Ryan v. Nagy

• Decision Date: 20 April 2023
• Docket Number: 20-11528
• Parties: SEAN MICHAEL RYAN, Plaintiff, v. NOAH NAGY, and HEIDI WASHINGTON, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

1

SEAN MICHAEL RYAN, Plaintiff, v. NOAH NAGY, and HEIDI WASHINGTON, Defendants.

No. 20-11528

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

April 20, 2023

Patricia T. Morris, Magistrate Judge.

OPINION AND ORDER DISMISSING REMAINING CLAIMS

LAURIE J. MICHELSON, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE.

Sean Ryan is an inmate at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility (JCF), a Michigan Department of Corrections prison located in Jackson, Michigan. Many inmates at JCF live in shared housing: either two inmates share a small cell or 150 inmates share a large pole barn. But not Ryan. He is assigned a private single-person cell to accommodate his need for a wheelchair. Ryan believes that because inmates must share sleeping and living quarters, they are at risk of contracting contagious diseases including, but not limited to, COVID-19. Based on this belief, Ryan maintains that MDOC Director Heidi Washington's and JCF Warden Noah Nagy's policy or practice of shared housing violates the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the analogous provision of the Michigan Constitution. So Ryan filed this lawsuit.

In January 2022, this Court dismissed Ryan's claims insofar as they sought monetary relief for past injuries. See generally Ryan v. Nagy, No. 20-11528, 2022 WL 260812 (E.D. Mich. Jan. 26, 2022) available at (ECF No. 35). What remained of this case was Ryan's claims for prospective, injunctive relief against Defendants' shared housing policy. Id at *7. The Court permitted the parties to gather evidence relevant to that forward-looking relief.

So the parties engaged in discovery. In one order largely denying a motion to compel filed by Ryan, Magistrate Judge Patricia T Morris raised concerns that Ryan lacked standing to challenge Defendants' shared housing policy or practice. (ECF No. 63, PageID.946.) She noted that Ryan had admitted during his deposition that he was housed in a single-person cell for every day but one over the past three years. (Id.) She further explained that “Ryan does not have standing to challenge Defendants' ‘mass-housing' practices merely because it is possible that he may be subjected to them later.” (ECF No. 63, PageID.946-947 (citing Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560 (1993)).)

Ryan objected to this determination, claiming that he had been housed at more “than 12 facilities in the past 12 years” and that he had been placed in “double cell housing multiple times throughout his incarceration in the MDOC as well as at JCF.” (ECF No. 66, PageID.1295.) Ryan said he does not have a special accommodation that ensures a single-person cell, and that he could be transferred to another facility and be placed in shared housing. (Id.) He also said that the MDOC could take away his wheelchair, which has happened in the past. (Id.) Thus, Ryan argued that while he may not currently be in shared housing, “there is a very real danger that [I] will be put there tomorrow, the next day, week[,] month, or year.” (Id. at PageID.1295; see also ECF No. 64, PageID.1052 (“I could be moved to a pole barn tomorrow. They bounce people around [JCF] like ping pong balls.”).)

Given the Magistrate Judge's concerns about standing, Ryan's objections, and the other evidence that came to light during discovery, this Court directed Ryan to show cause why his claims for prospective injunctive relief pertaining to Defendants' shared housing policy should not be dismissed for lack of Article III standing. (ECF No. 71, PageID.1328.) The Court stayed the case pending a determination on the show cause order. (Id.)

For the reasons explained below, the Court finds that Ryan lacks Article III standing to bring his remaining federal claim for prospective injunctive relief and, thus, dismisses the case.

I.

To start, some background on Ryan's claim and his housing experience while at JCF is helpful.

Ryan believes the Defendants' shared housing policy exposes him to an unconstitutional risk of contracting airborne illnesses like, but not limited to, COVID-19 in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Article I, § 16 of the Michigan Constitution. (ECF No. 6, PageID.96.) That shared housing policy, or “mass-housing” as Ryan describes it, is the practice of housing inmates in either two-person cells or a “pole barn.” (Id.) Apparently, the prison pole barn is a large building with multiple cubicles defined by half walls; and within a cubicle, there are beds for eight inmates.

