Saunders v. Horn

• Decision Date: 27 March 1997
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 95-7844.
• Parties: Robert SAUNDERS v. Commissioner Martin HORN, et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania

960 F.Supp. 893

Robert SAUNDERS v. Commissioner Martin HORN, et al.

Civil Action No. 95-7844.

United States District Court, E.D. Pennsylvania.

March 27, 1997.

Robert Saunders, Georgetown, DE, pro se.

Beth Anne Smith, Office of Attorney General, Philadelphia, PA, for Defendants.

ORDER

LOUIS A. POLLAK, District Judge.

After consideration of the defendants Horn and Vaughn's motion to dismiss and the documents related thereto, after review of the Report and Recommendation of Diane M. Welsh, United States Magistrate Judge, and after reviewing defendants' objections to the Report, it is hereby ORDERED that:

1. The Report and Recommendation is APPROVED and ADOPTED;

2. The defendants' motion to dismiss is GRANTED with respect to the plaintiffs right-to-court-access claim and equal protection claim;

3. The defendants' motion to dismiss is DENIED with respect to the plaintiffs Eighth Amendment claim, procedural due process claim and Americans with Disabilities Act claim; and

4. The defendants' motion to dismiss is CONVERTED into a motion for summary judgment with respect to the plaintiffs prayer for injunctive relief, and the defendants are GRANTED summary judgment with respect to the prayer for injunctive relief.

OPINION

This is a civil rights case, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in which a prisoner, Robert Saunders, alleges that Martin Horn, the Commissioner of Pennsylvania's Department of Corrections, Donald T. Vaughn, the Superintendent of SCI-Graterford, and three corrections officers deprived him of various constitutional rights and his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Before the court is a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim against defendants Horn and Vaughn. On December 23, 1996, Magistrate Judge Diane M. Welsh issued a Report and Recommendation, in which she recommended that "defendants' motion to dismiss be granted with respect to the plaintiff's right-to-court-access claim and equal protection claim"; that "the defendants' motion to dismiss be denied with respect to the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment claim, procedural due process claim and Americans with Disabilities Act claim"; and that "the defendants' motion to dismiss be converted into a motion for summary judgment with respect to the plaintiffs prayer for injunctive relief and that the defendants be granted summary judgment with respect to the prayer for injunctive relief."

Horn and Vaughn have filed objections to the portions of the Report recommending that portions of their motion to dismiss be denied. I will address their arguments that Saunders' complaint should be dismissed because (1) he failed to allege facts showing that Horn and Vaughn were personally involved in the alleged wrongdoing, and (2) the Americans with Disabilities Act does not apply to state prisons.

I.

Accepting the factual allegations in the complaint as true for the purposes of the 12(b)(6) motion, Judge Welsh recited the facts as follows:

The plaintiff has been serving a life sentence since April 1976. Since 1984, he has been wearing orthopedic shoes and walking with the aid of a cane. These items were prescribed by an orthopedist. In early 1995, an MRI revealed that he was "suffering from disk degeneration in areas of L-5, S-5 ... of spine." On September 22, 1995, the plaintiff was transferred from a Delaware prison to SCI-Camphill. Upon arriving at SCI-Camphill, an official of that prison took away the plaintiff's orthopedic shoes and his brace.¹ The plaintiff was told that, if these items were needed, a doctor at SCI-Camphill would order them. Since that time, he has had to "wear regularly issued shoes, which cause him constant pain."

On November 22, 1995, the plaintiff was transferred to SCI-Graterford. Upon his arrival, defendant Harmon placed him in a cell with an inmate who had been placed in disciplinary status for assaulting a correctional officer. On November 28, 1995, he was informed by the Program Review Committee that he should be assigned into the general population. He told defendants Thomas and Murphy of this information but they left him in the same cell, where he was locked in 24 hours a day and fed in the cell. In spite of his physical condition, he was required to climb onto the top bunk.

On December 1, 1995, the plaintiff was assigned a new cellmate. This new cellmate had been sentenced by the Disciplinary Committee to cell restriction. The plaintiff was only permitted to leave his cell to receive his medication and to shower once every three days. Prior to December 1, 1995, the plaintiff had only had one cold shower.

