Warzek v. Valley State Prison

Decision Date15 September 2022
Docket Number1:20-cv-00027-ADA-GSA-PC
PartiesMICHAEL WARZEK, Plaintiff, v. VALLEY STATE PRISON, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Eastern District of California

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS, RECOMMENDING THAT DEFENDANTS' RULE 12(b)(6) MOTION TO DISMISS BE GRANTED IN PART, WITH LEAVE TO AMEND (ECF No. 22.) OBJECTIONS, IF ANY DUE WITHIN FOURTEEN (14) DAYS

GARY S. AUSTIN UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Michael Warzek is a state prisoner proceeding pro se with this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. On December 26, 2019, fifteen plaintiffs, including Plaintiff Michael Warzek, filed the Complaint commencing this action against Valley State Prison (VSP), et al., for subjecting them to adverse conditions of confinement in violation of the Eighth Amendment by serving substandard food in Kosher meals at VSP. (ECF No. 2.)

On January 7, 2020, the court issued an order severing the fifteen plaintiffs' claims and opening new cases for individual plaintiffs. (ECF No. 1.) Each of the fifteen plaintiffs was ordered to file an amended complaint in his own case within thirty days. (Id.) On February 4 2020, Plaintiff Michael Warzek filed a First Amended Complaint in this case. (ECF No. 4.)

This case now proceeds with the First Amended Complaint against defendants Warden Raythel Fisher, Jr., Officer Paez, and Culinary Staff Members Anguiano, Chapas, Lucero, Marquez, Cruz, and Moosbauer[1] (Defendants) for violation of RLUIPA, violation of the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause, and unconstitutional conditions of confinement in violation of the Eighth Amendment; against defendants Warden Raythel Fisher, Jr. and Culinary Staff Member Moosbauer for failure to protect plaintiff from harm to his health from the Kosher foods served to him, in violation of the Eighth Amendment; and against defendant Culinary Staff Member Moosbauer for retaliation in violation of the First Amendment. (ECF No. 4.)[2]

On January 27, 2022, Defendants filed a motion to dismiss this case under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) and 12(b)(6). (ECF No. 22.) On June 9, 2022, Plaintiff filed an opposition to the motion. (ECF No. 32.) On June 17, 2022, Defendants filed a reply to the opposition. (ECF No. 33.) Defendants' motion is deemed submitted. Local Rule 230(l).

II. PLAINTIFF'S ALLEGATIONS

Plaintiff is currently incarcerated at Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California, in the custody of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), where the events at issue in the First Amended Complaint allegedly took place.

Plaintiff's allegations follow:

1. Rotten, spoiled, and otherwise unfit for human consumption food is being served in the Kosher diets. The meals are regularly served half-cooked/prepared - in particular, meat. When brought to the attention of the Culinary Supervisor Cook (CSC) and CSC II staff, the meals are not replaced.

Weekly, the Shabbat dinner is served with spoiled meat. The meat is supposed to be vacuum sealed but is served to Plaintiff open and with mold growing on it. When eaten, the meat causes illness, and Plaintiff has suffered sickness from being served these meats by Defendants. Similar sickness is caused by other meats when served uncooked or opened.

The turkey served in lunches is unfit for human consumption. It has been denatured by having bone ground into it. The sharp and relatively large bone shards cause damage to Plaintiff's teeth and lacerations to Plaintiff's mouth and throat.

The Kosher meal stock is delivered in a manner that causes the frozen food to spoil. It is taken from the refrigerated delivery truck and left unrefrigerated in the open sun and out in the elements at the docking area for entire shifts. Staff at the warehouse/central kitchen and culinary staff do not want to inventory the meals upon arrival. After approximately ten hours, the items are finally inventoried and re-frozen. Upon need of the meals, they are again left out in the elements and sun as they are transferred, where they spoil further and are refrigerated again for serving on the following day.

The internal components of the meals are open, spoiled, and otherwise contaminated. Items that are sealed, such as applesauce, cream cheese, chips, bagels, and fruit cups, are either opened by bacterial growth or by mechanical means such as crushing and then allowed to fester. When revealed to CSC staff by Plaintiff, no correction follows.

