Sanchez v. Pereira-Castillo

• Decision Date: 23 December 2009
• Docket Number: No. 08-1748.,08-1748.
• Parties: Ángel Luis SANCHEZ, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Miguel A. PEREIRA-CASTILLO, et al., Defendants, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

590 F.3d 31

Ángel Luis SANCHEZ, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. Miguel A. PEREIRA-CASTILLO, et al., Defendants, Appellees.

No. 08-1748.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard March 6, 2009.

Decided December 23, 2009.

Guillermo Ramos-Luiña, for appellant.

Rosa E. Pérez-Agosto, with whom Maite D. Oronoz-Rodríguez, Acting Solicitor General, Ileana Oliver-Falero, Acting Deputy Solicitor General, and Leticia Casalduc-Rabell, Assistant Solicitor General, were on brief, for appellees Pereira-Castillo, et al.

Julio Nigaglioni, with whom Jennifer López Negrón was on brief, for appellee Sandra I. Deniz.

Before TORRUELLA, LEVAL,^* and LIPEZ, Circuit Judges.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Ángel Sanchez alleges that, while a prisoner at a Puerto Rico correctional institution, correctional officers subjected him to an escalating series of searches of his abdominal cavity that culminated in a forced exploratory abdominal surgery. Plaintiff filed this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against a group of defendants consisting of correctional officers for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Administration of Corrections ("AOC"), doctors who worked for the AOC, and doctors who worked at the Río Piedras Medical Center ("Río Piedras"), the medical facility where the surgery took place. His complaint alleges violations of his federal constitutional rights and raises supplemental claims under Puerto Rico law. The district court granted the defendants' motions to dismiss the suit for failure to state a claim, and plaintiff now appeals.

After review of the complaint and the district court's decision, we vacate the dismissal of plaintiff's Fourth Amendment claims against two of the correctional defendants, Miguel Cabán-Rosados and John Doe, and the doctor who performed the surgery, reinstate the supplemental claims, and remand the case for further proceedings.

I.

We review a district court's dismissal for failure to state a claim de novo, drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, Poirier v. Massachusetts Dept. of Correction, 558 F.3d 92, 94 (1st Cir.2009), and accepting all well-pleaded facts in the complaint as true, Andrew Robinson Int'l, Inc. v. Hartford Fire Ins. Co., 547 F.3d 48, 51 (1st Cir.2008).

A. The Complaint

On July 13, 2006, defendant Sergeant Cabán-Rosados ("Cabán") and other correctional officers under his command conducted a search of the living quarters at the Bayamón 501 correctional institution, where plaintiff was an inmate. During the search, a handheld metal detector gave a positive finding when used to scan plaintiff and four other inmates. The men were taken to another area of the prison, where they were sniffed by law enforcement dogs who did not react in a way that would indicate the presence of contraband. The five inmates were then strip-searched, but no contraband was found. Plaintiff was again scanned with the metal detector while naked; this time, the metal detector did not indicate a positive finding.

Despite the negative findings from the dog search, the strip search, and the second metal detector search, Cabán and/or Commander Sanchez, Commander of the Guard at Bayamón 501,¹ asked an unknown doctor, identified in the complaint as Dr. Richard Roe I, to order that abdominal x-rays be taken of plaintiff and the other four inmates. Without examining the inmates, Dr. Roe I ordered the tests. Plaintiff objected to the x-ray, but was told that there was a judicial order for the procedure. When he asked to see the order, Cabán refused to produce one. According to the complaint, no such order existed.

After the x-rays, plaintiff was placed under the constant surveillance of two correctional officers. Cabán ordered him to have a bowel movement on the floor. Plaintiff did so, but did not expel any foreign object. Aware of that development, Cabán nonetheless ordered that the plaintiff be taken to the medical area at Bayamón 1072, where the medical director for the Bayamón Correctional Complex, identified as Dr. Richard Roe II, examined the x-ray film and told plaintiff that the x-rays revealed the existence of a foreign object in plaintiff's rectum consistent with a cellular telephone. Plaintiff denied having a cellular phone in his rectum and requested that another x-ray be taken, but his request was refused. Plaintiff later had a second bowel movement in the presence of the correctional officers, which again was free of foreign objects. After the second bowel movement, Dr. Roe II issued a referral for the Emergency Room of the Río Piedras Medical Center for further testing and/or medical intervention. Plaintiff objected, and again requested that a second abdominal x-ray be taken, but his request was denied.

