(PC) Ellis v. County of El Dorado ( 2020 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 10 11 PETER JON ELLIS, No. 2:19-cv-0518-EFB KJM P 12 Plaintiff, 13 v. ORDER 14 COUNTY OF EL DORADO, et al., 15 Defendants. 16 17 Plaintiff Peter Jon Ellis, an inmate in the El Dorado County Jail, alleges he was attacked 18 after guards opened doors to other inmates’ cells. See ECF No. 16. He is now pursuing claims 19 against those guards under 42 U.S.C. §1983. See id. The matter is before this court on the 20 Magistrate Judge’s findings and recommendation to dismiss without leave to amend, ECF No. 18, 21 to which Mr. Ellis objects, ECF No. 20. No defendants responded to the objections because none 22 had been served with a copy, including of Mr. Ellis’s newly proposed amended complaint. 23 Soon after this case began, Mr. Ellis consented to the jurisdiction of the Magistrate Judge 24 assigned to this case, who determined that the original complaint did not contain factual 25 allegations showing that Ellis was entitled to relief. ECF No. 9 at 3–4. For example, Mr. Ellis 26 had named the County of El Dorado and the Sheriff, but he had not explained what role the 27 County or the Sheriff played in the attacks against him. Id. He had not mentioned these 28 defendants at all. Id. Mr. Ellis did mention several “correctional officials, sergeants, and 1 officers,” but he did not explain what they had allegedly done, and he did not explain why their 2 actions violated his constitutional rights. Id. at 3. 3 The Magistrate Judge permitted Mr. Ellis to amend his complaint to correct these 4 problems. Id. at 4. The amended complaint omitted the Jail and Sheriff as defendants and named 5 only individual correctional officers as Doe defendants. See ECF No. 16. Mr. Ellis explained he 6 could not name these officers because he did not know who they were: they were inside a control 7 tower with mirrored windows when the cell doors in question were opened. Id. at 1–2. 8 The Magistrate Judge recommends that the amended complaint be dismissed as well—this 9 time without leave to amend—because Mr. Ellis could not “proceed with an action against only 10 ‘Doe’ defendants.” ECF No. 18 (citing Cloud v. Doel, No. 2:17-cv-00339, 2017 U.S. Dist. 11 LEXIS 101516, *2 (E.D. Cal. June 29, 2017)). Mr. Ellis objected, arguing he should be permitted 12 to file a second amended complaint and conduct discovery to identify the unknown officers. See 13 generally ECF No. 19. He also filed another complaint, which the court construes as a proposed 14 amended complaint. See ECF No. 20. 15 This court agrees Mr. Ellis’s amended complaint should be dismissed without leave to 16 amend, but not because he has not at this point identified individual officers. Although district 17 courts in this circuit have sometimes dismissed cases against only Doe defendants, as the 18 Magistrate Judge noted, see ECF No. 18 at 3,1 no clear and binding authority appears to require 19 that result. The Ninth Circuit has held instead that a plaintiff “should be given an opportunity 20 through discovery to identify the unknown defendants” described in his complaint. Gillespie v. 21 Civiletti, 629 F.2d 637, 642 (9th Cir.1980). Dismissal is appropriate only if “it is clear that 22 discovery would not uncover the identities” of the unknown defendants. Wakefield v. Thompson, 23 177 F.3d 1160, 1163 (9th Cir. 1999). District courts within this circuit have thus allowed 24 incarcerated plaintiffs to obtain the identities of Doe defendants with subpoenas and early 25 discovery, even when no other defendants remained, and even at very early stages in the 26 27 1 See also, e.g., Cloud, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 101516, at *2; Williams v. Schwarzenegger, No. 05-cv-0838, 2006 WL 3486957, at *1 (E.D. Cal. Dec. 1, 2006), report and recommendation 28 adopted, 2007 WL 2015343 (E.D. Cal. July 6, 2007). 1 litigation. See, e.g., Ramirez v. Doe, No. 16-cv-1496, 2018 WL 6164294, at *1 (C.D. Cal. Feb. 2 22, 2018); Augustin v. Dep’t of Pub. Safety, No. 09-00316, 2009 WL 2591370, at *3–4 (D. Haw. 3 Aug. 24, 2009). 4 This court cannot conclude on this record that discovery would not uncover the identities 5 of the unnamed officers. At the same time, this case is not an example of one in which subpoenas 6 and early discovery would be appropriate. Mr. Ellis has now filed three complaints, the most 7 recent without permission, none containing the “short and plain statement of the claim showing 8 that [he] is entitled to relief” required by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a). In each of his 9 complaints, Mr. Ellis alleges only that he was attacked or became frightened after other inmates’ 10 cell doors opened. See ECF No. 1 at 3; ECF No. 16 at 1–2; ECF No. 20 at 3–4. His claims thus 11 rest on the implicit assumption that his constitutional rights were violated when cell doors were 12 opened. No factual allegations here support that assumption. In none of his complaints does Mr. 13 Ellis allege, for example, that guards knew he was at risk of attack or that inmates in the opened 14 cell were violent. 15 These are the same problems the Magistrate Judge explained when he dismissed Mr. 16 Ellis’s original complaint. See ECF No. 11 at 3–4. Dismissal without leave to amend is thus 17 appropriate. See, e.g., Cafasso, U.S. ex rel. v. Gen. Dynamics C4 Sys., Inc., 637 F.3d 1047, 1058 18 (9th Cir. 2011) (dismissal without leave to amend may be appropriate if plaintiff has previously 19 amended complaint). 20 The court thus orders as follows: 21 1. The findings and recommendations filed February 11, 2020, are adopted in part as 22 described in this order. 23 2. The amended complaint, ECF No. 16, is dismissed without leave to amend. 24 3. The proposed second amended complaint is stricken. 25 4. The Clerk’s Office is directed to close the case. 26 DATED: September 30, 2020. 27 28