Parker v. Landry

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 18-1998
BRIDGET PARKER,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
SCOTT LANDRY, et al.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF MAINE
[Hon. George Z. Singal, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Torruella and Selya, Circuit Judges.
Ezra A. R. Willey and Willey Law Offices on brief for
appellant.
Aaron M. Frey, Attorney General of Maine, James E. Fortin and
Christopher C. Taub, Assistant Attorneys General, on brief for
appellees.
August 20, 2019
SELYA, Circuit Judge. The district court dismissed a
complaint filed by plaintiff-appellant Bridget Parker against (as
relevant here) three Maine prison officials, determining that the
complaint did not state a plausible claim. The plaintiff sought
leave to amend, but the district court denied her motion. The
court ruled that the proposed amended complaint was futile because
it failed to state any plausible claims against the three
officials. The plaintiff appeals. Concluding that the court below
appropriately evaluated the proposed amended complaint and
appropriately denied leave to amend, we affirm.
I
We rehearse the relevant facts as set out in the proposed
amended complaint, assuming them to be true unless merely
conclusory. See D'Agostino v. ev3, Inc., 845 F.3d 1, 3 (1st Cir.
2016). At the times material hereto, the plaintiff was
incarcerated at the Southern Maine Reentry Center (SMRC), a
minimum-security facility operated under the aegis of the Maine
Correctional Center (MCC) and the Maine State Prison (MSP) by the
Maine Department of Corrections (DOC). On occasion, the SMRC
allows inmates to participate in outside work-study programs.
While in custody, the plaintiff experienced several
instances of unwanted sexual contact with a correctional officer,
Joshua Dall-Leighton. Shortly after the plaintiff's arrival at
the SMRC in September of 2014, she became the target of sexualized
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comments from Dall-Leighton, who was tasked with driving her to
and from her employment and educational courses. Dall-Leighton
also used his position of authority and his physical control over
the plaintiff to initiate multiple sexual encounters with her,
beginning in December of 2015. Notwithstanding the plaintiff's
repeated attempts to end their carnal encounters, Dall-Leighton
persisted in initiating them.
The plaintiff felt unable to reject Dall-Leighton's
sexual advances due to both fear of adverse consequences and the
power dynamic inherent in the situation. She nonetheless disclosed
his misconduct to another correctional officer, Renee Shanks. The
latter tried to help the plaintiff limit her interactions with
Dall-Leighton but did not report his misconduct to her superiors.
In conversations with the plaintiff, Shanks appeared sympathetic
to Dall-Leighton, distinguishing him from another correctional
officer who reportedly had been fired for "preying" on female
inmates at the SMRC.
Around March of 2016, the plaintiff deliberately
violated the SMRC's alcohol policy to secure a transfer to a
different prison facility (where she would not have any contact
with Dall-Leighton). In the new facility, the plaintiff told her
story to a fellow inmate, who reported the abuse. This report
triggered an investigation and resulted in Dall-Leighton's
indictment and dismissal.
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On June 14, 2017, the plaintiff repaired to the United
States District Court for the District of Maine and sued the warden
of the MCC (Scott Landry), a former warden of the MSP (Randall
Liberty), and the former commissioner of the DOC (Dr. Joseph
Fitzpatrick), whom we shall collectively call "the defendants."1
With respect to the defendants, the complaint alleged federal
constitutional violations, a civil rights conspiracy, and
supplementary state-law claims.
The defendants answered the complaint and moved to
dismiss. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). The district court treated
the motion as a motion for judgment on the pleadings. See Fed. R.
Civ. P. 12(c); see also Aponte-Torres v. Univ. of P.R., 445 F.3d
50, 54 (1st Cir. 2006) ("Because the defendants previously had
answered the amended complaint, the district court appropriately
treated their motion to dismiss as one for judgment on the
pleadings."). The court proceeded to grant the motion concluding
that the plaintiff had not alleged facts sufficient to state any
plausible claims against the defendants. See Parker v. Dall-
Leighton, No. 2:17-CV-216, 2017 WL 6210892, at *7 (D. Me. Dec. 8,
2017).