Cabán and/or Sanchez coordinated plaintiff's transport to Río Piedras for the purpose of a rectal examination and/or medical procedure to remove the purported foreign object. Plaintiff was escorted to the hospital by a correctional officer identified in the complaint as John Doe. At Río Piedras, plaintiff was examined by a third doctor, identified as Dr. Richard Roe III. Dr. Roe III conducted a manual rectal examination and ordered several lab tests. The rectal examination did not reveal the presence of any foreign object, and the results of the tests were normal. Dr. Roe III then conducted a second manual rectal examination, this time in collaboration with his superior, identified in the complaint as Dr. Richard Roe IV. The second rectal examination again failed to reveal the presence of any foreign object in the plaintiff's rectum. According to the complaint, the rectal examinations were performed at the insistence of John Doe. The complaint alleged:

At all times John Doe insisted that plaintiff was hiding a cellular phone in his rectum and pressured the medical personnel at the Emergency Room, including Dr. Richard Roe III and Dr. Richard Roe IV, to conduct a medical procedure to remove it. The pushiness exerted by John Doe followed the orders imparted by Cabán and/or Sanchez and the regulations and directives designed by Pereira, [Secretary of Corrections], as construed and implemented by all of the other Supervisory Defendants.

(Capitalization omitted.)

Despite the negative results of the two rectal examinations, Drs. Roe III and IV requested a consultation with the surgery department of the medical center. Dr. Sandra Deniz, a surgeon, then evaluated plaintiff. She was made aware of the negative findings of the two rectal examinations, the normal results of the tests ordered by Dr. Roe III, the two bowel movements occurring after the x-ray that were free of foreign objects, plaintiff's repeated denials of having a cellular telephone in his rectum, and his repeated requests that a second x-ray be performed. Notwithstanding that knowledge, and without conducting another x-ray exam or manual test, Dr. Deniz scheduled plaintiff for emergency exploratory surgery under total anesthesia.

Before operating, Dr. Deniz obtained plaintiff's written consent. According to the complaint, plaintiff signed the consent form only under pressure from John Doe and only after Dr. Deniz promised that she would perform another rectal examination under total anesthesia before conducting the surgery. Contrary to her assurances, Dr. Deniz did not perform another rectal examination or any other less invasive procedure to confirm the presence of a foreign object before performing the surgery. Instead, while plaintiff was under total anesthesia, she immediately conducted the exploratory surgical intervention. It revealed that there was no foreign object in plaintiff's gastrointestinal tract. She then took a post-surgical x-ray, which confirmed that finding. Two days after the surgery, on July 16, plaintiff was discharged from the hospital and returned to his cell at Bayamón 501.

B. Procedural Background

Plaintiff filed this action on July 10, 2007, alleging violations of his constitutional rights and seeking compensatory and punitive damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983"). The complaint also contained supplemental claims under Puerto Rico law for violations of the Puerto Rico constitution and fault or negligence under Article 1802 of Puerto Rico's Civil Code. 31 L.P.R.A. § 5141.

In addition to Drs. Richard Roe I-IV, John Doe, and the defendants already mentioned by name (Cabán, Sanchez and Dr. Deniz), the complaint also named as defendants: Miguel A. Pereira-Castillo, Puerto Rico's Secretary of Corrections and Rehabilitation ("Pereira"); Hector Fontanez-Rivera, Security Director of the AOC ("Fontanez"); Ramon Díaz-Correa, Director of the Eastern Region for the AOC ("Díaz"); Gilberto Negrón-Falcón, Security Director of the Eastern Region of the AOC ("Negrón"); and Walter Soto, Superintendent of Bayamón 501 ("Soto").² The complaint alleged that Pereira, Fontanez, Díaz, Negrón, Soto, and Sanchez ("the administrative correctional defendants") were, inter alia, "responsible for ensuring that the correctional officers under their command followed practices and procedures [that] would respect the rights and ensure the bodily integrity of Plaintiff ... [t]his they failed to do with deliberate indifference and/or in reckless disregard of Plaintiff's federally protected rights...."

Correctional defendants Pereira-Castillo, Fontanez-Rivera, Díaz-Correa, Negrón-Falcón, Soto-Hernandez and Cabán moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim for relief. See Fed. R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). The motion also stated that the claims against Pereira, Fontanez, Díaz, Negrón, and Soto should be dismissed because respondeat superior liability claims are not cognizable under Section 1983 and that, in any case, all of the correctional defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on all claims.

Dr. Deniz also filed a motion to dismiss, claiming that plaintiff's constitutional rights were not violated by the medical procedure and that plaintiff was limited to traditional tort remedies...