But Ryan is neither housed in a pole barn nor a two-person cell. (ECF No. 64-2, PageID.1007.) Because Ryan has a medical accommodation for a permanent wheelchair, JCF has placed him in a single-person cell. (ECF No. 76-1, PageID.1597.) According to Ryan, his wheelchair only fits in certain single person cells, and cannot fit through the door of any two-person cells at JCF. (ECF No. 64-3, Page ID.1012). Thus, apart from a one-day quarantine and a short stay at a hospital, Ryan has been consistently housed in a single-person cell since entering JCF on April 9, 2019. (ECF No. 64-3, Page ID.1094; ECF No. 64-2, PageID.1007-10; ECF No. 76-1, PageID.1597.) And Warden Nagy submitted an affidavit maintaining that, as long as Ryan is housed at JCF and as long as he remains a permanent wheelchair user, he will remain in a single-person cell. (ECF No. 76-1, PageID.1597.) Nagy also says there are no current plans to move Ryan to another facility. (ECF No. 76-1, PageID.1597.)

For his part, Ryan does not allege that Defendants have made any plans, threats, or proposals to move him from his single-person cell, to move him to another facility, or to alter his permanent wheelchair medical accommodation. Ryan simply contends that it is possible he could be moved to another facility, his wheelchair could be taken from him, and he could be placed in shared housing. Ryan also alleges three past occurrences where JCF employees tried-albeit unsuccessfully-to move him to a two-person cell. (ECF No. 74, PageID.1552.)

II.

With that background, the Court moves to the law. “Article III of the Constitution limits federal courts' jurisdiction to certain ‘Cases' and ‘Controversies.'” Clapper v. Amnesty Int'l USA, 568 U.S. 398, 408 (2013). “One element of the case-or-controversy requirement is that plaintiffs must establish that they have standing to sue.” Id. (quotations and citations omitted). The standing requirement prevents federal courts from issuing advisory opinions or deciding theoretical questions. Chapman v. Tristar Prod., Inc., 940 F.3d 299, 303 (6th Cir. 2019).

Moreover, Article III “[s]tanding is a jurisdictional requirement. If no plaintiff has standing, then the court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction.” State by & through Tennessee Gen. Assembly v. U.S. Dep't of State, 931 F.3d 499, 507 (6th Cir. 2019) (citations omitted). And because it is jurisdictional, this Court has both the obligation and the ability to raise standing sua sponte. See Bench Billboard Co. v. City of Cincinnati, 675 F.3d 974, 983 (6th Cir. 2012); see also Chapman, 940 F.3d at 304 (“[W]e are required in every case to determine-sue sponte if the parties do not raise the issue-whether we are authorized by Article III to adjudicate the dispute.”).

Although the Court, rather than the parties, raised the issue of Ryan's standing, the Court evaluates standing under the same standards as a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1). See generally Mott v. Mittel Steel, No. 17 CV 186, 2017 WL 6502829, at *2 (N.D. Ohio Apr. 10, 2017). A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(1) “may either attack the claim of jurisdiction on its face or it can attack the factual basis of jurisdiction.” Crugher v. Prelesnik, 761 F.3d 610, 613 (6th Cir. 2014) (citing Golden v. Gorno Bros., Inc., 410 F.3d 879, 881 (6th Cir. 2005)). A facial attack tests the pleading's sufficiency, not the veracity of its allegations. Stout v. United States, 721 Fed.Appx. 462, 465 (6th Cir. 2018). But a factual challenge requires the district court to “weigh the evidence and the plaintiff has the burden of proving that the court has jurisdiction over the subject matter.” Bowers v. Wynne, 615 F.3d 455, 457 (6th Cir. 2010) (citing Golden, 410 F.3d at 887).

Because the parties, at the Court's request, briefed the issue of standing and provided additional information on the issue in so briefing, (ECF Nos. 74,76,) the Court considers this as a factual challenge to Ryan's standing.

III.

To have standing, a plaintiff “must have suffered an injury-in-fact that is fairly traceable to the defendant's conduct and would likely be redressed by a favorable decision from a court.” Bouye v. Bruce, - F.4th-, No. 21-6195, 2023 WL 2301473, at *3 (6th Cir. Mar. 1, 2023) (citing Rice v. Vill. of Johnstown, 30 F.4th 584, 591 (6th Cir. 2022)).

To have standing “when seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, a plaintiff must show actual present harm or a significant possibility of future harm.” See Grendell v. Ohio Supreme Court, 252 F.3d 828, 832 (6th Cir. 2001); see also Susan B. Anthony List v. Driehaus, 573 U.S. 149, 158 (2014) (“An injury sufficient to satisfy Article III must be . . . actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical. . . . An allegation of future injury may suffice if the threatened injury is certainly impending, or there is a substantial risk that the harm will occur.”).

Ryan cannot show actual present harm. There is no dispute that Ryan is not currently subject to Defendants' shared housing policy. Thus, the issue boils down to whether he faces a substantial risk of future harm from this housing policy. And that alleged future harm must be “concrete and particularized” and “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560.

Ryan says that...