1 The plaintiff's suit also named Dall-Leighton, Shanks, and
the State of Maine. She had varying degrees of success against
these defendants, ultimately securing a default judgment against
Dall-Leighton, settling with Shanks, and losing against the State
of Maine on sovereign immunity grounds. Since the details of these
forays are not material here, we make no further mention of them.
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The plaintiff moved for reconsideration and for leave to
amend. At the district court's request, she tendered a proposed
amended complaint in which she purposed to fill the gaps that had
doomed her original complaint. The district court denied both
motions, holding in an unpublished order that allowing the motion
to amend would be futile because the proposed amended complaint
failed to state any plausible claims for relief. After some
further proceedings, not pertinent here, the district court
entered a final judgment in favor of the defendants. This timely
appeal followed.
II
We review the district court's disposition of a motion
to amend a complaint for abuse of discretion. See Hatch v. Dep't
for Children, Youth & Their Families, 274 F.3d 12, 19 (1st Cir.
2001). In most cases — the exceptions are not relevant here — we
gauge the court's use of its discretion in keeping with Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2), which directs that leave to amend
a complaint "shall be freely given when justice so requires."
Consequently, we will affirm the denial of a motion to amend "so
long as the record evinces an arguably adequate basis for the
court's decision (e.g., futility, bad faith, undue delay, or a
dilatory motive on the movant's part)." Hatch, 274 F.3d at 19.
In the case at hand, the district court denied leave to
amend on the basis of futility. When — as in this case — a
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plaintiff seeks to amend her complaint prior to the commencement
or completion of discovery, we view futility through the lens of
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). See Privitera v. Curran
(In re Curran), 855 F.3d 19, 28 (1st Cir. 2017). So viewed, a
proposed amendment is futile if it fails to "state a claim to
relief that is plausible on its face." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly,
550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). This is essentially a legal question,
which engenders de novo review. See D'Agostino, 845 F.3d at 6;
see also Torres-Rivera v. O'Neill-Cancel, 524 F.3d 331, 336 (1st
Cir. 2008) (explaining that a material error of law is a per se
abuse of discretion).
It is common ground that a complaint must contain a
"short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader
is entitled to relief." Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Although there
is no need to spell out endless details, the complaint must do
more than merely parrot the contours of a cause of action. See
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555; A.G. ex rel. Maddox v. Elsevier, Inc.,
732 F.3d 77, 80 (1st Cir. 2013). Determining whether a claim
crosses the plausibility threshold is "a context-specific task
that requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial
experience and common sense." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662,
679 (2009). Plausibility is not equivalent to probability but it
nevertheless demands a showing that is "more than a sheer
possibility." Id. at 678.
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In assaying plausibility, we engage in a two-step
pavane. See García-Catalán v. United States, 734 F.3d 100, 103
(1st Cir. 2013); Rodríguez-Reyes v. Molina-Rodríguez, 711 F.3d 49,
53 (1st Cir. 2013). First, we separate facts from conclusory
allegations. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679. Second, we determine
whether the factual allegations that remain give rise to a
plausible claim for relief. See Morales-Cruz v. Univ. of P.R.,
676 F.3d 220, 224 (1st Cir. 2012). This second step entails a
decision as to whether the claim as stated admits of a "reasonable
inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged."
Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. The allegations cannot be "too meager,
vague, or conclusory to remove the possibility of relief from the
realm of mere conjecture." SEC v. Tambone, 597 F.3d 436, 442 (1st
Cir. 2010) (en banc).
In this appeal, the plaintiff challenges only the
district court's refusal to grant leave to amend so that she might
pursue her federal claims.2 We limit our discussion accordingly.
We begin with the plaintiff's flagship claims, which
hinge on the question of whether the proposed amended complaint
plausibly states section 1983 claims for supervisory liability
against any or all of the defendants. Section 1983 "affords a
2For the sake of completeness, we note that certain rulings
of the district court had the effect of precluding the plaintiff
from pursuing her supplementary state-law claims. Those rulings
are not challenged on appeal.
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private right of action in favor of persons whose federally assured
rights are abridged by state actors." Kando v. R.I. State Bd. of
Elections, 880 F.3d 53, 58 (1st Cir. 2018). Here, the defendants,
though sued in their individual capacities,3 were acting under
color of state law. Our inquiry, then, focuses on whether the
plaintiff has sufficiently shown, at the pleading stage, that their
acts and omissions gave rise to plausible rights-abridgement
claims.
