Phelps v. Kapnolas

• Decision Date: 17 October 2002
• Docket Number: Docket No. 01-0015.
• Citation: 308 F.3d 180
• Parties: Darryl A. PHELPS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. N. KAPNOLAS, sued in individual capacity, R. McClellan, Supt., Delany Steward, sued in individual capacity, John Doe 1-2, Cleveland, Sgt., sued in individual capacity, McGuinness, C.O. sued in individual capacity, Defendants-Appellees, C. Hable, Correctional Officer, John Doe Nos. 1-10, sued in individual capacity, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

308 F.3d 180

Darryl A. PHELPS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. N. KAPNOLAS, sued in individual capacity, R. McClellan, Supt., Delany Steward, sued in individual capacity, John Doe 1-2, Cleveland, Sgt., sued in individual capacity, McGuinness, C.O. sued in individual capacity, Defendants-Appellees, C. Hable, Correctional Officer, John Doe Nos. 1-10, sued in individual capacity, Defendants.

Docket No. 01-0015.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued: June 18, 2002.

Decided: October 17, 2002.

Michael S. Chernis, Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP (Daniel J. Kramer, Chaviva

Schoffman, and James J. O'Brien, Schulte Roth & Zabel, on the brief), New York, NY, for Appellant.

Edward J. Lindner, Assistant Solicitor General,(Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General of the State of New York, Daniel Smirlock, Deputy Solicitor General, Marcus J. Mastracco, Assistant Solicitor General, on the brief), Albany, NY, for Appellees.

Before: WINTER, F.I. PARKER, and POOLER, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Plaintiff-appellant Darryl A. Phelps appeals from the December 6, 2000 Decision and Order of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Charles J. Siragusa, Judge), dismissing Phelps's complaint for failure to state a claim. Phelps, a New York state prisoner, brought this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging Defendants violated the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against inflicting cruel and unusual punishment by placing him on a restricted diet for fourteen days and thereby causing him to lose 30 pounds, suffer severe abdominal pains, and experience severe emotional distress that exacerbated his mental illness.

Because the district court improperly applied a more stringent pleading standard to Phelps's complaint than that set out in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), we reverse its decision dismissing the case for failure to state a claim and remand with instructions to commence discovery.

I. BACKGROUND

The following allegations are taken from Phelps's November 19, 1997 Amended Complaint.

Phelps, who at all relevant times was incarcerated at Southport Correctional Facility in Pine City, New York, complained on July 1, 1994 to Defendant N. Kapnolas that he believed Kapnolas had improperly searched his cell. Following his complaint to Kapnolas, Phelps went to the prison yard for about an hour, and, upon returning to his cell, he found that his things "had been ransacked and his legal papers and photographs had been damaged or destroyed." Am. Compl. ¶ 8. According to Phelps, Kapnolas then wrongly charged him with throwing a styrofoam bowl of cereal and placed him in solitary confinement.

For the first seven days Phelps was in solitary confinement, the Defendants provided him with a diet consisting "solely of raw cabbage and a bread-like loaf that appeared to contain ground vegetables" (the "restricted diet"). Am. Compl. ¶ 10. Phelps then received a disciplinary hearing, where he was found guilty of misconduct for throwing the cereal bowl and sentenced to sixty days in solitary confinement and seven additional days on the restricted diet.

According to Phelps, the restricted diet "did not contain sufficient calories, vitamins, or nutrients to maintain [his] physical or mental health." Am. Compl. ¶ 14. He claims that as a result of being placed on the diet for two weeks, he "lost over thirty pounds, suffered severe abdominal pain, and suffered severe emotional distress, which caused or exacerbated mental illness from which [he] continues to suffer today." Am. Compl. ¶ 15. Contending that the Defendants "knew or recklessly disregarded that the [r]estricted [d]iet served to [him] was nutritionally inadequate" and that the Defendants knew or should have known that placing him on the diet was "likely to inflict pain and suffering and extreme emotional distress," Phelps sued Defendants for violating his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Am. Compl. ¶¶ 18-19.

Phelps's original complaint was filed pro se in July 1994 alleging various constitutional violations arising from the search of his cell, the disciplinary hearing, and the restricted diet. The district court dismissed the case on the grounds that Phelps failed to plead the essential elements of a § 1983 action and failed to state claims based on deprivation of due process at the disciplinary hearing or unreasonable search and seizure of the things in his prison cell.

