Whittaker v. W.Va. Div. of Corr. & Rehab.

• Decision Date: 03 November 2022
• Docket Number: Civil Action 2:22-cv-00167
• Parties: RICHARD WITTAKER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. WEST VIRGINIA DIVISION OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia

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RICHARD WITTAKER, et al., Plaintiffs, v. WEST VIRGINIA DIVISION OF CORRECTIONS AND REHABILITATION, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 2:22-cv-00167

United States District Court, S.D. West Virginia, Charleston Division

November 3, 2022

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

THOMAS E. JOHNSTON CHIEF JUDGE

Pending before the Court is a Motion to Dismiss filed by Defendants Dakota Dove (“Dove”), Angela Athey (“Athey”), and Larry Warden (“Warden”) (collectively “Individual Defendants”). (ECF No. 10.) For the reasons discussed below, the motion is DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND

This action arises out of the death of Mr. Kevin B. Whittaker (“Decedent”) while he was incarcerated in the Southern Regional Jail (“SRJ”) in Beckley, West Virginia. (ECF No. 1-1 at 1, ¶ 1.) According to the Second Amended Complaint, the Decedent was incarcerated at SRJ on or about February 16, 2019. (ECF No. 1-1 at 3, ¶ 9.) After the intake screening process, the Decedent was placed in general population in C-pod section 4, cell 12. (Id., ¶ 12.) Then, three inmates allegedly entered the Decedent's cell and “savagely beat him” between approximately 8:36 and 8:46 p.m. (Id. at 5, ¶ 18-19.)

Plaintiff Richard Whittaker (“Plaintiff”), as the Administrator of the Estate of Kevin B. Whittaker, commenced this action against the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“WVDCR”) on December 13 2019, in the Circuit Court of Kanawha County. (ECF No. 1 at 1, ¶ 2.) In December 2021, Plaintiff filed a Second Amended Complaint against the WVDCR and the Individual Defendants. (See id., ¶ 4.) On April 7, 2022 Defendants removed this matter to this Court. (See generally id.)

The Second Amended Complaint asserts two causes of action. Count One is a claim for “Malicious Conduct,” asserted against the WVDCR. (ECF No. 1-1 at 10; see also id. at 1 (“This civil action is brought against the [WVDCR] for malicious conduct.”).) Count Two is a claim brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for alleged violations of the Eighth Amendment, asserted against the Individual Defendants. (Id. at 11; see also id. at 1 (“This cause of action i[s] brought against Dakota Dove, Angela Athey, and Larry Warden for civil rights violations ....”).) However, the Count dismissed Count One, as well as Count Two against Defendants Athey and Warden, in previous orders. (See ECF Nos. 3, 8.) Thus, only Count Two against Defendant Dove remains.

The Individual Defendants filed the pending motion to dismiss on May 16, 2022.^[1] (ECF No. 10.) To date, Plaintiff has not filed a response. As such, this motion is fully briefed and ripe for adjudication.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted tests the legal sufficiency of a civil complaint. Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6). A plaintiff must allege sufficient facts, which, if proven, would entitle him to relief under a cognizable legal claim. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 554-55 (2007). A case should be dismissed if, viewing the well-pleaded factual allegations in the complaint as true and in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the complaint does not contain “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Id. at 570. In applying this standard, a court must utilize a two-pronged approach. First, it must separate the legal conclusions in the complaint from the factual allegations. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Second, assuming the truth of only the factual allegations, the court must determine whether the plaintiff's complaint permits a reasonable inference that “the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. Well-pleaded factual allegations are required; labels, conclusions, and a “formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; see also King v. Rubenstein, 825 F.3d 206, 214 (4th Cir. 2016) (“Bare legal conclusions ‘are not entitled to the assumption of truth' and are insufficient to state a claim.” (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679)). A plaintiff's “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level,” thereby “nudg[ing] [the] claims across the line from conceivable to plausible.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 570.

III. DISCUSSION

Count Two of the Second Amended Complaint asserts a claim against Defendant Dove,^[2]pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need, in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States. (ECF No. 1-1.) In the pending motion to dismiss, Defendant Dove argues that his actions do not amount to a constitutional violation and that he is entitled to qualified immunity. (ECF No. 11.)