A supervisory liability claim under section 1983 has two
elements: the plaintiff must plausibly allege that "one of the
supervisor's subordinates abridged the plaintiff's constitutional
rights" and then forge an affirmative link between the abridgement
and some action or inaction on the supervisor's part. Guadalupe-
Báez v. Pesquera, 819 F.3d 509, 514 (1st Cir. 2016); see Grajales
v. P.R. Ports Auth., 682 F.3d 40, 47 (1st Cir. 2012); Pineda v.
Toomey, 533 F.3d 50, 54 (1st Cir. 2008). Such culpable action or
inaction may comprise, say, a showing of behavior that constitutes
"supervisory encouragement, condonation or acquiescence[,] or
gross negligence . . . amounting to deliberate indifference."
3
The defendants originally were sued in both their individual
and their official capacities, but the district court made short
shrift of the official-capacity claims. See Parker, 2017 WL
6210892, at *7 n.9 (citing Will v. Mich. Dep't of State Police,
491 U.S. 58, 71 (1998)). The plaintiff has not challenged this
ruling.
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Grajales, 682 F.3d at 47 (alteration in original) (quoting Welch
v. Ciampa, 542 F.3d 927, 937 (1st Cir. 2008)).
The concept of supervisory liability is separate and
distinct from concepts such as vicarious liability and respondeat
superior. See Guadalupe-Báez, 819 F.3d at 515. Although a
supervisor need not personally engage in the subordinate's
misconduct in order to be held liable, his own acts or omissions
must work a constitutional violation. See Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 676.
Facts showing no more than a supervisor's mere negligence vis-á-
vis his subordinate's misconduct are not enough to make out a claim
of supervisory liability. See Guadalupe-Báez, 819 F.3d at 515.
At a minimum, the plaintiff must allege facts showing that the
supervisor's conduct sank to the level of deliberate indifference.
See id. We train the lens of our inquiry there.
A showing of deliberate indifference has three
components: "the plaintiff must show '(1) that the officials had
knowledge of facts, from which (2) the official[s] can draw the
inference (3) that a substantial risk of serious harm exists.'"
Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Ramírez-Lluveras v. Rivera-
Merced, 759 F.3d 10, 20 (1st Cir. 2014)). And even if the complaint
contains facts plausibly showing deliberate indifference, the
plaintiff must also allege facts giving rise to a causal nexus
between the supervisor's acts or omissions and the subordinate's
misconduct. See id. In other words, a supervisor's deliberate
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indifference must lead in a straight line to the putative
constitutional violation. See id.Here, the proposed amended complaint does not identify
any affirmative acts by any of the defendants that might arguably
constitute deliberate indifference. Even in the absence of such
facts, though, a plaintiff sometimes can identify a causal nexus
by juxtaposing the supervisor's omissions alongside a "known
history of widespread abuse sufficient to alert a supervisor to
ongoing violations." Maldonado-Denis v. Castillo-Rodriguez, 23
F.3d 576, 582 (1st Cir. 1994). But such omissions, if paired only
with "isolated instances" of a subordinate's constitutional
violations, will not clear the causation bar. Id.In addition to deliberate indifference and causation,
the plaintiff must allege facts showing that the supervisor was on
notice of the subordinate's misconduct. See Guadalupe-Báez, 819
F.3d at 515. Such notice may be either actual or constructive.
See id.
We measure the proposed amended complaint against these
benchmarks. As to deliberate indifference, the proposed amended
complaint alleges the following: that prior to Dall-Leighton's
sexual misconduct coming to light, two other Maine correctional
officers were investigated for sexual assault of female inmates,
resulting in the firing of one and the resignation of the other;
that Dall-Leighton was close friends with one of those correctional
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officers (Bret Butterfield) and was suspended (for reasons not
stated) during the investigation of Butterfield; that a local
sheriff told a newspaper about his intention to hold a press
conference to discuss indictments of former and current
correctional officers, none of whom were identified; and that a
DOC official (not a party to this case) described Dall-Leighton as
"the Teflon Kid" because "everyone knew he was up to something,
but no one could pin anything on him." Scrutinizing these tidbits,
we agree with the district court that the proposed amended
complaint failed to set forth facts sufficient to make a plausible
showing of deliberate indifference on the part of any of the
defendants.
