amended Complaint—that "[t]he requirement of a unified pleading provides to all parties (and the Court) a single document in which all relevant factual allegations and legal claims have been included, thus defining the scope of the litigation," and that "[a] 'pleading' scattered across several documents defeats that purpose." (Dkt. 9 at 2.) The Court has not—and will not—sift through Munt's various other matters to flesh out this action's allegations. As a result, the Court (as best as it can) construes the Amended Complaint as an independent document.

Second (and relatedly), toward the end of the Amended Complaint's factual allegations, Munt makes various statements described as a "sequence of facts . . . largely regarding matters and defendants from other suits." (Dkt. 11 at 20.) He says that "[t]hey are relevant . . . to prove Mosser's acts (which are relevant to this suit) are not isolated," and that they "show distinct protected acts and a cluster of acts by staff, including continuation and escalation of the retaliation at issue here as well as a broadening of it." (Id.)

These allegations refer at certain points to Munt's other cases. (See, e.g., id. at 20-22.) As noted before, the Court will not look through Munt's other cases to learn howthey concern Mosser. Nor will the Court review Munt's other complaints to see if their allegations give rise to causes of action when one reads those complaints alongside the Amended Complaint. The Court will take Munt's own characterization of the purpose of these allegations at face value, and will assess these allegations only for the limited purpose of considering whether Mosser's alleged actions are part of a conduct pattern.

3. Factual Allegations

With this backdrop in place, the Court will lay out the Amended Complaint's allegations in some detail.⁴ As a general matter, Munt describes this action as seeking relief for "various actions taken by Defendants to retaliate against [Munt] for his use of the grievance process and for collecting evidence for his court actions." (Dkt. 11 at 4.) Munt states that Defendants Besonen, Desetelle, Mosser, Parker, and Witter "deliberately and maliciously retaliated and conspired to retaliate against [Munt]." (Id.) As for the remaining Defendants, Munt claims that they "permitted this to occur and to continue, tacitly approving of and maintaining the culture of retaliation within the DOC [i.e., the Minnesota Department of Corrections ('MNDOC')]." (Id.)

After briefly introducing the parties (see id. at 6-11), Munt begins his "Statement of Facts" by stating that "[p]olicy"—presumably MNDOC policy—"permits staff unfettered discretion within their areas." (Id. at 11.) He alleges that MNDOC "[p]ractice has superiors in the chain of command devoted to turning a blind eye to, justifying orcovering up unconstitutional conduct by staff, rather than doing anything to correct it." (Id.) He also states that "customs of interfering with court access and retaliating against any exercise of their rights by inmates are encouraged and supported at all levels within the DOC." (Id.)

The specific events covered in the Amended Complaint begin with Munt's "second stay" at MCF-OPH. (Id. at 12.) Munt alleges that "[a]lmost from the start of" this "second stay," he had "problems with Besonen"—indeed, Munt suggests that some of his concerns with Besonen's conduct are part of a separate "Suit #7." (Id.)⁵ Early on during his second MCF-OPH stint, Munt alleges that he learned of a (false) rumor that MNDOC officials had transferred him to MCF-OPH because he was being extorted at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Stillwater, Minnesota ("MCF-Stillwater"). (See id.)⁶

With respect to his interactions with corrections officers ("COs"), Munt states that he found them "pretty decent," save for some "initial problems" with Parker. (Id.) Munt alleges that "[a]t some point," however, he asked for certain "video" that he thought would help with another lawsuit. (Id.) The response from management, he claims, provided "far more valuable evidence for [that] suit, which is what [Munt] had hoped."(Id.) After making the request, Munt contends, Witter "met with [Munt] and threatened retaliation because of it." (Id. at 13.) Soon afterward, "Desetelle, Mosser and Parker became extremely hostile towards [Munt] and began treating [him] disparately from other inmates." (Id.)

Munt also asserts that Witter, Desetelle, Mosser, and Parker told "one of their pet inmates" about Munt's video request; this inmate allegedly provides information to COs, "goes on missions for them," and "receives preferential treatment for his efforts." (Id.) This inmate became "hostile towards [Munt] and talked to others about" Munt's request. (Id.) The inmate also began spreading rumors about Munt, including that he "had a sex case."⁷ (Id.) As this rumor circulated, Munt wrote to Besonen twice about "hostility and retaliation by his staff, including the rumors," telling him that he (Munt) thought that the hostility was due to Munt's evidence request. (Id.) Munt states that, while he received no response from Besonen, the conduct of Desetelle, Mosser, and Parker improved. (See id. at 14.)

Sometime later, the "pet inmate" began spreading other rumors about Munt. (See id.) These included rumors that Munt had been in some sort of relationship with a female CO at MCF-Stillwater, that he was a racist, and that he was writing "kites" (i.e., complaints) about not just corrections staff, but also inmates. (See id.) When confronted...