Pinson v. U.S. Dep't of Justice
| Docket Number | Civil Action 18-486 (RC),Document 116,118,130 |
| Decision Date | 09 March 2022 |
| Parties | JEREMY PINSON, Plaintiff, v. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, et al., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Pro se Plaintiff Jeremy Pinson seeks leave to file a Second Amended Complaint in order to bring new claims, and expand upon existing ones, challenging her[1]transfer from a United States penitentiary in Minnesota to one in Arizona as well as other alleged mistreatment at the hands of prison officials during her incarceration. According to Pinson, the transfer deprived her of access to treatment for gender dysphoria and mental health issues. Defendants-the United States, several federal agencies, and various federal officials-oppose any amendment they argue that Pinson's proposed Second Amended Complaint would radically expand the scope of the action and that the claims Pinson seeks to assert are futile. But with two exceptions, the arguments Defendants advance fail to persuade the Court that this is so. The Court denies the motion to amend to the extent Pinson seeks to add Administrative Procedure Act, Fifth Amendment, and Eighth Amendment claims challenging the conditions of her confinement. Otherwise, the Court grants the motion to amend, and, accordingly, denies the pending motion to dismiss the First Amended Complaint as moot. For reasons explained below, the Court also denies Pinson's motion for sanctions, ECF No. 130.
Pinson is currently an inmate at U.S. Penitentiary (“USP”) Coleman II, a federal prison located in Florida. While in federal custody, Pinson filed dozens of Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) requests with different components of the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) as well as with the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”). See Pinson v. Dep't of Justice, No. 18-cv-0486 (RC), 2020 WL 1509517 (D.D.C. Mar. 30, 2020) (ECF No. 79) (discussing these requests at length). She then filed a complaint in this Court, which she subsequently amended, alleging that the FOIA responses she received were inadequate. Id. at *1. This Court entered summary judgment against Pinson on many of her FOIA claims and dismissed others, but denied summary judgment with respect to twelve of her requests to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), twenty-seven of her requests to the Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”), and all four of her requests directed to the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”). Id. Defendants proceeded to process the remaining FOIA requests. ECF No. 133.
In addition to the FOIA claims, the operative First Amended Complaint (“FAC”) brought claims under the Administrative Procedure Act (“APA”), 5 U.S.C. §551 et seq., the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a, and the First Amendment. Am. Compl. at 1, ECF No. 16. The FAC named several individual defendants alongside the agency defendants[2]: John Dignam, former Chief of Internal Affairs at the BOP; Charles Samuels, former Director of the BOP; Mark Inch, former Director of the BOP; Kara Anderl (née Lundy), a BOP attorney, Charles Stroble, a BOP attorney, and Lamine N'Diaye, BOP's current Chief of Internal Affairs. Noting that the FAC went “no further than listing ‘[v]iolation of the Administrative Procedures [sic] Act,' without specifying which agency action [Pinson] wishe[d] to challenge or any other factual allegations” and that Pinson had not briefed the APA claims, the Court dismissed the APA claims as conceded. Pinson, 2020 WL 1509517 at *23. Similarly, though the FAC listed “Violation of the Eighth Amendment” as a claim, Amend. Compl. at 1, its allegations did not elaborate on any Eighth Amendment claim. Notably, the FAC did not include any allegations regarding Pinson's medical treatment.
As for the First Amendment, Pinson alleged that in 2017, she was incarcerated at Federal Medical Center Rochester, in Minnesota. Am. Compl. at 2. Anderl approached Pinson with an offer to settle a separate lawsuit Pinson was pursuing against prison officials, but Pinson refused and continued to litigate the case. Id. Allegedly in retaliation, Pinson was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Tucson, Arizona, a facility where inmates enjoy fewer freedoms than at Rochester, in early 2018. Id. Additionally, various prison staff members allegedly retaliated against Pinson's litigation campaign by destroying or withholding her mail, repeatedly searching her cell, and withholding meals. Id. The First Amended Complaint's Privacy Act claim turned on the allegation that Dignam and N'Diaye “placed false information into agency records maintained . . . about the plaintiff, knowing that plaintiff's misconduct allegations were true.” Id. at 3. In addition to FOIA relief, the FAC sought an injunction requiring correction of Pinson's records and damages against the individual defendants. Id. at 3.
