Tripati v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc.
| Decision Date | 14 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action 2:20-cv-00427 |
| Parties | ANANT KUMAR TRIPATI, Plaintiff, v. WEXFORD HEALTH SOURCES, INC., et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
ANANT KUMAR TRIPATI
All Counsel of Record
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Before the Court are motions to dismiss Plaintiff's Verified Second Amended Complaint filed by each of the Defendants. Also before the Court is Plaintiff's Motion for Leave to File a Verified Third Amended Complaint. For the reasons below, it is respectfully recommended that each of the motions to dismiss be granted and that Plaintiff's motion to file a Verified Third Amended Complaint be denied.
Plaintiff, Anant Kumar Tripati (“Plaintiff” or “Tripati”) is a state prisoner committed to the custody of the Arizona Department of Corrections (“ADOC”) and currently confined at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Yuma, Arizona. His projected release date is December 30, 2044. See https://corrections.az.gov/public-resources/inmate-datasearch (last visited 2/11/2022).[1] Tripati has been in an Arizona state prison since 1992 (ECF 141-15 at 4) and appears to have no ties to this forum.
Tripati is a well-known vexatious litigant who has filed lawsuits in multiple jurisdictions and who has been enjoined from filing frivolous and harassing claims in forma pauperis in certain courts. For example, in 2004, the Supreme Court of the United States ordered, “As petitioner has repeatedly abused this Court's process, the Clerk is directed not to accept any further petitions in noncriminal matters from petitioner unless the docketing fee required by Rule 38(a) is paid and petition submitted in compliance with Rule 33.1.” Tripati v. Schriro, 541 U.S. 1039 (2004). Similarly, the United States District Court for the District of Arizona has ordered the clerk of court not to accept for filing any original complaint or petition from Tripati except with the prior approval of a judge. In re Tripati, 891 F.2d 296 n.1 (table), 1989 WL 150100 (9th Cir. 1989). Tripati acknowledges he has incurred three or more strikes for purposes of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
This case was initiated on March 27, 2020, when Tripati filed a motion for leave to proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP Motion”). (ECF 1). Attached to the IFP Motion was a thirty-two page handwritten Verified Complaint, with approximately thirty-two (32) pages of exhibits. (ECF 1-3). The undersigned filed a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) recommending that the IFP motion be denied pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g) as the allegations of the complaint did not show that Tripati was in imminent danger of serious physical injury. (ECF 2). Tripati filed a response to the R&R stating that the R&R was “accurate” and that he would contact his family to pay the filing fee. (ECF 3). On April 24, 2020, the District Judge adopted the R&R and denied the IFP motion. (ECF 4).
Tripati then paid the full filing fee and the Complaint was filed on May 27, 2020. (ECF 6). Prior to service on any Defendant, Tripati requested leave to amend, which was granted, and Tripati filed a Verified First Amended Complaint on June 22, 2020. (ECF 14). In lieu of filing Answers, all Defendants filed Motions to Dismiss the Verified First Amended Complaint. In response to those motions, Tripati filed a Verified Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”) on March 29, 2021 (ECF 141), which remains his operative pleading.[2]
The SAC asserts six causes of action, includes 231 paragraphs of allegations than span sixty-one pages, cites to violations arising from various sources of law, including the United States Constitution, the United States Code, and Pennsylvania and Arizona state law, cites to findings from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, names approximately thirty-nine defendants, including third-party healthcare contractors, five law firms and their attorneys alleged to have represented the healthcare contractors in prior litigation; attorneys from the Arizona Office of Attorney General, and various Arizona Department of Corrections personnel. The Defendants reside in four states: Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Missouri, and Arizona. Attached to the SAC are eight-four exhibits, spanning 120 pages. Tripati also filed a Brief in support of his SAC comprised of twenty-five single-spaced typewritten pages. (ECF 142).
The SAC and the claims contained in it are difficult to follow. Even granting Tripati liberal considerations as a pro se litigant, it is difficult to identify specific allegations and legal theories as to many of the named defendants. It appears that Tripati's claims arose in 1998 and continue to the present. (SAC, at 6, Section B). He alleges, however, that he did not become aware of the claims until May 2018. (Id. at 7, Section C).
The first fifty-nine pages of the SAC contain conclusory allegations that a vast nationwide conspiracy exists in which the corporate health care providers and their counsel have systematically concealed “inculpatory evidence, ” including documents and information, in order to frustrate Tripati's prior prisoner cases and prevail in litigation.[3] (SAC, ¶¶ 90, 95-111). Tripati contends that Defendants engaged in these practices in order to prevail in litigation, to conceal evidence to make a profit, to violate his attorney client privilege, to retaliate against him, to abuse procedural devices, and to deny him access to evidence. (Id., ¶131, 189-197). He also claims that the Weber Gallagher Defendants designed this “scheme” and that the other Defendants have continued it. (Id., ¶139) For example, he alleges that the named law firms and their attorneys manufactured and concealed evidence and assembled template documents that contained false or misleading information about the practices of the healthcare providers during their representation of Wexford Health, Corizon, or Centurion of Arizona to frustrate prisoner litigation. He maintains that Wexford Health, Corizon, and Centurion, along with their legal counsel, are alter egos of each other because they have similar modes of operation and policies. (Id., ¶¶5, 6).
Tripati complains that he suffers from “high blood pressure, shakes, tremors, chronic pain, constipation, prostate issues, and allergies” and that the various medical providers have failed to adequately treat these issues. (Id., ¶160). He contends that the healthcare providers have “gone through the motions to treat me, ” but have not provided effective treatment. He states that in April 2012, he was provided effective treatment by Corizon through orders of Gabapentin every eight hours, prednisone, and a special diet and that the treatment was effective. However, he alleges that at some point this effective treatment stopped. (Id., ¶160(b)).
The SAC asserts these six causes of action:
As relief, Tripati seeks “compensation for lost property, seizure of legal material, lost right to seek per relief, compensation for lost claims/cases due to misconduct, costs, fees, other relief damages of $5, 000, 000 per defendant, punitive damages.” (SAC, ¶VI, Relief).
Defendants, instead of filing Answers to the SAC, filed these ten motions to dismiss:
Tripati filed responses in...
To continue reading
Request your trial