SILVERA v. Conn. Dep't of Corr.

• Decision Date: 27 May 2010
• Docket Number: No. 3:09CV1398 (MRK).,3:09CV1398 (MRK).
• Citation: 726 F.Supp.2d 183
• Parties: Maria SILVERA, Administratrix of Estate of Andre Mario Lyle, Plaintiff, v. CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

726 F.Supp.2d 183

Maria SILVERA, Administratrix of Estate of Andre Mario Lyle, Plaintiff,

v.CONNECTICUT DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al., Defendants.

No. 3:09CV1398 (MRK).

United States District Court,D. Connecticut.

May 27, 2010.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED.

Patrick G. Lyle, Lyle Legal Services, LLC, Hartford, CT, for Plaintiff.

Ann E. Lynch, Terrence M. O'Neill, Attorney General's Office, Hartford, CT, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION

MARK R. KRAVITZ, District Judge.

This case arises out of the tragic suicide death of 22-year-old Andre Mario Lyle while he was being held as a pretrial detainee at the Garner Correctional Institute in Newtown, Connecticut on the evening of May 22, 2008. Plaintiff, the authorized representative of Mr. Lyle's estate, has filed an eight-count amended complaint against the Connecticut Department of Corrections (DOC); the University of Connecticut Health Center's Correctional Managed Health Care (CMHC); and five individuals, who are sued in their personal and individual capacities: Dr. Peter Gasparo, Counselor Samson, Lieutenant Gagnon, and Corrections Officers Swan and Standish (collectively, “Defendants”). See Second Am. Compl. [doc. # 31]. Counts One and Two, against Dr. Gasparo and Counselor Samson, respectively, allege the denial of adequate mental health care. Count Three, against Lt. Gagnon, and Count Four, against Officers Swan and Standish, allege violations of substantive due process. The remaining counts are against all Defendants. Counts Five through Seven claim violations of the equal protection provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and Sections 9 and 20 of Article First of the Connecticut Constitution, and are premised on two grounds: Mr. Lyle, a pretrial detainee, being forced to share a cell with a convicted inmate and being treated differently from those similarly situated with regard to the mental health care that he received. Finally, Count Eight alleges a statutory cause of action for wrongful death.

On December 15, 2009, Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss [doc. # 25]. The Court later held a telephonic status conference, during which it granted Plaintiff an opportunity to amend her complaint one last time in order to address the alleged deficiencies identified in Defendants' motion. See Order dated Dec. 22, 2009 [doc. # 27]. Defendants' Motion to Dismiss [doc. # 25] was denied for the time being, but without prejudice to renewal after Plaintiff amended her complaint. See id. Thereafter, on January 15, 2010, Plaintiff filed a 58-page Second Amended Complaint [doc. # 31], containing the counts and allegations described above.

Now pending before the Court is the Defendants' renewed Motion to Dismiss [doc. # 35], which asks the Court to dismiss the Second Amended Complaint (hereinafter, “Complaint”) in its entirety. On Counts One and Two, alleging a denial of adequate mental health care, Defendants Dr. Gasparo and Counselor Samson argue that the allegations in the Complaint, even if accepted as true, reveal at most merely a disagreement about the proper course of Mr. Lyle's mental health care treatment, and therefore do not adequately state a claim for relief. See Defs.' Mem. in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss (“Defs.' Mem.”) [doc. # 36] at 17-23. Lt. Gagnon argues that Count Three, which seeks to hold him-and, by extension, the DOC-accountable as the supervisor and policy maker, is insufficient under Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. ----, ----, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) because the Complaint contains insufficient allegations of his personal involvement in the alleged constitutional deprivations. See Defs.' Mem. [doc. # 36] at 17-23. Defendants argue that Count Six and that portion of Count Five that is premised on Mr. Lyle being housed with a convicted inmate fail to state a constitutional deprivation under either the federal or state constitutions, as Mr. Lyle did not have a constitutional right to be housed separately from convicted inmates. See id. at 23-24. As for Mr. Lyle's equal protection claims based on being treated differently with regard to mental health care than others similarly situated (Count Seven and part of Count Five), Defendants argue that Plaintiff has failed to allege any facts to support the claim that he was treated differently for any impermissible reason. See id. at 24-26. Defendants say that Plaintiff's allegations on her claim for wrongful death (Count Eight) do not amount to recklessness, and therefore are inadequate to overcome the statutory immunity they enjoy by virtue of Conn. Gen.Stat. § 4-165 (Count Eight). See Defs.' Mem. [doc. # 36] at 13-15. Defendants also argue that insofar as they are sued in their official capacities, this Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction due to sovereign immunity, see id. at 11-13; that they are entitled to qualified immunity, see id. at 29-33; and that, for prudential reasons, insofar as the state-law claims survive the motion to dismiss, the Court should refrain from exercising supplemental jurisdiction over them, see id. at 27-29. Plaintiff, of course, disputes all of Defendants' arguments for dismissal. See Pl.'s Mem. in Opp'n to Mot. to Dismiss (“Pl.'s Mem.”) [doc. # 41-1].