Dignam, Samuels, Inch, Lundy, Stroble, and N'Diaye filed a motion to dismiss. Indiv. Defs.' Mot. Dismiss, ECF No. 116. Pinson responded by moving for leave to file a second amended complaint. Pl.'s Mot. for Leave to File, ECF No. 118. Her attached Proposed Second Amended Complaint drops the EOUSA, the OIP, the U.S. Marshals, and the CIA from the suit, but names the United States, DOJ, the OIG, the BOP, and the FBI as defendants. Proposed 2d Am. Compl. at 2-3, ECF No. 118-1. In addition to individual defendants Dignam, Samuels, Anderl, Stroble, and N'Diaye, the Proposed Second Amended Complaint names Jose Santana, former Chief of the BOP's Designation and Sentence Computation Center, and Kerri Pistro, Andre Matevousian, and Elizabeth Stahl, each members of the BOP's Transgender Executive Counsel (“TEC”).[3] Proposed 2d Am. Compl. at 3. The Proposed Second Amended Complaint retains Privacy Act claims but appears to drop the First Amendment claim.[4] It purports to add new APA claims as well as claims under the Eighth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. 2671, et seq., and the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”), 18 U.S.C. § 1961, et seq. Id. at 2.
In the Proposed Second Amended Complaint, Pinson describes herself as a “M to F transgender federal prisoner.” Id. at 2. She alleges that she has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, suffers severe depression, anxiety, and neuropathic pain, and has attempted suicide and engaged in self-harm multiple times. Id. at 20-21. Pursuant to BOP Program Statement 5200.04, the TEC governs placement of transgender inmates and oversees the management of their unique needs. See Driever v. United States, No. CV 19-1807, 2020 WL 6135036, at *1 (D.D.C. Oct. 19, 2020). In 2018, BOP amended Program Statement 5200.4 to provide that the “initial determination” of a transgender inmate's placement would be based on “biological sex.” Id. (citation omitted); Proposed 2d Am. Compl. at 5. This policy also directed the TEC to consider the health and safety of both transgender inmates and other inmates in the institution. Driever, 2020 WL 6135036, at *1. Pinson claims that the changes meant transgender inmates would be placed in a facility appropriate for their self-identified gender only “in rare cases.” See Proposed 2d Am. Compl. at 6 (citation omitted). Pursuant to Program Statement 5200.04, the TEC transferred Pinson from a facility in Missouri to Rochester in 2017, from Rochester to Tucson in 2018, and ultimately to Coleman. Proposed 2d Am. Compl. at 4, 14, 22. The TEC imposed the latter two placements over Pinson's objections; she requested a return to Rochester or a “female facility to address her medical, mental health, safety, and gender identity issues.” Id. at 22. At Rochester, she had received daily access to a psychologist, weekly psychiatric consultations, the attention of correctional staff trained to deal with mental health issues, treatment at the Mayo Clinic's field-leading Transgender Care Clinic, and access to electric shaving devices. Id. at 9, 21. All of this stopped once she left Rochester, and Pinson has since faced repeated “brutal assaults, ” sexual harassment, and abuse at the hands of other inmates. Id. at 21.
Pinson alleges that the TEC transferred her to Tucson seven days after she refused Anderl's offer to stop threatening Pinson with a transfer away from Rochester in exchange for Pinson's signature on a document releasing BOP from any liability associated with her recent suicide attempt. Id. at 13-14. Once she was there, the Tucson warden thrice requested that Pinson be transferred to “lesser security.” Id. at 15. The TEC denied these requests on the basis of three memoranda from the warden, each of which allegedly contained materially false statements claiming that Pinson possessed advanced computer skills, was an explosives expert, had compromised or bribed staff, and had a history of introducing drugs into prison facilities. Id. at 15-16. Santana allegedly stated that the transfers were denied, and Pinson assigned “maximum custody status, ” based on an allegation that Pinson had thrown boiling oil into the face of a nurse at one of her previous facilities. Id. at 16. According to Pinson, this never happened. Id. Pinson complained about the sexual abuse she suffered at Tucson, but she alleges that OIG failed to act and that N'Diaye disabled her access to OIG's TRULINCS reporting system. Id. at 14-15.
Finally the Second Amended Complaint alleges that Dignam, Samuels, Anderl, Stroble, N'Diaye, and other BOP employees...
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