Stone v. Albert ( 2009 )

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
July 20, 2009
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
TENTH CIRCUIT
LAFAYETTE STONE,
Petitioner-Appellant, No. 08-2222
v. District of New Mexico
AARON ALBERT; CHRIS SANCHEZ; (D.C. No. 1:05-CV-01067-WJ-LCS)
FLOYD GONZALES; BLAIN WARRIOR;
ROBERT FUENTES; FRANK MAESTAS;
CRAIG FOSTER; JEREMY MAESTAS;
MARCUS GULIN; ROY HARTMAN;
RAY GONZALES; M. GARCIA; J.
BACA; S. CORDOVA; OFFICER
SCOOTER; CHARLES POOLE; RUBEN
PADILLA; LOUIS HERNANDEZ;
SCOTT RICHTER; MIKE ALVARADO;
P. LAVILLA; JUDY LUJAN;
CHRISTINA ROMERO; JANE DOE;
WILLIAM SHANNON, all defendants in
their individual capacities,
Respondents-Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before LUCERO, MURPHY and McCONNELL, Circuit Judges.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th
Cir. R. 32.1.
Lafayette Stone, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, brought a § 1983 civil
rights action against a number of officials at the Bernalillo County Metropolitan
Detention Center, alleging that he was subjected to excessive force during a prison
disturbance and subsequently denied adequate medical care in violation of the Eighth
Amendment. In a previous appeal, we affirmed the dismissal of the excessive force
claims, leaving only the claim for denial of medical care. See Stone v. Albert, 257
Fed. App’x 96 (10th Cir. 2007). The district court then dismissed the medical care
claim without prejudice after Mr. Stone failed to identify specific individuals who
denied him medical treatment. Mr. Stone appeals that dismissal, arguing that the
district court ignored an amended complaint in which he identified Dr. William
Shannon as a defendant. We now affirm.
BACKGROUND
In 2005, Mr. Stone filed a complaint against a large number of Bernalillo
County Metropolitan Detention Center personnel in which he alleged that he was
subjected to excessive force during a 2003 prison disturbance and then denied
adequate medical care for his injuries. Although he listed about two dozen
defendants, only seven were properly served, and these seven had nothing to do with
Mr. Stone’s medical care. See Stone, 257 Fed. App’x at 97–98. The district court
dismissed the excessive force claims for failure to exhaust, and we affirmed. Id. at
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100–01. That left only the medical care claims before the district court. The
problem was that these were claims without any identifiable defendants.
On January 23, 2008, the district court ordered Mr. Stone to identify the
specific individuals who allegedly denied him medical treatment so that they could
be served. Mr. Stone responded that he would need to conduct medical discovery in
order to discover the individuals’ identities. On March 24, 2008, the magistrate
judge ordered the defendants who had been successfully served to assist Mr. Stone
by filing a Martinez report. See Martinez v. Aaron, 570 F.2d 317 (10th Cir. 1978).
The defendants complied, even though they had already been dismissed from the
case. Even with this information, Mr. Stone was unable to identify any additional
defendant for service and filed a Motion for More Specific Discovery on May 28,
2008. The magistrate judge characterized that motion as “asking the Court to do
discovery for the Plaintiff.” Rep. & Rec. 2. As Mr. Stone had already had months to
identify the individuals who allegedly provided inadequate treatment, as well as the
assistance of the Martinez report, the magistrate judge recommended that the motion
for more specific discovery be denied and the claim dismissed without prejudice.
Before the district court could consider the recommendation, Mr. Stone filed
an amended complaint in which he specifically identified Dr. William Shannon, the
medical director at the correctional facility, as a defendant. R. 262. He alleged that
Dr. Shannon was the “doctor/medical director so he was in charge of the medical
service at the time.” R. 263. In his objections to the magistrate judge’s report and
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recommendation, he elaborated slightly on his allegations against Dr. Shannon,
claiming that “with those titles by his name he should know or could know that
plaintiff was being denied adequate medical care.” R. 275. The district court
nonetheless issued an order adopting the magistrate judge’s report and dismissing
Mr. Stone’s claims without prejudice. It addressed Mr. Stone’s attempt to amend his
complaint to add Dr. Shannon, saying that “[w]hile Plaintiff does attempt to add a
Dr. William Shannon to an Amended Complaint,” he “makes no effort to comply
with my order to identify supporting factual allegations for his medical claim.” Dist.
Or. 1, n.1. Mr. Stone has appealed on the ground that he identified a specific
individual in his amended complaint and that the district court therefore erred in
dismissing his claim.
DISCUSSION
To state a claim, a complaint must “make clear exactly who is alleged to have
done what to whom.” Robbins v. Oklahoma, 519 F.3d 1242, 1250 (10th Cir. 2008).
“[C]ollective allegations against the state” are not sufficient in a § 1983 claim; a
plaintiff must identify who exactly injured him and then join that party as a
defendant. Id. Mr. Stone does not challenge the fact that his complaint must
identify specific defendants. He simply claims that he has done so by amending his
complaint to include Dr. Shannon.
The difficulty is that in order to state a claim, a plaintiff must do more than
allege a constitutional violation; he must allege “an ‘affirmative link’ between each
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defendant and the constitutional deprivation.” Duffield v. Jackson, 545 F.3d 1234,
1238 (10th Cir. 2008) (quoting Green v. Branson, 108 F.3d 1296, 1302 (10th Cir.
1997)). And as we said in Duffield, which also involved a claim that prison officials
violated an inmate’s Eighth Amendment rights by denying adequate medical care,
“supervisor status is not sufficient to create § 1983 liability.” Id. at 1239. Mr.
Stone’s complaint alleges no fact that, if true, shows Dr. Shannon’s involvement in
the alleged denial of medical care. He has quite explicitly stated that the basis for
his claim against Dr. Shannon is the fact that Dr. Shannon was the medical director
at the prison and that “with those titles by his name he should know or could know
that plaintiff was being denied adequate medical care.” R. 275. Mr. Stone thus
alleges that Dr. Shannon is responsible for any constitutional violation simply
because of his status as supervisor of the prison’s medical department. As that status
alone is legally insufficient to establish an affirmative link between a defendant and
an Eighth Amendment violation, the district court was correct to find that Mr. Stone
had failed to state a claim against Dr. Shannon.
CONCLUSION
As Mr. Stone has been unable to identify any individual for whom he can
allege an affirmative link to his denial of medical care in violation of the Eighth
Amendment, we AFFIRM the district court’s decision to dismiss his claim without
prejudice. Mr. Stone’s motion to proceed without prepayment of costs and fees is
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GRANTED. He is reminded to continue to make partial payments until the fee is
paid in full.
Entered for the Court,
Michael W. McConnell
Circuit Judge
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