Section 1983 subjects to civil liability any person who, acting under color of state law, deprives an individual of his or her constitutional or federal rights. 42 U.S.C. § 1983; see also Lester v. Gilbert, 85 F.Supp.3d 851, 857 (S.D. W.Va. 2015) (citing Am. Mfrs. Mut. Ins. Co. v. Sullivan, 526 U.S. 40, 49 (1999)). Qualified immunity is “an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985). Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, “[g]overnmental officials performing discretionary functions are shielded from liability for money damages so long ‘as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.'” Maciariello v. Sumner, 973 F.2d 295, 298 (4th Cir. 1992) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)).

Thus, the Court must undertake a two-part inquiry: (1) viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the Plaintiff, the Court must determine if there was a constitutional violation; and (2) if so, whether the right violated was clearly established at the time of the violation. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009). If the answer to either question is no, then Defendant Dove is entitled to qualified immunity.

A. Constitutional Violation

“The Eighth Amendment, which applies to the States through the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, prohibits the infliction of ‘cruel and unusual punishments' on those convicted of crimes.” Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 297-98 (1991). An Eighth Amendment claim based on deliberate indifference to serious medical needs has two prongs, one objective and one subjective. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994); De'lonta v. Johnson, 708 F.3d 520, 525 (4th Cir. 2013); see also White by White v. Chambliss, 112 F.3d 731, 737 (4th Cir. 1997) (“[D]eliberate indifference, . . . implies at a minimum that defendants were plainly placed on notice of a danger and chose to ignore the danger notwithstanding the notice.”).

“Objectively, the inmate's medical condition must be ‘serious'-‘one that has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment or one that is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor's attention.'” Jackson v. Lightsey, 775 F.3d 170, 178 (4th Cir. 2014) (quoting Iko v. Shreve, 535 F.3d 225, 241 (4th Cir. 2008)).

The subjective prong goes to culpability, and in “prison-conditions cases that state of mind is one of ‘deliberate indifference' to inmate health or safety.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834 (quoting Wilson, 501 U.S. at 302-03). To prove a prison official acted with deliberate indifference, a plaintiff must establish that the official “[knew] of and disregard[ed] an excessive risk to inmate health and safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.” Id. at 837; see Thorpe v. Clarke, 37 F.4th 926, 933 (4th Cir. 2022); Mays v. Sprinkle, 992 F.3d 295, 300 (4th Cir. 2021) (citation omitted) (finding that “deliberate indifference requires that the official have ‘had actual subjective knowledge of both the inmate's serious medical condition and the excessive risk posed by the official's action or inaction'”); DePaola v. Clarke, 884 F.3d 481, 486 (4th Cir. 2018). Such indifference can be displayed, through the response to an inmate's medical needs, “including ignoring an inmate's serious condition or delaying medically necessary treatment.” Abraham v. McDonald, 493 Fed.Appx. 465, 466 (4th Cir. 2012) (citing Estelle, 429 U.S. at 105-06). “Deliberate indifference is ‘more than mere negligence,' but ‘less than acts of omissions [done] for the very purpose of causing harm or with knowledge that harm will result.'” Scinto, 841 F.3d at 225 (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837); Jackson v. Lightsey, 775 F.3d 170, 178 (4th Cir. 2014) (holding that deliberate indifference “is a higher standard for culpability than mere negligence or even civil recklessness”). This standard can be satisfied by “prov[ing] by circumstantial evidence that the risk was so obvious that it had to have been known.” Makdessi v. Fields, 789 F.3d 126, 136 (4th Cir. 2015); see also Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842-43 (explaining that knowledge of a substantial risk of danger may be inferred “from the very fact that the risk was obvious”); Brice v. Va. Beach Corr. Ctr., 58 F.3d 101, 105 (4th Cir. 1995) (“[A]n injury might be so obvious that the factfinder could conclude that the [prison official] did know of it because he could not have failed to know of it.”).

In this case, Defendant Dove testified that he checked on the Decedent at 7:45 p.m., and found the Decedent was fine.^[3] (ECF No. 1-1 at 3, ¶ 15; see also ECF No. 1-3 at 76.) Then, Plaintiff claims that three inmates entered the Decedent's cell and assaulted him between approximately 8:36 and 8:46 p.m. (Id. at 5, ¶ 18-19.) After that, the Decedent's cellmate allegedly stated that the Decedent was crying and had blood and knots on his...