Salley v. Secretary Pennsylvania Department of Corrections , 565 F. App'x 77 ( 2014 )

DLD-218 NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 13-3851
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ALFONZO B. SALLEY,
Appellant
v.
SECRETARY PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS;
SUPERINTENDENT MAHANOY SCI; BRENDA L. TRITT, Deputy Superintendent;
DORINA VARNER, Chief Grievance Officer of the PA DOC;
ROBIN M. LEWIS, Chief Hearing Examiner of the DOC; GOVERNOR;
JOHN DAMORE; PENNSYLVANIA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS;
SHIRLEY R. SMEAL-MOORE; JAMES C. BARNACLE; BERNADETTE MASON;
SCOTT MILLER; S. LUGUIS; HUGH BEGGS; MICHAEL J. VUKSTA;
CHCA MARVA J. CERULLO; FILIPE ARIAS; JOHN LISIAK;
RICHARD ANNUZZO; ANTHONY IANNUZZI; AMY ALBERTSON;
RICHARD L. SPAIDE; Sgt. WOJCIECHOWSKI; TARIS; Captain SORBER;
Lt. DANIEL MALICK; Lt. SHOEMAKER; RACHEL HARRING;
CO. MICHAEL HUBEN; CO. J. J. DEIVERT; CO. E. F. KABILKO; M. A. FANELLI;
CO. K. S. RAKUS; CO. R. J. RUSHTON; Sgt. GORMEY; CO. S. LEACHEY;
BECK, Doctor; Sgt. MEYER; RICHARD MOYER; MICHAEL KLOPOTOSKI;
RANDALL E. BRITTON; JOHN MURRAY
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil No. 12-cv-01515)
District Judge: Honorable Malachy E. Mannion
____________________________________
Submitted for Possible Dismissal Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)
or Summary Action Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6
April 3, 2014
Before: SMITH, HARDIMAN and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges
(Opinion filed: May 1, 2014)
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OPINION
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PER CURIAM
Appellant, Alfonzo Salley, appeals the District Court’s order dismissing his pro se
amended complaint. Upon consideration of the record, we conclude that the District
Court properly determined that Salley’s amended complaint was subject to summary
dismissal. Because the appeal presents no substantial question, we will affirm the
judgment of the District Court.
In August 2012, Salley filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the
United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, together with
motions seeking leave to proceed in forma pauperis and for the appointment of counsel.
The complaint was thirty-three pages in length (handwritten and single-spaced) and
named six defendants. Salley also filed motions seeking various forms of injunctive
relief. The Magistrate Judge to whom the complaint was referred described Salley’s
complaint as “unmanageable,” noting that it contained claims that were unrelated and
jumped from one defendant to another and from one year to another in no particular
chronological order. The Magistrate Judge concluded that Salley impermissibly
attempted to join all defendants and all claims in one action contrary to Fed. R. Civ. P.
20(a). Salley’s request for counsel was denied, and he was afforded an opportunity to file
an amended complaint in conformity with Rule 20(a). He was admonished that the
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amended complaint was to be limited with respect to the named defendants to only those
claims arising out of the same transaction or occurrence or series of transactions or
occurrences, and having questions of law or fact common to all defendants and claims.
Salley was also advised that the amended complaint must be “simple, concise and direct”
as required by Fed. R. Civ. P. 8. He was further instructed to file separate civil actions
and in forma pauperis motions for any unrelated claims.