In this respect, the most obvious flaw in the proposed
amended complaint is the absence of anything that would support an
inference of notice. When — as in this case — there is no
allegation of actual notice, the primary means by which a plaintiff
can show that officials had knowledge of facts from which they
could infer a substantial risk of serious harm is to allege
(plausibly) that the officials were aware of previous and relevant
misconduct by the subordinate in question. See, e.g., Saldivar v.
Racine, 818 F.3d 14, 18-20 (1st Cir. 2016). To this end, the
plaintiff has proffered little more than the "Teflon Kid" comment
and Dall-Leighton's tenuous connection to Butterfield. This is
simply too thin a showing. In order for a subordinate's earlier
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conduct to put officials on notice of a substantial risk of serious
harm, there must be some fact or facts that, whether viewed singly
or in combination, plausibly signal a likelihood that particular
misconduct may occur. See id. at 19; Ramírez-Lluveras, 759 F.3d
21-22. An isolated incident that concerns arguably relevant
misconduct, without more, typically will not be enough to ground
a reasonable inference that a substantial risk of serious harm was
in prospect. See Landrigan v. City of Warwick, 628 F.2d 736, 747
(1st Cir. 1980); see also Estate of Bennett v. Wainwright, 548
F.3d 155, 160, 177 (1st Cir. 2008).
In concluding that the plaintiff's proposed amended
complaint falls short of the "notice" benchmark, we do not write
on a pristine page. Our decision in Saldivar is instructive.
There, we held that a supervisory liability claim against a police
chief was too weak to cross the plausibility threshold. See
Saldivar, 818 F.3d at 20. Despite a subordinate officer's "lengthy
record of [disciplinary] violations," those violations did not
indicate "any propensity for violence or for any other sufficiently
related conduct." Id. at 19. Those violations, such as a lapsed
gun license, did not plausibly show that the police chief was
deliberately indifferent to the risk that the officer would rape
a civilian at gunpoint. See id.
In a similar vein, the Fifth Circuit held that prison
officials' knowledge, without specific details, of an officer's
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prior arrest for sexual contact with a minor was insufficient to
put them on notice of the risk that the officer would sexually
assault an inmate. See Rivera v. Bonner, 691 F. App'x 234, 239-
40 (5th Cir. 2017). The officials, therefore, could not be said
to be deliberately indifferent to that risk. See id.The case at hand is governed by substantially the same
principles. The plaintiff's factual allegations fail plausibly to
show that the defendants had knowledge sufficient to ground a
reasonable inference that Dall-Leighton presented a substantial
risk of serious harm to female inmates. The vague "Teflon Kid"
comment does not plausibly forecast Dall-Leighton's proclivity to
be a sexual predator. And the ambiguous suggestion that Dall-
Leighton might be "up to something," without further elaboration,
is of little consequence. To hold that such a comment places a
prison official on constructive notice that sexual predation is in
the offing would require a leap of logic that we are not prepared
to make.
The plaintiff points out that the proposed amended
complaint alleges another fact: that Dall-Leighton was suspended
during the DOC's investigation of Butterfield. This allegation
does not advance the plaintiff's cause. The proposed amended
complaint contains no facts warranting a reasonable inference that
Dall-Leighton's suspension was predicated in any way, shape, or
form on his own sexual misconduct. For aught that appears, Dall-
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Leighton may have been suspended only because he was friendly with
Butterfield and, as a result, the DOC wished to wall him off from
the Butterfield investigation.
The bottom line is that the scanty factual allegations
limned in the proposed amended complaint do not make out a
plausible showing of deliberate indifference and, thus, do not
carry the plaintiff's supervisory liability claims over the
plausibility threshold. In the last analysis, the complaint
contains no facts sufficient to support a plausible inference that
any of the defendants had reason to believe that Dall-Leighton
presented a substantial risk of serious harm to female inmates.
