Santos-Padilla v. Molina-Rodriguez
| Decision Date | 31 March 2014 |
| Docket Number | CIVIL 12-1369CCC |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Puerto Rico |
| Parties | YARA LEE SANTOS-PADILLA. on behalf of and representing her daughter Y.R.S. Plaintiff v. CARLOS MOLINA-RODRIGUEZ, former Secretary of the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and De Facto Administrator of Corrections of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Roe l; CONFESOR MORALES, Auxiliary Administrator of Security and/or Director of Security of the Administration of Corrections, and the conjugal partnership formed between him and JANE DOE; MARK MOE, Director of the Northern Region of the Administration of Corrections, and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe; LT. NEFTALI RODRIGUEZ, Security Director of the Northern Region of the Administration of Corrections, and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 3; JOSE ORTIZ-ROQUE, Superintendent of the Bayamon 292 Correctional Facility, and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Jane; ROCKY ROE, Superintendent of Bayamon 292 Correctional Institution, and the partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 4; LT. CARLOS RODRIGUEZ-DEL VALLE, Commander of the Guard of Bayamon 292, and the conjugal partnership between him and Spouse Doe 5; LT. SEGUNDO PEREZ-MEDINA and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 6; CL. ELIGIO VILLEGAS and the conjugal partnership between him and Spouse Doe 7; COMMANDER ANGEL RIVERA-VARGAS and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 8; SGT. LUIS A. AMARO-RODRIGUEZ and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 9; SGT. MARCELINO GONZALEZ and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 10; OFFICER WILMER RIVERA and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 11; OFFICER VICTOR CARMONA and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 12; OFFICER AVILES and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 13; OFFICER LUIS LOPEZ-VAZQUEZ and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 14; OFFICER ROLANDO IRIZARRY-FRATICHELLY and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 15; OFFICER MARTIN RIVERA and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 16; OFFICER JOSE QUINTERO and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 17; TIMOTHY TOE, Correctional Officer, and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 18; RICHARD ROE 1 and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 19; WILLIAM WU and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 20; RICHARD ROE 3 and the conjugal partnership formed between him and Spouse Doe 21; ABC INSURANCE; XYZ INSURANCE Defendants |
Yara Lee Santos-Padilla, "on behalf of and representing her daughter Y.R.S.," brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of her father Juan Carlos Remigio-Nazario's rights under the Fifth, Eight, and Fourteenth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution. She also bring claims under Article 1802 of the Puerto Rico Civil Code, and Articles Two and Seven of the Constitution of Puerto Rico.
Confesor Morales-Rodríguez, Luis M, López-Vázquez, Iván Pérez-Medina, Eligio Villegas-Martínez, Neftalí Rodríguez-Lugo, and Rolando Irizarry-Fraticelly's ("defendants") Motion to Dismiss Under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) and (c) filed on July 12, 2013 (docket entry 59) and the opposition filed by Yara Lee Santos-Padilla "on behalf of and representing her daughter Y.R.S." ("plaintiff") on July 26, 2013 (docket entry 65). Defendants move to dismiss the complaint for Eleventh Amendment immunity, failure to state a claim, qualified immunity, lack of standing to assert Section 1983 claims, and lack to assert a claim against the federal government.
Under Rule 12(b)(6), a defendant may move to dismiss an action against him for lack of federal subject-matter jurisdiction or for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted." Benítez-Navarro v. González-Aponte, 660 F. Supp. 2d 185, 188 (D.P.R. 2009). "In Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), the Supreme Court held that to survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint must allege 'a plausible entitlement to relief'." Martínez-Díaz v. Doe, 683 F. Supp. 2d 171, 173 (D.P.R. 2010). When ruling on a motion to dismiss the "court must accept the complaint's well-pleaded facts as true and indulge all reasonable inferences in the plaintiff's favor." Cook v. Gates, 528 F.3d 42, 48 (1st Cir. 2008). Although "Twombly does not require heightened fact pleading of specifics . . . it does require enough facts to 'nudge [plaintiffs'] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible'." Quirós v. Muñoz, 670 F. Supp. 2d 130, 131 (D.P.R. 2009). "Accordingly, in order to avoid dismissal, the plaintiff must provide the grounds upon which his claim rests through factual allegations sufficient to 'raise a right to relief above the speculative level'." Maldonado-Concepción v. Puerto Rico, 683 F. Supp. 2d 174, 175-76 (D.P.R. 2010).
