Walker v. Schult, 9:11-CV-287
| Decision Date | 13 March 2019 |
| Docket Number | 9:11-CV-287 |
| Citation | 365 F.Supp.3d 266 |
| Parties | Ellis WALKER, Plaintiff, v. Deborah G. SCHULT, Warden, FCI Ray Brook, Russell Perdue, Warden, FCI Ray Brook, and Sepanek, Counselor, FCI Ray Brook, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York |
LATHAM, WATKINS LAW FIRM, Attorneys for Plaintiff, 885 Third Avenue, Suite 1000, New York, NY 10022, OF COUNSEL: BLAKE T. DENTON, ESQ., ELIZABETH A. MORRIS, ESQ., ERIC M. BROAD, ESQ., GREGORY S. MORTENSON, ESQ., LEAH FRIEDMAN, ESQ., MEGAN A. BEHRMAN, ESQ., RONALD A. WESTGATE, III, ESQ., SHARON M. CASOLA, ESQ., WILLIAM O. RECKLER, ESQ.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Specialized Tort Litigation, Attorneys for Defendants, 1425 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005, OF COUNSEL: JAMES G. BARTOLOTTO, ESQ., KELLY E. HEIDRICH, ESQ.
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Civil Division, Attorneys for Defendants, P.O. Box 7146, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044, OF COUNSEL: JEAN M. CUNNINGHAM, ESQ.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
II. BACKGROUND...274
IV. DISCUSSION...277
I. INTRODUCTION
On March 16, 2011, plaintiff Ellis Walker ("Walker" or "plaintiff"), proceeding pro se, filed this action alleging that various officials employed by the Federal Bureau of Prisons ("BOP") violated his Eighth Amendment rights.
According to the complaint, defendants Warden Deborah G. Schult ("Warden Shult"), Warden Russell Perdue ("Warden Perdue"), and Counselor Jackii Sepanek ("Counselor Sepanek") (collectively "defendants")1 forced Walker to endure hazardous, unsanitary conditions in a dangerous, overcrowded prison cell at the Federal Correctional Institution in Ray Brook, New York ("FCI Ray Brook").
On August 25, 2011, defendants moved to dismiss Walker's complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("Rule") 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). Defendants argued that plaintiff failed to: (1) exhaust his administrative remedies; (2) adequately plead an Eighth Amendment claim; or (3) sufficiently allege the personal involvement of the named defendants. Defendants further argued that qualified immunity shielded them from liability.
On January 20, 2012, U.S. Magistrate Judge Randolph F. Treece filed a Report–Recommendation and Order in which he: (1) construed plaintiff's complaint as one filed under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971)2 ; (2) declined to conclude plaintiff failed to administratively exhaust; but nevertheless (3) agreed that plaintiff failed to state an Eighth Amendment claim, concluding in the alternative that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity as to some of the conduct alleged. Walker v. Schult, 2012 WL 1037441 (N.D.N.Y. Jan. 20, 2012).
On February 27, 2012, still pro se, Walker filed several objections to Judge Treece's Report–Recommendation and Order. Those objections were overruled by Senior U.S. District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn, who adopted in full the Report–Recommendation and Order and dismissed plaintiff's complaint. Walker v. Schult, 2012 WL 1037442 (N.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2012). Plaintiff appealed.3
On May 23, 2013, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the dismissal of Walker's complaint. Walker v. Schult, 717 F.3d 119 (2d Cir. 2013). As relevant here, the panel held that:
the district court erred by dismissing Walker's complaint for failure to state a claim. First, he plausibly alleged conditions that, perhaps alone and certainly in combination, deprived him of a minimal civilized measure of life's necessities. Second, he plausibly alleged that defendants were deliberately indifferent to this deprivation. Third, he plausibly alleged violations of clearly established rights.
On June 11, 2014, following limited discovery, defendants moved under Rule 56 for partial summary judgment on the basis that Walker failed to exhaust his administrative remedies in accordance with the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), which requires a plaintiff to comply with available prison grievance procedures as a precondition to bringing suit. Notably, defendants' briefing advanced the notion that plaintiff failed to properly exhaust each of twelve distinct claims.
On October 15, 2014, Judge Treece filed a Report–Recommendation and Order rejecting defendants' characterization of Walker's complaint, observing that the "stirring description" of cell conditions set forth by plaintiff was not "merely an array of discrete allegations and independent claims" but instead "one overarching Eighth Amendment conditions of confinement claim."
Judge Treece therefore recommended denying defendants' motion because Walker "procedurally and substantively complied" with the grievance process as to this single, overarching claim even though he did not individually "grieve every single fact or issue he encountered stemming from or exacerbated by his incarceration in an overcrowded cell."