By opinion dated August 19, 1997, this Court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded with instructions. Phelps v. Kapnolas, 123 F.3d 91 (2d Cir.1997). Although we affirmed dismissal of all of Phelps's other claims, we found that the district court had failed to address Phelps's allegation that imposition of the restricted diet was unconstitutional. We further held that it was impossible to say that there were no facts under which the imposition of a seven-day bread diet might constitute cruel and unusual punishment. 123 F.3d at 93. Vacating dismissal of Phelps's complaint with respect to this issue, we remanded for the court to consider whether the imposition of the restricted diet deprived Phelps of his Eighth Amendment rights.

Phelps filed an Amended Complaint on November 19, 1997, and Defendants moved on December 12, 1997 to dismiss pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure ("FRCP") 12(b)(6).¹ Defendants T. Cleveland, M. McGuinness, J. Delaney,² and R. McClellan filed an Answer on February 20, 1998.³

Magistrate Judge Leslie G. Foschio issued a Report and Recommendation on December 8, 1998, concluding that the Amended Complaint should be dismissed. The Magistrate Judge first rejected Kapnolas's argument in support of his motion to dismiss that Phelps never asserted that Kapnolas was personally involved in violating Phelps's rights. According to the Magistrate Judge, the Amended Complaint sufficiently alleged Kapnolas's personal involvement in imposing the first seven days of the restricted diet immediately after Phelps threw the cereal bowl at him and before Phelps received a disciplinary hearing. JA 65.⁴

The Magistrate Judge did, however, recommend dismissing the complaint sua sponte as to all Defendants for failing to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. He concluded that Phelps had "failed to allege that any Defendant, including Kapnolas, acted with the requisite scienter, i.e., deliberate indifference, that their actions exposed Phelps to a substantial risk of serious harm, a necessary element to a finding of liability on § 1983 claim predicated on the Eighth Amendment." JA at 66. He reasoned that "there [was] no allegation that any defendant, through the imposition of the restricted diet for fourteen days, acting with deliberate indifference, placed Phelps at substantial risk of serious harm or that Phelps's weight loss or abdominal pains constituted serious harm arising to the level of an Eighth Amendment violation." JA 66-67.

By a Decision and Order dated December 6, 2000, the district court accepted the Magistrate Judge's Report and Recommendation in part. The district court first stated (confusingly, in light of the Report and Recommendation's ultimate conclusion on the issue) that the court agreed with the Magistrate Judge that Phelps "did not sufficiently plead personal involvement by Kapnolas in order to state a claim under 42 U.S.Code § 1983." JA at 101.

The district court, however, went on to address Phelps's objections to the Magistrate Judge's finding that his Amended Complaint failed to state an Eighth Amendment claim against any of the Defendants because he insufficiently alleged the requisite scienter. The district court explained that under the "deliberate indifference" standard defined in Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994), one of Phelps's burdens in proving an Eighth Amendment violation was to demonstrate that the Defendants knew of and disregarded an excessive risk to his health or safety. Phelps contended that he had indeed alleged deliberate indifference, pointing to paragraphs 17, 18, and 19 of his Amended Complaint, which asserted in relevant part that "Defendants knew or recklessly disregarded that the [r]estricted [d]iet served to Plaintiff was nutritionally inadequate" and that they knew their actions "were likely to inflict pain and suffering and extreme emotional distress upon Plaintiff." JA at 38-39. The district court disagreed, concluding:

The paragraphs in his amended complaint, 17, 18 and 19, upon which the Plaintiff relies to show scienter, contain merely conclusory allegations. They do not allege facts from which the Court could infer that the Defendants' [sic] knew of and disregarded an excessive risk to the Plaintiff's health or safety.

JA at 102. Based on this finding, the district court dismissed the Amended Complaint without prejudice.

This Court has jurisdiction over Phelps's appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II. DISCUSSION

We review de novo a district court's dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim. Chance v. Armstrong, 143 F.3d 698, 701 (2d Cir.1998). Such dismissal is improper "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). In deciding whether a complaint states a claim, a "court must accept the material facts alleged in the complaint as true and construe all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor." Hernandez v. Coughlin, 18 F.3d 133, 136 (2d Cir.1994). The fundamental issue at the dismissal stage "is not whether a plaintiff is likely to prevail ultimately, but whether the claimant is entitled to offer evidence to support the claims. Indeed it may appear on the face of the pleading that a recovery is very remote and unlikely but that is not the test." Chance 143 F.3d at 701 (quoting Branham v. Meachum, 77 F.3d 626, 628 (2d Cir.1996); further citation and internal quotation...