Beck v. Sisolak ( 2024 )

2 3 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 4 DISTRICT OF NEVADA 5 * * * 6 STANLEY BECK, Case No. 2:23-cv-00362-MMD-EJY 7 Plaintiff, ORDER v. 8 STEVE SISOLAK, et al., 9 Defendants. 10 11 I. SUMMARY 12 Pro se Plaintiff Stanley Beck, who is an inmate in the custody of the Nevada 13 Department of Corrections, brings this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against 14 Defendants1 on an Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference to serious medical needs 15 claim. (ECF No. 1-3 (“Complaint”); ECF No. 3 (“Screening Order”).) Before the Court is 16 Defendants’ motion to dismiss the Complaint (ECF No. 13 (“Motion”)).2 As explained 17 below, the Court denies the Motion. 18 II. BACKGROUND 19 The Court incorporates by reference the recitation of Plaintiff’s allegations in the 20 Court’s Screening Order. (ECF No. 3 at 3-6.) 21 III. DISCUSSION 22 Defendants first argue that Plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. 23 (ECF No. 13 at 5-6.) To support their argument, Defendants attach and cite to a 101-page 24 document of Plaintiff’s grievance history. (Id.; ECF No. 13-1.) Defendants in cursory 25 fashion state that the Court may consider and take judicial notice of the grievance history 26 27 1The remaining Defendants are Wilson Bernales, Dr. Bryan, Jaymie Cabrera, Sonja Carillo, Benjamin Guttierrez, Dr. Manalang, Michael Minev, Chris Nehls, G. Taino, 28 and Julie Williams. 2 the grievance history is a public record.” (ECF No. 13 at 6 n.22.) Defendants do not 3 explain how Plaintiff’s grievance history is a public record, and the Court is not persuaded 4 that it constitutes a public record and declines to exercise its discretion to judicially notice 5 the grievance history. See Khoja v. Orexigen Therapeutics, Inc., 899 F.3d 988, 998 (9th 6 Cir. 2018) (“The decision to take judicial notice . . . is reviewed for an abuse of 7 discretion.”). Because the Court does not consider the grievance history document at this 8 motion to dismiss stage and Defendants’ argument rests entirely on this extrinsic 9 evidence, the Court rejects the argument as premature. In any event, the Court finds that 10 Defendants’ conclusory argument on this affirmative defense and blanket citation to an 11 over 100-page document are not persuasive. 12 Next, Defendants argue that Plaintiff does not allege a violation of the Eighth 13 Amendment because he simply complains that he did not receive the analgesic of his 14 choice. (ECF No. 13 at 6.) Defendants are making a Rule 12(b)(6) failure-to-state-a-claim 15 argument, but the Court already found in its Screening Order that Plaintiff has sufficiently 16 alleged an Eighth Amendment claim for deliberate indifference to a serious medical need 17 in his Complaint against the remaining Defendants. (ECF No. 3 at 9.) The Court 18 incorporates by reference its Rule 12(b)(6) analysis from the Screening Order (id. at 3-8) 19 and rejects Defendants’ argument here. 20 Defendants lastly argue that Plaintiff’s claim against Defendants is barred by 21 qualified immunity. (ECF No. 13 at 7.) Defendants merely argue that Plaintiff cannot show 22 that Defendants violated any right and rely on their previous arguments. (Id. at 8.) At the 23 motion to dismiss stage, Plaintiff need only plausibly allege in his Complaint that 24 Defendants violated his rights. As discussed above, accepting the allegations in the 25 Complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff’s favor, Plaintiff has 26 sufficiently alleged that Defendants’ conduct violated his Eighth Amendment rights. 27 Moreover, it was clearly established at the time of the alleged violations that “denying, 28 delaying, or intentionally interfering with medical treatment can violate the constitution.” 1 || Stewart v. Aranas, 32 F.4th 1192, 1195 (9th Cir. 2022) (citing Colwell v. Bannister, 763 2 || F.3d 1060, 1066 (9th Cir. 2014)) (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). 3 || Accordingly, Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage. See Polanco || v. Diaz, 76 F.4th 918, 925 (9th Cir. 2023) (denying qualified immunity at the motion to 5 || dismiss stage “if, accepting all of Plaintiff['s] allegations as true, Defendants’ conduct ‘(1) 6 || violated a constitutional right that (2) was clearly established at the time of the □□□□□□□□□□□□ 7 In sum, the Court rejects all of Defendants’ arguments and will deny the Motion. 8 || IV. CONCLUSION 9 The Court notes that the parties made several arguments and cited to several 10 || cases not discussed above. The Court has reviewed these arguments and cases and 11 || determines that they do not warrant discussion as they do not affect the outcome of the 12 || motion before the Court. 13 It is therefore ordered that Defendants’ motion to dismiss (ECF No. 13) is denied. 14 DATED THIS 20* Day of May 2024. 16 MIRANDA M. DU 17 CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28