On November 3, 2014, defendants objected to the portion of Judge Treece's Report–Recommendation and Order that concluded Walker asserted, and then properly exhausted, "one overarching conditions-of-confinement claim." Those objections were overruled by Judge Kahn, who adopted in full the Report–Recommendation and Order and denied defendants' motion for partial summary judgment on exhaustion. Walker v. Schult, 2014 WL 7014674 (N.D.N.Y. Dec. 11, 2014).
On November 30, 2015, following the remainder of discovery, defendants again moved under Rule 56 seeking summary judgment. This time around, defendants argued Walker failed to marshal sufficient evidence to succeed on the merits of his Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim. In the alternative, defendants renewed their assertion that qualified immunity shielded them from individual liability. Judge Kahn rejected those arguments and denied defendants' motion. Walker v. Schult, 2016 WL 4203536 (N.D.N.Y. Aug. 9, 2016).
On October 11, 2016, defendants noticed an interlocutory appeal from Judge Kahn's Memorandum–Decision & Order denying summary judgment (presumably on the immunity issue), but later moved to voluntarily dismiss that appeal in favor of taking the case to trial. Schult v. Walker, 2016 WL 9819317 (2d Cir. Oct. 18, 2016). Thereafter, Judge Kahn transferred the matter to Senior U.S. District Judge Thomas J. McAvoy.
On September 27, 2017, Walker's case was reassigned to this Court. The parties have filed or renewed motions seeking various rulings in advance of the trial, which is now re-set for May 13, 2019 in Utica, New York. The motions have been fully briefed and will be considered on the basis of the submissions without oral argument.
II. BACKGROUND 4
On November 18, 2008, Walker arrived at FCI Ray Brook, where Counselor Sepanek assigned him to the top bunk of a bed in Cell 127 in the Mohawk Unit B building. Although intended to house only four adult male inmates, defendants used Cell 127 to hold six men for most of the roughly two and a half years plaintiff spent confined at the facility.
During this period, Walker shared the overcrowded accommodations in Cell 127 with a rotating cast of cellmates. According to plaintiff, the fully occupied cell afforded each man fewer than seventeen square feet of space, a number which falls significantly below the relevant minimum standards outlined by the American Correctional Association ("ACA").
Walker claims the taxing conditions in Cell 127 led to violence, sleep deprivation, and sanitation problems. According to plaintiff, inadequate ventilation and extreme swings in temperature exacerbated this state of affairs. Plaintiff alleges that even though he repeatedly complained about the conditions in Cell 127, no named defendant ever investigated the matter or took meaningful steps to remedy the problems. Instead, plaintiff received boilerplate denials to his written grievances, including two signed by Warden Schult and Counselor Sepanek. Plaintiff's ordeal ended in April 2011, when authorities transferred him to another facility.
Defendants see things differently, of course. They claim that virtually all of the conditions about which Walker complains were standard features of BOP-run prisons that the named defendants were powerless to change. And while they acknowledge he spent time at FCI Ray Brook in Cell 127 with various other inmates, they insist plaintiff must be exaggerating his story—after all, he waited well over a year before he filed any grievances about the conditions in his cell. They also note that although all the remaining defendants were employed at FCI Ray Brook for at least some of the relevant time period, Warden Perdue only overlapped with the final few weeks of plaintiff's stay. According to defendants, only Counselor Sepanek actually worked in plaintiff's housing unit.
III. LEGAL STANDARDS
"As a general matter, all relevant evidence is admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence unless specifically excluded." United States v. Perez, 387 F.3d 201, 209 (2d Cir. 2004) (Cardamone, J.) (citing FED. R. EVID. 402 ). Evidence is "relevant" if (a) "it has any...
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...have been any more informative than reviewing the evidence introduced at trial. 873 F.Supp.2d 418 (D.N.H., 2012). 8 Walker v. Schult , 365 F.Supp.3d 266, 108 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1297 (United States District Court, N.D. New York, 2019). The standard for determining whether evidence is releva......
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...have been any more informative than reviewing the evidence introduced at trial. 873 F.Supp.2d 418 (D.N.H., 2012). 8 Walker v. Schult , 365 F.Supp.3d 266, 108 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1297 (United States District Court, N.D. New York, 2019). The standard for determining whether evidence is releva......
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Views
...have been any more informative than reviewing the evidence introduced at trial. 873 F.Supp.2d 418 (D.N.H., 2012). 8 Walker v. Schult , 365 F.Supp.3d 266, 108 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1297 (United States District Court, N.D. New York, 2019). The standard for determining whether evidence is releva......