John Williams v. K. Harrington , 511 F. App'x 669 ( 2013 )

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MAR 18 2013
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
JOHN WESLEY WILLIAMS, No. 12-16320
Plaintiff - Appellant, D.C. No. 1:09-cv-01823-GSA
v.
MEMORANDUM*
K. HARRINGTON, Warden; J. CASTRO,
Associate Warden; T. BILLINGS,
Defendants - Appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of California
Gary S. Austin, Magistrate Judge, Presiding
Submitted January 15, 2013**
Before: HUG, FARRIS, and LEAVY, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff John Williams appeals pro se from the district court’s dismissal of
his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against several California Department of Corrections
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
and Rehabilitation officials employed at Kern Valley State Prison (“KVSP”). We
have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm.1
We review de novo a dismissal of a prisoner complaint under 28 U.S.C. §
1915A for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Hamilton v.
Brown, 630 F.3d 889, 892 (9th Cir. 2011). “Under § 1915A, when determining
whether a complaint states a claim, a court must accept as true all allegations of
material fact and must construe those facts in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff.” Id. at 892-93 (internal quotation marks omitted).
A complaint is required to contain “a short and plain statement of the claim
showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a)(2). While Rule
8 does not require detailed factual allegations, “[t]hreadbare recitals of the
elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not
suffice.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). While factual allegations
must be accepted as true, legal conclusions are not entitled to an assumption of
truth. Id. at 679.
The district court properly dismissed Williams’s First Amendment
retaliation claim against defendant Billings. To have stated a claim, Williams must
1
Because the parties are familiar with the facts underlying this appeal, we
do not recount the facts here.
2
have alleged: 1) that Billings took some adverse action against him 2) because of
3) his protected conduct, 4) that the adverse action chilled his exercise of his First
Amendment rights, and 5) that the action did not reasonably advance a legitimate
correctional goal. See Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567-68 (9th Cir. 2005).
While Williams alleged that Billings’s actions were “because of” his having filed
inmate grievances, he did not set forth any facts that would support these
conclusory allegations of retaliatory motive. This “formulaic recitation of the
elements” is not entitled to an assumption of truth and is not sufficient to state a
claim upon which relief can be granted. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 681.
The district court also correctly dismissed Williams’s claim against wardens
Harrington, Biter, and Castro for implementation of an unlawful policy. To have
stated a claim, Williams must have alleged that the wardens implemented “a policy
so deficient that the policy itself is a repudiation of constitutional rights and is the
moving force of the constitutional violation.” Hansen v. Black, 885 F.2d 642, 646
(9th Cir. 1989) (internal quotation marks omitted). However, Williams failed to
identify any policy that authorized constitutional violations against him.
Moreover, Williams did not allege that there was a causal connection between the
wardens’ policies and any alleged unconstitutional conduct. Williams therefore
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failed to state a claim for implementation of an unlawful policy. See Hansen, 885
F.2d at 646.
We reject Williams’s contention that the law of the case doctrine prevented
the district court from dismissing claims it previously had found cognizable.
Although a court generally is precluded from reconsidering an issue that has
already been decided by the same court or a higher court in the same case, the court
has discretion to depart from the law of the case if its decision was clearly
erroneous. See United States v. Cuddy, 147 F.3d 1111, 1114 (9th Cir. 1998). Iqbal
and Doe I v. Walmart Stores, Inc., 572 F.3d 677, 683 (9th Cir. 2009) (applying the
Iqbal standard), were decided before the district court’s order and changed the
standard of review but were not applied by the district court. It therefore was not
an abuse of discretion for the district court to correct this error. See Cuddy, 147
F.3d at 1114.
We are unpersuaded by Williams’s contention that the district court erred
because it did not screen his complaint under this court’s standard for evaluating
claims of imminent danger set forth in Andrews v. Cervantes, 493 F.3d 1047 (9th
Cir. 2007). Our holding in Andrews is irrelevant to the dismissal of Williams’s
case for failure to state a claim. Andrews did not address the merits of a prisoner’s
imminent danger claim. See 493 F.3d at 1057. Rather, it addressed the “threshold
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procedural question” of whether a prisoner who faced an imminent danger could
proceed in forma pauperis despite the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s three-strikes
rule. Id. at 1057; see 28 U.S.C. § 1915(g).
We reject Williams’s remaining contentions as meritless.
AFFIRMED.
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