James Hundley v. Romeo Aranas ( 2023 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS JAN 12 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
JAMES DERRICK HUNDLEY, AKA No. 21-15757
Jamee Deirdre Hundley,
D.C. No.
Plaintiff-Appellant, 3:19-cv-00458-RCJ-WGC
v.
MEMORANDUM*
ROMEO ARANAS; RENEE BAKER,
Warden; DAVID BEQUETTE;
UTILIZATION REVIEW PANEL;
MICHAEL MINEV; KIM ADAMSON;
NAUGHTON; RUSTY DONNELLY; DON
POAG; JAMES DZURENDA,
Defendants-Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Robert Clive Jones, District Judge, Presiding
Argued and Submitted December 9, 2022
San Francisco, California
Before: GRABER, GOULD, and WATFORD, Circuit Judges.
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
Jamee Deirdre Hundley is a transgender woman incarcerated at Lovelock
Correctional Center (“LCC”) in Nevada—a men’s prison. She filed a pro se
complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in forma pauperis against various prison
officials at LCC and the Nevada Department of Corrections (“NDOC”), alleging
deliberate indifference to her serious medical needs, in violation of her Eighth
Amendment right; alleging violation of her First Amendment right to be free from
retaliation for filing grievances; and alleging violation of her Fourteenth
Amendment right to equal protection. The district court allowed Hundley to
amend her complaint once under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915A, then sua sponte dismissed the amended complaint with prejudice for
failure to state a claim.
We review de novo the “district court’s dismissal of a complaint under 28
U.S.C. § 1915A for failure to state a claim.” Nordstrom v. Ryan, 762 F.3d 903,
908 (9th Cir. 2014). To survive this screening, the complaint must “contain
sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible
on its face.” Wilhelm v. Rotman, 680 F.3d 1113, 1121 (9th Cir. 2012) (quoting
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009)). We construe pleadings of pro se
litigants liberally and dismiss them only “if it appears beyond doubt that the
plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him
to relief.” Nordstrom, 762 F.3d at 908 (citation omitted). We review for abuse of
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discretion the district court’s decision not to grant leave to amend. Sharkey v.
O’Neal, 778 F.3d 767, 774 (9th Cir. 2015).
1. Hundley stated an Eighth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference to
a serious medical need by defendants Aranas and Poag for declining to evaluate
her for sex reassignment surgery (“SRS”) based on NDOC’s alleged blanket policy
against providing SRS to any inmate. Hundley was diagnosed with “severe and
persistent gender dysphoria/transsexualism” in 2012. Gender dysphoria is a
serious medical condition under the Eighth Amendment. Edmo v. Corizon, Inc.,
935 F.3d 757, 785 (2019). “[T]he ‘blanket, categorical denial of medically
indicated surgery solely on the basis of an administrative policy that “one eye is
good enough for prison inmates” is the paradigm of deliberate indifference.’”
Rosati v. Igbinoso, 791 F.3d 1037, 1040 (9th Cir. 2015) (quoting Colwell v.
Bannister, 763 F.3d 1060, 1063 (9th Cir. 2014)). It follows that we should not
accept a blanket prison policy against SRS. Rather, the prison must make an
individualized decision about whether Hundley should have her gender dysphoria
treated by SRS. The district court erred by dismissing this claim, and we reverse
and remand.
2. Hundley stated an equal protection violation under the Fourteenth
Amendment against defendant Bequette, the laundry supervisor, for his refusal to
issue her female undergarments. To state a claim upon which relief can be granted
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“for a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment a
plaintiff must show that the defendants acted with an intent or purpose to
discriminate against the plaintiff based upon membership in a protected class.”
Furnace v. Sullivan, 705 F.3d 1021, 1030 (9th Cir. 2013) (quoting Barren v.
Harrington, 152 F.3d 1193, 1194 (9th Cir.1998)). Discrimination against an
individual based on a person’s gender identity demands heightened scrutiny.
Karnoski v. Trump, 926 F.3d 1180, 1200–01 (9th Cir. 2019). Here, Hundley
alleges that Bequette denied her female undergarments because she is a
transgender woman. This denial is a violation of her Fourteenth Amendment right
to equal protection under the law. See Serrano v. Francis, 345 F.3d 1071, 1083
(9th Cir. 2003) (holding that a prisoner pleaded sufficient facts to state an equal
protection violation by alleging that a prison official made comments about the
prisoner’s race in denying him the opportunity to present witnesses at a hearing).
The district court erred in dismissing this claim, and we reverse and remand.
3. The district court properly dismissed the claims for monetary damages
that Hundley brought against the defendants in their official capacity. See Hafer v.
Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 27 (1991). On those claims, we affirm.
4. As to the rest of Hundley’s claims, the district court abused its discretion
by dismissing the claims without giving Hundley leave to amend. “A district court
should not dismiss a pro se complaint without leave to amend unless it is
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absolutely clear that the deficiencies of the complaint could not be cured by
amendment.” Rosati, 791 F.3d at 1039 (internal quotations and citation omitted).
Although given one chance to amend her complaint, Hundley raised these
issues for the first time in her amended complaint, and it is not “absolutely clear”
that an amendment would not cure the deficiencies in her handwritten pro se
complaint. This is especially true because Hundley is now represented by counsel.
Further, at oral argument, Nevada agreed that Hundley should be given an
opportunity to amend her complaint. We vacate and remand the remainder of the
issues in this case with instructions to the district court to allow Hundley to amend
her complaint.
REVERSED IN PART, AFFIRMED IN PART, and VACATED and
REMANDED IN PART. The parties shall bear their own costs on appeal.
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