The plaintiff complained to defendants Murphy, Harmon and Thomas about being kept locked in his cell 24 hours a day. He informed them that he had not violated any disciplinary rules prior to leaving SCI-Camphill. His grievances were ignored and he then wrote letters to defendants Horn and Vaughn.

On December 6, 1995, he was taken to a different cell and he was afforded some privileges, which he does not specify. He was not, however, given an identification card, which prevented him from borrowing law books from the law library. Although he had litigation pending in Delaware before he came to Pennsylvania, the plaintiff was unable to use the available law books and Commissioner Horn failed to provide him with Delaware law books. For reasons which he does not explain, he had to be accompanied by a correctional officer in order to pick up his legal mail. This meant that, on some occasions, he had to wait up to three days to receive his legal mail.

The plaintiff was not issued clothing. He was forced to wear the clothes of another inmate. He was not able to use the commissary because he was not issued an identification card. He complains that the showers and toilets at SCI-Graterford are not designed to accommodate inmates with disabilities. The sinks overlap the toilets. This prevents an inmate from sitting up straight. As a result, the plaintiff must sit bent over, which causes him "severe discomfort". Because of the showers' nonaccommodating design, on one occasion, the plaintiff slipped and fell down.

The plaintiff alleges that all defendants have violated his rights to equal protection, due process and to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. He claims that each defendant is aware of the conditions he complains of because he has informed each defendant of these conditions.

II.

In objecting to Judge Welsh's Report and Recommendation, Horn and Vaughn argue first that Saunders has failed to state a claim against them under § 1983 because he has not alleged that they were personally involved in the alleged wrongdoing. Personal involvement may be established through allegations of actual knowledge and acquiescence. See Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195, 1207 (3d Cir.1988). Saunders' complaint states that he wrote to defendants Horn and Vaughn after he received no response through the state prisoner grievance procedure, and that he received no response. Judge Welsh concluded that

Based on this allegation and on the fact that defendants Horn and Vaughn are the superiors of the other named defendants, one could reasonably infer that defendants Horn and Vaughn acquiesced in the acts which caused the conditions the plaintiff complains of. This is sufficient to plead personal involvement ...

Report and Recommendation at 5-6.

In challenging Judge Welsh's conclusion, Horn and Vaughn point to Durmer v. O'Carroll, 991 F.2d 64 (3d Cir.1993), a § 1983 case in which the Third Circuit approved the grant of summary judgment in favor of a state commissioner of corrections and a prison warden accused of deliberate indifference to the plaintiff's serious medical needs. In that case, "[t]he only allegation against either of these two defendants was that they failed to respond to letters Durmer sent to them explaining his predicament." Id. at 69. The court noted that "Respondeat superior is, of course, not an acceptable basis for liability under § 1983." Id. at 69 n. 14. It went on to conclude that

Neither of these defendants ... is a physician, and neither can be considered deliberately indifferent simply because they failed to respond directly to the medical complaints of a prisoner who was already being treated by the prison doctor.

Id. at 69.

I do not read Durmer as standing for the proposition that "the failure of highlyranked prison officials (who otherwise have no personal involvement in the matter) to answer an inmate's complaints regarding his medical treatment fails to give rise to Section 1983 liability," as defendants argue. The court specifically noted that plaintiff in that case was under the care of the prison's doctor, and reasoned that the officials had no basis for disagreeing with the doctor's treatment. Thus, Durmer seems to mean that high-level officials cannot be held liable for Eighth Amendment violations when the officials rely on expertise of professional staff that they themselves lack.

Saunders' complaint does not state which grievances he wrote to defendants Horn and Vaughn about, nor whether he was under the care of the prison doctor at the time he wrote to Horn and Vaughn. However, one reasonable chain of inferences that can be drawn from Saunders' complaint is that a Camp Hill officer discarded his doctor-prescribed orthopedic shoes and cane, that he did not obtain treatment from an SCI-Graterford doctor, that the standard-issue shoes he was required to wear caused him constant pain, that Saunders wrote to Horn and Vaughn about his difficulties, and that Horn and Vaughn acquiesced in the failure to address Saunders' medical condition. Horn and Vaughn's motion to dismiss the Eighth Amendment claim will therefore be denied.

III.

Horn and Vaughn also argue that Saunders has failed to state a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12101-12213 ("ADA") because the ADA does not apply in the context of state prisons.

The ADA shares a common...