Items in the Kosher meals are stolen by inmate culinary workers. When this problem is taken directly to CSC staff by Plaintiff, Plaintiff is told, “Too bad,” and left without the stolen parts of the meal. In addition, when stolen items are reported to custody staff, threats of rules violations reports being issued against Plaintiff is used as a tool of reprisal and threat, to prevent further speech on the issue. Threats of violence by inmate workers against Plaintiff is also used, and correctional and custodial staff refuse to protect Plaintiff from the threats of violence. Culinary workers intentionally wear their serving gloves to the restroom and touch their “dirty dick” with their hands prior to serving the meals. CSC and custodial staff refuse to address the issue.

2. Food is transported, opened, and cooked in shared ovens and carts that are used for non-Kosher foods. Kosher foods must be double-sealed or they are contaminated. However, daily the seals on the food are breached, either by failures during a transportation process, such as crushing and popping open of the meals, or by intentional actions of persons stealing the contents of meals. These meals are served to Plaintiff and rendered non-Kosher. These meals are cooked in ovens used to cook non-Kosher food, even at the same time, rendering the food nonKosher.

The sole Jewish worker, when objecting to this practice, is told by his supervisor, defendant Moosebaur, to “get into the oven” while it is still hot. Defendant Moosebaur openly states that his grandfather was a German SS, wishing that all the Jews had been killed in the Holocaust.

Then the food is transported in shared carts and stored in the same shared carts with the meals open, served at the same time and placed with the non-Kosher food. The Kosher-only oven was redirected for use for regular meals, so all meals are cooked together and the Kosher oven has not been replaced.

3. The culinary workers are not trained in the procedures mandated by the California Retail Food Code, nor by a Rabbi (necessary to serve Kosher food). The issue of training has been raised repeatedly and ignored by VSP administration as well as by the CSC staff (Defendants). The procedures for Kosher foods change every few days, perhaps not “officially,” but in effect. Actual procedures are ignored and cause Plaintiff to be served non-Kosher and contaminated food.

4. Kosher meals are served in communal areas, wherein the tables are unclean both ritually and literally. The same dirty rags are used to clean the non-Kosher food and then used to clean the Kosher Diet Program (KDP) tables (when they exist), leaving chunks of non-Kosher meals smeared across the tables daily. The promised Kosher utensils are not provided and Plaintiff is required to cook many items because they are served uncooked/unprepared, but Plaintiff is not permitted by correctional staff and VSP administration to return the item to his housing unit to prepare it. The separation of Glatt (meat) and Dairy requires the use of separate utensils, and the separation of Passover Kosher from annual/regular Kosher meals requires separate utensils. Cleaning of plastic utensils is unfeasible and therefore disposable utensils are supposed to be issued daily by Defendants but are not, further creating a barrier to the observance of Kosher by Plaintiff. On fasting days when Plaintiff receives his meals for the conclusion of the fast (three meals issued at one time), Plaintiff is instructed by both correctional and CSC staff to eat all the meals during the fasting hours or discard the meals. In this way, Plaintiff is not permitted to observe fasting holidays.

5. When foods are rendered non-Kosher, CSC staff refuse to replace the meal. When the meal is uncooked/unprepared/frozen, CSC staff refuse to replace the meal. In both scenarios, custodial staff refuses to allow a call for a supervisor by use of threats and intimidation. Both hot dinner and breakfast trays are served frozen. Items that are not to be frozen (refrigerate-only items such as mayonnaise or cream cheese, other fluid items such as applesauce or jelly that when frozen explode in the meals and cannot be eaten, like a soda placed into a freezer) are served daily but are inedible and not replaced, leaving Plaintiff with less of a meal than is reported on the menu.

While the hexure (Kosher certification) of the meals is considered Kosher by some, it does not meet the full standards of Orthodox Kosher. The meals are delivered with tape that reads, “If tape is removed, Kosher status may be voided.” This tape is disturbed on at least six (6) cases of meals per pallet, the contents of which are damaged and opened at the institution warehouse. Main kitchen staff refuse to fix the issue despite repeated efforts by Plaintiff to fix the problem. Plaintiff is then served the non-Kosher meals by culinary Defendants.

6. The served foods do not match the approved menu foods, neither by name nor quantity. Three-ounce bagels have been permanently replaced by 2-ounce or 2.5-ounce bagels. Replacements are the usual occurrence, and the very limited variety of foods is worsened when the few items are replaced with duplicates from the previous day. For example, on bagel day the bagels are stolen by culinary staff (inmates, despite efforts by Pla...

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