In Ashcroft v. Iqbal, --- U.S. ----, 129 S.Ct. 1937 (2009), the Supreme Court upheld Twombly and declared two guiding principles assessment of the adequacy of a plaintiff's pleadings when evaluating whether a complaint can survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. "Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss." Id. at 1950. "Thus, any nonconclusory factual allegations in the complaint, accepted as true, must be sufficient to give the claim facial plausibility." Id. "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id., at 1949. "Determining whether a complaint states a plausible claim for relief will . . . be a context-specific task that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id., at 1950. "[W]here the well-pleaded facts do not permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct, the complaint has alleged -but it has not 'show[n]'- 'that the pleader is entitled to relief'." Id. "Furthermore, such inferences must be at least as plausible as any 'obvious alternative explanation'." Martínez-Díaz v. Doe, 683 F. Supp. 2d at 174 (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950-51). At the pleading stage a plaintiff must allege "sufficient facts to 'provide fair notice to defendant and state a facially plausible legal claim.'" García Catalán v. United States of America, 734 F.3d 100 (2013), quoting from Ocasio Hernández v. Fortuño-Burset, 640 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir. 2011).
Plaintiff alleges that she is the sole heir of decedent Juan Carlos Remigio-Nazario, also known as Jonathan Alicea-Cruz. She alleges that on May 20, 2011, Remigio-Nazariowas announced dead by official authorities after being brutally murdered as consequence of an inmate to inmate assault. Plaintiff indicates that at the time of his death, Remigio-Nazario was an inmate under the custody of the Administration of Corrections, held at Bayamón 292, and the assassination occurred within the victim's own housing unit, to wit, in the premises of building 5, section A. She also indicates that Remigio-Nazario was assigned and lived in cell number 12 and, according to prison authorities, the identified executioner lived just steps away from the victim, specifically, in cell number 14. Plaintiff alleges that prison reports show that Remigio-Nazario's death was not a one man job but the assailants were a group of inmates living in the same building of the prison. She asserts that the execution was perpetrated first with shanks, while inflicting several stabs to the sufferer in different parts of his upper body. She alleges that the he was particularly targeted in his neck, were he received nine vicious wounds, and that after being again and again stabbed in order to assure but not quite provoke his death, Remigio-Nazario, still alive, was thrown from the second story of the housing unit, falling from an approximate height of fifteen feet, flat to the floor, at close range and clearly visible from the prison's guard control room.1 Plaintiff alleges that the victim's anguish, pain, and suffering extended for approximately sixteen hours. She indicates that the prison records report that the attack occurred on May 19, 2011 at 11:00 AM, that Remigio-Nazario was taken to the Emergency Room at Centro Médico, and that on May 20, 2011 at 3:00 AM he was declared dead. Plaintiff also indicates that only she, of minor age, survived the victim as his sole heir. Plaintiff alleges that all defendants "were well aware that Remigio-Nazario had been victimof threats of violence and brutal assault at the hands of fellow inmates while at Bayamón 292, that he was a witness of the Department of Justice and under protective custody, had received threats of violence and that inmates at the correctional facility had previously threatened to use shanks to attack and inflict deadly wounds on him, yet failed to take the necessary measures, procedures, practices, and precautions to preclude inmates from manufacturing, securing, hiding, and/or using shanks and to prevent such violent attacks in reckless disregard of the decedent's right to be free and secure from acts of violence by other unmates." (Allegation number 3.14 of the complaint.)
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