Watson v. Caton

January 29, 1993
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 92-1269
CHARLES N. WATSON,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
C. MARK CATON, ET AL.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. Morton A. Brody, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Selya, Cyr and Boudin,
Circuit Judges.
Charles N. Watson, on brief pro se.
Per Curiam. The appellant, Charles N. Watson, was an
inmate in the Maine correctional system, incarcerated at the
Downeast Correctional Facility, and later at the Charleston
Correctional Facility, at all times relevant to this lawsuit.
In November 1991 Watson filed a complaint in federal court
which alleged that the defendants, all officials of the Maine
Department of Correction or the Downeast or Charleston
prisons, had violated his federal constitutional rights, in
violation of 42 U.S.C. 1983.
Watson's complaint contained four counts, only three of
which are at issue in this appeal.1 In his first count,
Watson described injuries he had sustained to his right hand
before he went to prison. The injuries had required surgery,
and the hand continued to cause problems. After he entered
prison, beginning in February 1989, Watson sought treatment.
The specialists he contacted would not travel to the prison,
and prison officials would not allow him to go to the
doctors. According to the complaint, defendant Peggie
Mitchie, a nurse at the Downeast Correctional Facility,
refused to examine Watson's hand because the injury had
occurred before he went to prison, and she said that
"therefore she was not responsible for care or treatment of
1The third count of the complaint related to dental
treatment of a broken cap on a front tooth. Watson did not
challenge the dismissal of this count in his appellate brief,
and therefore has waived the issue. Pignons S.A. de
Mecanique v. Polaroid Corp., 701 F.2d 1, 3 (1st Cir. 1983)
(issues not presented in appellant's opening brief are
waived).
that hand." Thereafter Watson says he continued to suffer
and eventually a doctor did examine the hand and recommended
another round of surgery.
The second count of the complaint alleged that Watson
was injured when he fell through a weak ceiling while working
at the Downeast prison. He saw a nurse, who treated a gash
on his leg but declined to provide further treatment when he
told her that he had also injured his back, saying that his
back "would be okay." Not until he transferred to the
Charleston prison did Watson receive treatment for his back
injury; but even then, Watson complained, the doctors
prescribed only medication and bed rest, and failed to order
the physical therapy that he thought was necessary.
Eventually, the injury required surgery, and even after the
operation Watson's back remained "40% impaired."
Finally, Watson alleged in his fourth count that, while
housed at the Downeast Correctional Facility, he purchased a
number of cassette tapes and compact disks through the mail.
When these items arrived at the prison, officials deemed them
"non-allowable" and did not deliver them to Watson. Nor did
they provide Watson with a "non-allowable property sheet,"
which, Watson contends, the Department of Correction
"normally issues" in such situations. A corrections officer
destroyed the tapes and disks, but the prison did not notify
Watson of either the delivery or the destruction until 11
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days had passed.
In addition to his complaint, Watson filed with the
district court an application to proceed in forma pauperis.
Acting on this request before any of the defendants had
responded to the complaint, the district court granted Watson
in forma pauperis status but dismissed the complaint on its
own motion under 28 U.S.C. 1915(d) with a short opinion
stating its reasons. After the district court denied his
motion for reconsideration and motion to vacate judgment,
Watson filed this appeal.
Under 28 U.S.C. 1915(d) a federal district court may
dismiss an in forma pauperis complaint if the complaint is,
among other things, "frivolous." A claim is "frivolous"
within the meaning of section 1915(d) when it is "based on an
indisputably meritless legal theory," or makes "clearly
baseless" factual contentions. Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S.
319, 327 (1989). We review a section 1915(d) dismissal for
"abuse of discretion," Denton v. Hernandez, 112 S. Ct. 1728,
1734 (1992), taking into account the liberal pleading
standards applicable to complaints filed by pro se
plaintiffs.
