(PC) Good v. California State Prison - Solano ( 2023 )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 8 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 9 10 RAVON GOOD, Case No. 2:21-cv-01653-TLN-JDP (PC) 11 Plaintiff, 12 v. FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 13 Y. GUMATAOTAO, 14 Defendant. 15 16 Plaintiff is a state prisoner proceeding without counsel in this action brought under 42 17 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff alleges that defendant Y. Gumataotao, a mailroom staff member at 18 California State Prison-Solano, violated his First Amendment rights by unjustifiably seizing his 19 incoming mail, which included sixty postage stamps. Defendant moves to dismiss on three 20 grounds: plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing suit, plaintiff failed 21 to affirmatively allege that he followed the prison procedure for the return of confiscated 22 property, and defendant is entitled to qualified immunity. ECF No. 24. I recommend that 23 defendant’s motion to dismiss be denied. 24 Standards 25 A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure tests the 26 legal sufficiency of the claims asserted in a complaint. See Navarro v. Block, 250 F.3d 729, 732 27 (9th Cir. 2001). In ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, “[a]ll allegations of material fact are taken 28 as true and construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Am. Family Ass’n v. 1 City & Cnty. of San Francisco, 277 F.3d 1114, 1120 (9th Cir. 2002). Although a complaint 2 attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion “does not need detailed factual allegations,” a plaintiff must 3 provide “more than labels and conclusions.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 4 (2007). 5 To state a plausible claim for relief, the complaint “must contain sufficient allegations of 6 underlying facts” to support its legal conclusions. Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1216 (9th Cir. 7 2011). “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level 8 on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact) . . . .” 9 Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (citations and footnote omitted). Accordingly, to survive a motion to 10 dismiss, a complaint “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to 11 relief that is plausible on its face,” which means that a plaintiff must plead sufficient factual 12 content to “allow[ ] the Court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the 13 misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotation marks 14 omitted). A complaint must contain “well-pleaded facts” from which the court can “infer more 15 than the mere possibility of misconduct.” Id. at 679. 16 Discussion 17 A. Exhaustion of Administrative Remedies 18 Defendant first seeks dismissal on the ground that plaintiff failed to exhaust administrative 19 remedies before initiating this action. Such arguments generally are raised in a motion for 20 summary judgment. See Albino v. Baca, 747 F.3d 1162, 1166 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc). A 21 motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to 22 exhaust should only be granted in the “rare” case where “a failure to exhaust is clear on the face 23 of the complaint.” Id.; see also Smith v. Valencia, 2018 WL 934550, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 16, 24 2018). This is not such a case. Plaintiff affirms in the operative complaint that he did exhaust his 25 administrative remedies by both filing an administrative grievance and appealing it to the highest 26 level. See ECF No. 11 at 4. Therefore, dismissal is not warranted on this ground.1 27 1 I have considered defendant’s argument that non-exhaustion is demonstrated on the face 28 1 B. Failure to State a Claim 2 Defendant next argues that plaintiff did not plead that he followed the institutional 3 procedures for the return of his stamps. ECF No. 24 at 7. Relying on the Form CDCR 22 4 attached to plaintiff’s original complaint, defendant states that she informed plaintiff that he 5 should “send a self address[ed] envelope to where you want excessive stamps to be mailed to.” 6 See ECF No. 1 at 15. She insists that plaintiff’s failure to plead that he complied with her 7 directive renders his claim noncognizable. This is inaccurate. Plaintiff is only required to plead 8 that his authorized incoming mail was improperly confiscated. He has, again, met the 9 requirements. Therefore, dismissal is not warranted on this ground, either. 10 C. Qualified Immunity 11 Lastly, defendant argues that she is entitled to qualified immunity because she complied 12 with institutional regulations when confiscating plaintiff’s stamps. Specifically, she notes that an 13 inmate is limited to receiving forty postage stamps, see Cal. Code of Reg., tit. 15, § 3134(a)(11), 14 and that an inmate must be informed of the withholding of any incoming mail, see id. § 3136(a). 15 Having complied with these regulations, defendant claims that she “was entitled to presume that 16 doing so would not violate Plaintiff’s constitutional rights, as there is no clearly established law to 17 the contrary.” ECF No. 24 at 7-8. 