Stone v. Kubik
| Decision Date | 19 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | 21-CV-1191-LJV-LGF |
| Parties | JANE STONE #1, et al., Plaintiffs, v. BRIAN KUBIK, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of New York |
DECISION & ORDER
The plaintiffs in this case-proceeding anonymously as Jane Stone #1, Jane Stone #2, Jane Stone #4, and Jane Stone #6-are four women who are or were incarcerated at four New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS”) correctional facilities. See Docket Item 56 (second amended complaint).[1] They allege that they were sexually abused by DOCCS correction officers while they were incarcerated and that DOCCS supervisors and investigators failed to prevent that abuse. See id. And they bring Eighth Amendment claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 as well as statutory and common law claims under New York State law. See id.
On March 21, 2022, defendants Alvi Castro and Melinda Hanzlian two investigators in the DOCCS Office of Special Investigations (“OSI”), moved to dismiss plaintiff Jane Stone #2's Eighth Amendment claim against them. Docket Item 104. On April 20, 2022, Stone #2 responded to that motion, Docket Item 112, and on April 29, 2022, Castro and Hanzlian replied Docket Item 115.
On April 3, 2023, Stone #2 moved for a default judgment against David Stupnick, the correction officer who she alleges sexually abused her. Docket Item 135. Stupnick has not responded to that motion, and the time to do so has expired. See Docket Item 137.
For the reasons that follow, Castro's and Hanzlian's motion to dismiss is denied, and Stone #2's motion for a default judgment is granted in part.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND[2]
In June 2017, Stone #2 was incarcerated at the Albion Correctional Facility (“Albion”). Docket Item 56 at ¶ 236. She first encountered Stupnick, a correction officer at Albion, around that time. See id. Over the next twenty-some months, Stupnick pursued Stone #2 at Albion and eventually sexually abused her on a nightly basis. See id. at ¶¶ 236-75.
Sometime around August 2017, Stone #2 “was transferred to the ‘I1' dorm building.” Id. at ¶ 238. At that time, Stupnick worked the “7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. shift” at that dorm. Id. at ¶¶ 239-40. In fact, Stupnick “was the only officer assigned to the unit during his shift.” Id. at ¶ 241. After Stone #2 was moved to the I1 dorm, Stupnick “spent long periods of time during the day engaging [her] in personal conversations.” Id. at ¶ 243.
Stone #2 then was moved to the J2 dorm sometime around November 2017. Id. at ¶ 246. Although Stupnick was not assigned to work in the J2 dorm at that time, he worked the 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. shift in the adjacent J1 dorm. Id. at ¶¶ 247-48. The two dorms “were connected by a locked door that the correction officers could access with a key.” Id. at ¶ 248. After Stone #2's transfer to J2, Stupnick “continued to meet with [her] and spent long periods of time speaking with her at the officer's desk.” Id. at ¶ 249. Sometime around December 2017, Stupnick “kissed [] Stone #2 on the lips inside another inmate's cube in the J1 dorm.” Id. at ¶ 250.
In early 2018, Stone #2 transferred dorms again, this time to “the Mess Hall Dorm.” Id. at ¶ 251. Shortly after Stone #2 transferred there, Stupnick “swapped bids to work in her unit.” Id. at ¶ 252. And sometime after he began working in the Mess Hall Dorm, Stupnick kissed and digitally penetrated Stone #2. Id. at ¶¶ 252-55.
A few months later, that pattern recurred: Stone #2 again transferred dorms, and Stupnick again “swapp[ed] his bids in order to work” the afternoon and night shift in Stone #2's new dorm. Id. at ¶¶ 256-57. Each time Stupnick worked that shift, he “would take [] Stone #2 to a cube and digitally penetrate her vagina.” Id. at ¶ 258. Stupnick also began sending Stone #2 “intimate letters that were often sexual in nature.” Id. at ¶ 260.
In August 2018, Stone #2 was moved to another dorm-one where Stupnick worked twice a week. Id. at ¶¶ 261-62. After that move, Stupnick “engaged in illegal sexual conduct with [] Stone #2 in a cube or on the stairs leading up to the officer's desk every time he worked at [the dorm].” Id. at ¶ 263. At some point, Stupnick told Stone #2 “that other correction officers were advising him to give up his bid or to transfer to another facility because DOCCS staff were talking about the relationship.” Id. at ¶ 267.