After requesting and being granted two extensions, Salley filed an amended
complaint. In apparent disregard of the Magistrate Judge’s instructions, Salley submitted
an amended complaint that was thirty-seven handwritten, single-spaced pages, included
numerous exhibits and named seventy-three defendants against whom he sought damages
as well as various forms of injunctive and non-monetary relief. See Magistrate Judge’s
Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) at 6-7. The Magistrate Judge did an admirable
job in dissecting Salley’s voluminous document, and we set forth a summary description
of the claims extracted from the amended complaint here. The main allegation of
Salley’s complaint is that the defendants, including employees at all levels of the
Pennsylvania Department of Corrections as well as Federal District Court Judge Sylvia
Rambo and former Federal Magistrate Judge Andrew Smyser, are involved in a vast
conspiracy, dating back to 1998, to retaliate against him for the filing of past grievances
and lawsuits. In addition to the many named defendants, this conspiracy claim spans
numerous prisons operated by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections – including
SCI-Graterford, SCI-Pittsburgh, SCI-Huntingdon, SCI-Greene, SCI-Camp Hill, SCI-
Fayette, SCI-Forest, SCI-Smithfield, SCI-Mahonoy and SCI-Houtzdale, and has
3
allegedly led to countless violations of Salley’s First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment
rights. See id.7-8, 10. The retaliation experienced by Salley was said to include
everything from the withholding of personal property and legal papers, to the filing of
false misconduct reports, the denial of basic needs and medical treatment, differential
treatment based on race and placement in administrative segregation, and the failure to
take remedial action against those who violated his rights. Id. at 11.
After recommending that the District Court grant Salley in forma pauperis status,
the Magistrate Judge screened the amended complaint for legal sufficiency under 28
U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2). As with Salley’s original filing, the Magistrate Judge determined
that the amended complaint impermissibly attempted to join several unrelated claims
against unrelated defendants, contrary to Rules 8 and 20. The Magistrate Judge
concluded that Salley’s bare conclusory allegations regarding a vast conspiracy are
inadequate to state a cognizable claim insofar as he failed to specify any role, agreement,
or personal involvement on the part of defendants in the alleged conspiracy to retaliate
against him for the filing of grievances and lawsuits.
Aside from the impermissible joinder problem, the Magistrate Judge found the
complaint to be time barred with respect to those constitutional claims which occurred
before July 25, 2010 – two years prior to the date Salley delivered his original complaint
to prison officials for mailing – given that the conspiracy was alleged to have accrued in
1998. The Magistrate Judge also determined that the defendant federal judges were
entitled to absolute judicial immunity with respect to the damages claims, and that Salley
likewise could not seek monetary damages against the state actor defendants in their
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official capacities. As for Salley’s request that defendants be ordered to expunge the 100
misconduct reports issued against him, the Magistrate Judge concluded that the request
for relief – to the extent it may have touched upon disciplinary sanctions which affected
the duration of his confinement in prison – was subject to dismissal without prejudice as
barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994). With respect to those misconduct
reports that merely amounted to a change in Salley’s conditions of confinement, the
Magistrate Judge concluded that such challenges could be pursued in a civil rights action
after the exhaustion of the administrative remedy process. The same conclusion was
rendered for Salley’s request for the return of his personal property. Insofar as Salley has
no constitutional right to be housed in any particular prison or to any particular
classification level, the Magistrate Judge recommended that his request to be transferred
to a different prison be denied.
Accordingly, the Magistrate Judge issued a Report recommending that Salley’s
amended complaint be dismissed without prejudice to his right to pursue those claims
which are not time barred or otherwise fatally defective and which occurred in the Middle
District of Pennsylvania in new and separate civil rights actions. Given that Salley had
already been given explicit instructions with respect to the need to file a complaint in
accordance with Rules 8 and 20(a) and nonetheless disregarded those directions, the
Magistrate Judge concluded that leave to file a second amended complaint would prove
futile. To the extent Salley alleged claims against defendants associated with correctional
facilities located within the boundaries of the Western District of Pennsylvania, the
Magistrate Judge recommended that Salley’s amended complaint be transferred to that
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district court. Finally, the Magistrate Judge recommended that Salley’s request for a
restraining order be denied as moot.
Over Salley’s objections, the District Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s R&R
in all parts save the recommendation that the amended complaint be transferred to the
District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The District Court found that it
would not be in the interests of justice nor judicial economy to transfer Salley’s
“piecemeal filings” to the Western District for that court to “sift through.” See D. Ct.