18 “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials from liability for civil 19 damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional 20 of the non-operative complaint and a copy of plaintiff’s grievance, which is attached thereto. I 21 find this argument unconvincing for two reasons. First, the original complaint and its attachments became inoperative once plaintiff filed the first amended complaint; they are not presently before 22 me. Second, even if the grievance were properly before me, defendant’s argument would be 23 unpersuasive. In the grievance, plaintiff complained about improper confiscation of his stamps and cited the rationale for the confiscation (excessive property). See ECF No. 1 at 10. Defendant 24 argues that this did not exhaust his administrative remedies because the grievance did not refer to the specific institutional rule used to justify the confiscation of stamps. ECF No. 24 at 5-6. But 25 defendant cites no authority establishing that an inmate must identify a specific rule, regulation, or law that forms the basis of his claim. On the contrary, to properly exhaust administrative 26 remedies, a prisoner’s grievance “need not contain every fact necessary to prove each element of 27 an eventual legal claim[; t]he primary purpose of a grievance is to alert the prison to a problem and facilitate its resolution, not to lay groundwork for litigation.” Griffin v. Arpaio, 557 F.3d 28 1117, 1120 (9th Cir. 2009). 1 rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 2 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted) (citing Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 3 (1982)). To determine whether an officer is entitled to qualified immunity, the court asks, in the 4 order it chooses, (1) whether the alleged misconduct violated a constitutional right; and 5 (2) whether the right was clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct. See 6 Hernandez v. City of San Jose, 897 F.3d 1125, 1132 (9th Cir. 2018). 7 Qualified immunity exists to shield an officer from liability for “mere mistakes in 8 judgment, whether the mistake is one of fact or one of law.” Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 9 507 (1978). To determine whether the law was clearly established, courts do not “require a case 10 directly on point,” but existing precedent must have placed the “constitutional question beyond 11 debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011). When this test is properly applied, it 12 protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law.” Id. at 743. 13 Attempting to resolve defendant’s qualified immunity defense at this procedural posture 14 would place the court in the difficult position of deciding “far-reaching constitutional questions 15 on a nonexistent factual record.” Wong v. United States, 373 F.3d 952, 957 (9th Cir. 2004). In 16 civil rights cases in particular, “dealing with qualified immunity on a motion to dismiss may be 17 inappropriate.” Hunt v. City of Los Angeles, 2013 WL 12164626, at *9 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 19, 2013) 18 (citing Alvarado v. Litscher, 267 F.3d 648, 651 (7th Cir. 2001) (“[A] complaint is generally not 19 dismissed under [Rule] 12(b)(6) on qualified immunity grounds.”)). Thus, “although government 20 officials have the right to raise qualified immunity on a motion to dismiss, it is not necessarily 21 advisable to do so in every case since an ‘ill-considered filing of a qualified immunity appeal on 22 the pleadings alone can lead not only to a waste of scarce public and judicial resources, but to the 23 development of legal doctrine that has lost its moorings in the empirical world, and that might 24 never need to be determined were the case permitted to proceed, at least to the summary judgment 25 stage.’” Id. (quoting Wong, 373 F.3d at 957). 26 Defendant’s contention that she is entitled to qualified immunity because she was merely 27 complying with institutional regulations fails because plaintiff alleges that defendant did not 28 comply with institutional regulations when confiscating his stamps. As such, under the current 1 | circumstances, the court finds that the “instant briefing is insufficient for the court to make a 2 | qualified immunity determination,” and defendant is not entitled to dismissal on this ground. Id. 3 It is hereby RECOMMENDED that defendant’s motion to dismiss, ECF No. 24, be 4 | denied, and defendant be directed to submit an answer within fourteen days of the adoption of this 5 || recommendation. 6 These findings and recommendations are submitted to the United States District Judge 7 | assigned to the case, pursuant to the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1). Within fourteen days 8 | after being served with these findings and recommendations, any party may file written 9 | objections with the court and serve a copy on all parties. Such a document should be captioned 10 | “Objections to Magistrate Judge’s Findings and Recommendations.” Any response to the 11 | objections shall be served and filed within fourteen days after service of the objections. The 12 | parties are advised that failure to file objections within the specified time may waive the right to 13 || appeal the District Court’s order. Turner v. Duncan, 158 F.3d 449, 455 (9th Cir. 1998); Martinez 14 | v. Vist, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir. 1991). 15 16 IT IS SO ORDERED. 17 ( 1 Sy — Dated: _ June 1, 2023 ow—— 18 JEREMY D. PETERSON 19 UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28