While the Court agrees that Defendants are entitled to dismissal on some of Plaintiff's claims, the Court declines to dismiss this case in its entirety. Thus, for the reasons and to the extent explained below, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss [doc. # 35] is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part.

I.

The function of a motion to dismiss is to determine whether the plaintiff has stated a legally-cognizable claim that, if proven, would entitle it to relief. Due to this circumscribed purpose, when considering a motion to dismiss the Court accepts as true all factual allegations in the complaint and draws all inferences from these allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. See Hemi Group, LLC v. City of New York, N.Y., ---U.S. ----, ----, 130 S.Ct. 983, 987, --- L.Ed.2d ---- (2010); Boykin v. KeyCorp, 521 F.3d 202, 214 (2d Cir.2008). To survive a motion to dismiss, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ ” Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949 (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007)); see also Selevan v. N.Y. Thruway Auth., 584 F.3d 82, 95 (2d Cir.2009).

Two working principles underlie the Supreme Court's plausibility standard. See Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. “First, although ‘a court must accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint,’ that ‘tenet’ ‘is inapplicable to legal conclusions' and ‘threadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice.’ ” Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 72 (2d Cir.2009) (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949). That said, the Rule 8 pleading threshold “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,’ [though] it demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1949. “ ‘Second, only a complaint that states a plausible claim for relief survives a motion to dismiss' and ‘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. (quoting Iqbal, 129 S.Ct. at 1950); see also Austen v. Catterton Partners V, LP, 709 F.Supp.2d 168, 171-72, 2010 WL 625389, at *2 (D.Conn. Feb. 17, 2010) (discussing the importance of “[c]ontext, good judgment and common sense” in applying the Iqbal standard to motions to dismiss).

II.

The following facts are taken from the Complaint [doc. # 31] and are taken as true for present purposes. The Court assumes the parties' familiarity with these facts, and will only set out those necessary for resolution of Defendants' motion; additional facts will be introduced below in discussing the individual claims.

Andre Lyle was arrested on April 11, 2008 in the Town of Manchester, Connecticut, and was arraigned three days later on April 14 by Superior Court Judge Ward. Mr. Lyle's criminal case was continued until May 6, 2008, and Judge Ward remanded him to the custody of the DOC and ordered that he be subject to a mental health watch out of concerns that Mr. Lyle could harm himself. Following his arraignment, Mr. Lyle was transported to the Hartford Correctional Center (HCC), where he was examined by mental health professionals. Pursuant to the DOC's initial classification procedures, Mr. Lyle was classified as a “Mental Health Need 5” (“MH5”)-the highest level of the DOC's mental health classification system, indicating a “[c]risis level mental disorder” that “[r]equires 24 hour nursing care” due to, inter alia, the risk of suicide or self-mutilation. See DOC Objective Classification Manual 29-30 (rev. July 2005). ¹ Mr. Lyle was placed on suicide watch and prescribed Risperadol, an anti-psychotic drug, and Effexor, an anti-depressant.

Mr. Lyle was evaluated two days later, on April 16, and that evaluation resulted in a downgrade of his Mental Health Need to level 3 (“MH3”), indicating the belief that he was no longer a threat to himself. See id. Mr. Lyle was also transferred from suicide watch to an orientation housing unit at HCC. Nonetheless, Mr. Lyle was still experiencing thoughts of despair, as indicated in a letter he wrote to a friend on April 30, in which he said that he hoped prison would not “lead to my end” and that sometimes he did not “even want to live.” Compl. [doc. # 31] ¶ 15. Plaintiff alleges that, in accordance with DOC policy, this letter was screened by unknown DOC personnel, who nonetheless failed to communicate its contents to the mental health staff. See id. ¶ 16. Plaintiff also alleges that on May 5, Mr. Lyle complained to medical staff of chest pains, which were diagnosed as “ineffective coping” and...