Toward the end of 2018, Stupnick “began meeting [] Stone #2's sister outside [] the facility.” Id. at ¶ 268. Stupnick gave Stone #2's sister “approximately $100 a week to put into [] Stone #2's commissary account.”[3] Id. at ¶ 269. Stupnick also smuggled items into Albion to give to Stone #2, including cigarettes, nail polish, makeup, and a diamond heart-shaped necklace. Id. at ¶¶ 269-72. Stone #2 says that at some point, OSI recovered the diamond necklace. Id. at ¶ 273.
In early 2019, Stone #2 transferred dorms to another one of Stupnick's “regular posts.” Id. at ¶ 274. The abuse continued there, and by February 2019, Stupnick was “enter[ing] [] Stone #2's cube each night [to] ma[ke her] perform oral sex on him.” Id. at ¶ 275.
That month, another inmate in the dorm reported the “relationship” between Stupnick and Stone #2. Id. at ¶ 276. OSI investigators Castro and Hanzlian then summoned Stone #2 to the Albion administration building and asked her about her “relationship” with Stupnick. Id. at ¶¶ 277-78. Castro and Hanzlian told Stone #2 “that she had to talk, or they could charge her with felonies for receiving contraband.” Id. at ¶ 279. But Stone #2 “refused to speak to the investigators.” Id.
Over the next few days, Castro and Hanzlian summoned “dozens of [other] inmates to [the Albion administration building] to ask about the relationship between” Stupnick and Stone #2. Id. at ¶ 283. Stone #2 says that Stupnick's sexual abuse “was corroborated through those interviews.” Id. at ¶ 284. While that investigation was ongoing, however, Stupnick continued to work shifts in Stone #2's dorm. Id. at ¶ 285. And Stupnick continued to sexually abuse Stone #2 during that time, “direct[ing her] to perform oral sex on him at least three more times.” Id. at ¶ 286.
At the end of the month, Stone #2 met with Hanzlian and another OSI investigator. Id. at ¶ 287. The investigators “asked her again about the relationship with [] Stupnick and told her that she had to talk” or else “things ‘would only get worse from here.'” Id. at ¶ 288. The investigators also told her that someone had “searched her cell,” that they “had DNA evidence,” and that they “had dozens of statements from other inmates about the relationship.” Id. at ¶¶ 289-90. Stone #2, however, still “feared that she would be punished for her own victimization” and “wrote a statement denying the relationship.” Id. at ¶¶ 291-92.
Later that day, Stone #2 was moved from her dorm and Stupnick was informed that “he could not return to Albion.” Id. at ¶¶ 293-94. In May 2019, Stupnick confessed to sexually abusing Stone #2 and another inmate at Albion. Id. at ¶ 296. Stupnick then was charged with four counts of second-degree sexual abuse, two counts of third-degree criminal sexual acts, and two counts of official misconduct. Id. at ¶ 297. Eventually, Stone #2, who at that point had been transferred to the Taconic Correctional Facility, “provided a full statement about the relationship between herself and [] Stupnick.” Id. at ¶ 298.
“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.'” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “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. (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,' but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). “[A]lthough ‘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) (alterations and internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678).
“Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 55 is the basic procedure to be followed when there is a default in the course of litigation.” Vt. Teddy Bear Co. v. 1-800 Beargram Co., 373 F.3d 241, 246 (2d Cir. 2004). “Rule 55 provides a ‘two-step process' for the entry of judgment against a party who fails to defend: first, the entry of a default, and second, the entry of a default judgment.” City of New York v. Mickalis Pawn Shop, LLC, 645 F.3d 114, 128 (2d Cir. 2011) (quoting New York v. Green, 420 F.3d 99, 104 (2d Cir. 2005)). “[A] defendant who defaults thereby admits all ‘well-pleaded' factual allegations contained in the complaint.” Id. at 137 (citing Vt. Teddy Bear, 373 F.3d at 246). But “it is also true that a district court ‘need not agree that the alleged facts constitute a valid cause of action,'” and the Second Circuit has “suggested that, prior to entering default judgment, a district court is ‘required to determine whether the plaintiff's allegations establish the defendant's liability as a matter of law.'” Id. (alterations omitted) (first quoting Au Bon Pain Corp. v. Artect, Inc., 653 F.2d 61, 65 (2d Cir. 1981); then quoting Finkel v. Romanowicz, 577 F.3d 79, 84 (2d Cir. 2009)).
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