Mem. at 10. Accordingly, the District Court entered an order dismissing Salley’s claims
for damages against Judges Rambo and Smyser on the basis of judicial immunity, any
alleged constitutional claim arising before July 25, 2010, as time barred, and his request
for a prison transfer as meritless. The District Court specified that such dismissals were
with prejudice. Salley’s motion for a restraining order was denied as moot. The
remainder of the amended complaint was dismissed without prejudice on account of
Salley’s violation of Rule 20 and as a result of his failure to comply with the court’s
directive to file an amended complaint that complied with Rule 8. This timely appeal
followed.
We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and exercise plenary review
over the District Court’s dismissal under § 1915(e)(2)(B). See Allah v. Seiverling, 229
F.3d 220, 223 (3d Cir. 2000). Upon review, we conclude that the District Court properly
dismissed Salley’s amended complaint, and that it did not abuse its discretion in denying
him further leave to amend. See Grayson v. Mayview State Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 108 (3d
Cir. 2002).
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Salley’s damages claims against the individual judges are barred by the doctrine of
absolute judicial immunity. A judge is immune from liability for all actions taken in his
judicial capacity, unless such action is taken in the absence of all jurisdiction. Stump v.
Sparkman, 435 U.S. 349, 356-57 (1978). To be certain, pleadings and other submissions
by pro se litigants are subject to liberal construction, and we are required to accept the
truth of Salley’s well-pleaded factual allegations while drawing reasonable inferences in
his favor. See Higgs v. Att’y Gen., 655 F.3d 333, 339 (3d Cir. 2011); Capogrosso v.
Sup.Ct. of N.J., 588 F.3d 180, 184 (3d Cir. 2009) (per curiam). However, a pro se
complaint must still “contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim
to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)
(quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). As the District Court
correctly concluded, Salley failed to sufficiently allege facts demonstrating the existence
of a conspiracy between the named judges and the remaining defendants, and instead
relied merely on bald conclusory allegations. As such, the judicial defendants were
entitled to the broad immunity afforded them.
Salley appears to have raised no objection to the District Court’s dismissal of
those claims arising beyond the two-year statute of limitations for § 1983 actions, and we
discern no error with respect to that determination. See Kost v. Kozakiewicz, 1 F.3d 176,
190 (3d Cir. 1993). He likewise could not be heard to argue that the court erred in
denying his request for a prison transfer. See Olim v. Wakinekona, 461 U.S. 238, 245
(1983).
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That leaves us to consider whether Salley’s remaining claims are sufficiently
related to permit joinder under Rule 20. A district court’s determination as to whether the
joinder requirements of Rule 20 have been satisfied is reviewed for an abuse of
discretion. See Hagan v. Rogers, 570 F.3d 146, 152 (3d Cir. 2009). “A district court
abuses its discretion when ‘its decision rests upon a clearly erroneous finding of fact, an
errant conclusion of law or an improper application of law to fact.’” Id. (quoting Danvers
Motor Co., Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 543 F.3d 141, 147 (3d Cir. 2008)). The District Court
scoured Salley’s thirty-seven page amended complaint, combing through the claims
lodged against more than seventy defendants from at least ten different correctional
facilities and spanning more than fourteen years. While recognizing that the
requirements prescribed by Rule 20 are to be liberally construed, see D. Ct. Mem. at 9,
the court nonetheless concluded that the claims remaining in Salley’s amended complaint
– in the absence of his grand conspiracy theory – are not sufficiently related so as to be
properly joined in one action. Given the record in the instant case, we cannot conclude
that the District Court abused its discretion in concluding that the allegations against the
remaining defendants did not appear to arise from the same series of transactions and
occurrences. Accordingly, it acted appropriately in requiring Salley to file a separate
complaint or complaints against them.1
Finally, in light of the nature of the factual allegations set forth in Salley’s filings,
we further find no abuse of discretion on the part of the District Court in determining that
1
In light of this conclusion, we need not consider whether Salley’s claims involving
requests to have misconduct reports expunged or personal property returned are subject to
dismissal on exhaustion grounds as well.
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allowing him leave to amend his complaint a second time would have been futile. See
Grayson, 293 F.3d at 108.
For the foregoing reasons and because the appeal presents no substantial question,
we will summarily affirm the District Court’s order of dismissal. See Third Circuit LAR
27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6.
9