Watson's first two counts alleged that the defendants
failed to provide, or caused delays in providing, appropriate
medical care. The courts have consistently refused to create
constitutional claims out of disagreements between prisoners
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and doctors about the proper course of a prisoner's medical
treatment, or to conclude that simple medical malpractice
rises to the level of cruel and unusual punishment. See,
e.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106 (1976); DesRosiers
v. Moran, 949 F.2d 15, 19 (1st Cir. 1991). However, prison
officials and doctors may violate the Eighth Amendment if
they exhibit "deliberate indifference to serious medical
needs." Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. at 106. The obvious
case would be a denial of needed medical treatment in order
to punish the inmate. But deliberate indifference may also
reside in "wanton" decisions to deny or delay care, Wilson
v. Seiter, 111 S. Ct. 2321, 2326 (1992), where the action is
recklessness, "not in the tort law sense but in the
appreciably stricter criminal-law sense, requiring actual
knowledge of impending harm, easily preventable."
DesRosiers, 949 F.2d at 19.
Watson alleged in the first count of his complaint that
the prison nurse refused to treat him for an injury, which
proved serious enough to require surgery, on the non-medical
ground that the state was not responsible for injuries caused
by events that occurred before Watson entered prison. A
deliberate refusal to treat a serious medical condition of a
prisoner on such a ground could hardly be justified and,
while the allegations may prove untrue, they are not
"fantastic or delusional." Estelle v. Gamble, 490 U.S. at
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328. We conclude that Watson's first count was not
frivolous, although it may--based on further information--
prove to be wholly without merit. How and in what form that
information is obtained is a matter for the district court to
decide in the first instance; we note that the state has not
yet filed an answer to this charge.
Watson's second count relating to his back injury
presents a different question. On its face, the facts set
forth allege only the kind of disagreement about the proper
course of treatment that does not rise to the level of a
constitutional violation: Watson wanted more attention from
the nurse, who said that no treatment was needed; he later
wanted physical therapy to be ordered by the doctors, who
thought that drugs and rest would do the trick.
To append labels like "wanton" or "deliberate
indifference" to this conduct, when nothing suggests that the
medical judgment was absurd or that improper reasons were
given for refusing treatment, cannot alter what is in essence
a claim of negligence. The difference between failing to
state a claim and making a frivolous claim is in some
situations a question of degree. In this case we think that
the district court acted within its considerable discretion,
Wilson, 111 S. Ct. at 2326, in concluding that this count
stated no facts suggesting more than simple negligence and
that, since simple negligence is not a constitutional
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violation, the claim was subject to dismissal under section
1915(d).2
Watson's fourth count alleged that prison officials
refused to deliver several cassette tapes and compact discs
to him, denying those items as "non-allowable" but failing to
give Watson a "non-allowable property sheet," and failing as
well to notify Watson that the items had been delivered.
Instead, Watson says, a corrections officer destroyed them.
Watson does not complain directly of the decision to withhold
the property from him, but rather of the lack of notice and
the resulting destruction of the property before he had a
change to have the items sent back. In other words, Watson
has raised an issue of procedural due process.
The Fourteenth Amendment says that state officials may
not deprive persons of property without "due process of law."
U.S. Const., art. XIV. The process due depends on the
circumstances. Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335
(1976). The cases distinguish sharply between deprivations
caused by "random, unauthorized" conduct of state officials,
and deprivations caused by conduct "pursuant to established
state procedure." See Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 532
(1984). For the former, the state is not automatically
2 Conceivably, in the remand in connection with count
one, Watson could move for leave to replead count two to
allege facts amounting to a constitutional violation. If he
did so, we assume the court would give this motion due
consideration. See Denton, 112 S. Ct. at 1734.
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liable;3 in the latter case there may be liability where the
state policy approves or directs the conduct but falls below
constitutional standards.
In this instance, Watson does not suggest that the
officer's conduct reflected a state policy. His brief states
that "a [s]upervisor took it upon his own" to throw away the
property without giving Watson notice or allowing him the 30
days permitted to prisoners to ship back non-allowable items.
The complaint itself asserts that the lack of notice to
Watson involved the failure to furnish him "a non-allowable
property sheet, which the Department of Corrections normally
issues . . . . " The clear inference from these allegations
is that the action was a deviation from, and not a reflection
of, an established state procedure. Under the precedents
cited, such a claim has no legal basis in a section 1983
case.
We affirm the judgment below in dismissing counts two
and four of the complaint. As to count one, judgment is
vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings in
accordance with this opinion.
So Ordered.
3The officer allegedly responsible for the destruction
is apparently not a defendant in this case. Watson does not
allege that the state refused to provide a post-deprivation
remedy for the alleged wrong by the officer. See Hudson v.
Palmer, 468 U.S. at 533.
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