See Elsevier, 732 F.3d at 81. Where, as here, a complaint reveals
random puffs of smoke but nothing resembling real signs of fire,
the plausibility standard is not satisfied.
We iron out one wrinkle. Even in the absence of a
showing that officials knew of a substantial risk of serious harm
at the hands of a particular subordinate, a plaintiff still may,
in rare circumstances, make a plausible showing of deliberate
indifference by alleging facts that indicate "a known history of
widespread abuse sufficient to alert a supervisor to ongoing
violations," from which officials could infer a substantial risk
of serious harm. Guadalupe-Báez, 819 F.3d at 515 (quoting
Maldonado-Denis, 23 F.3d at 582). In Guadalupe-Báez, for example,
the plaintiff was shot by an unidentified police officer and sued
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the superintendent of the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD)
under a theory of supervisory liability. See id. at 513. We gave
weight to a comprehensive 2011 report by the United States
Department of Justice (DOJ), which concluded that "PRPD officers
had engage[d] in a pattern and practice of excessive force." Id.
at 512 (alteration in original) (internal quotation marks
omitted). Relying on the police chief's prior receipt of the DOJ
report, we concluded that the plaintiff's shooting was "a
predictable culmination of the systemic problems documented in the
Report." Id. at 516-17. The DOJ report, we held, allowed the
plaintiff to cross the plausibility threshold, "though not by
much." Id. at 517.
Although the plaintiff strives to invoke the Guadalupe-
Báez exception, this case is at a considerable remove. The
plaintiff's allegations fall well short of the pervasive and
systemic misconduct chronicled in the DOJ report, which formed the
basis for a reasonable inference of constructive knowledge by the
supervisor (the PRPD police chief).
Aware of this distinction, the plaintiff posits that the
sheriff's statement concerning "some recent indictments involving
current and former corrections officers" forms the basis for a
reasonable inference that the defendants may have been aware of
other relevant indictments. But the proposed amended complaint
provides no further information about any such indictments, and
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the plaintiff's attempt to connect the sheriff's statement to the
misconduct at issue here is woven entirely of gossamer strands of
speculation and surmise. Consequently, we conclude that the
sheriff's statement to the press does not support a reasonable
inference of constructive notice on the defendants' part.
This brings us to the plaintiff's remaining federal
claim: that the defendants conspired to deprive her of rights and
privileges in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3). "A civil rights
conspiracy as commonly defined is 'a combination of two or more
persons acting in concert to commit an unlawful act . . . the
principal element of which is an agreement between the parties to
inflict a wrong against or injury upon another.'" Estate of
Bennett, 548 F.3d at 178 (quoting Earle v. Benoit, 850 F.2d 836,
844 (1st Cir. 1988)). Accordingly, a section 1985(3) claim must
contain four elements: "First, the plaintiff must allege a
conspiracy; second, [s]he must allege a conspiratorial purpose to
deprive the plaintiff of the equal protection of the laws; third,
[s]he must identify an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy;
and finally, [s]he must show either injury to person or property,
or a deprivation of a constitutionally protected right." Pérez-
Sánchez v. Pub. Bldg. Auth., 531 F.3d 104, 107 (1st Cir. 2008).
Once again, the plaintiff trips over the plausibility
requirement. Pleading a section 1985(3) conspiracy "requires at
least minimum factual support of the existence of a conspiracy."
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Francis-Sobel v. Univ. of Me., 597 F.2d 15, 17 (1st Cir. 1979);
see Slotnick v. Garfinkle, 632 F.2d 163, 165-66 (1st Cir. 1980)
(per curiam). Thus, a plaintiff seeking to allege such a
conspiracy must plausibly allege facts indicating an agreement
among the conspirators to deprive the plaintiff of her civil
rights. See Earle, 850 F.2d at 843. Without direct evidence of
such an agreement — and none exists here — the plaintiff must plead
plausible factual allegations sufficient to support a reasonable
inference that such an agreement was made. See id. A complaint
containing only vague and conclusory allegations of a conspiracy
fails to state a plausible claim under section 1985(3). Cf. Estate
of Bennett, 548 F.3d at 178 (affirming summary judgment when
plaintiff "presented no evidence, either direct or circumstantial
of an agreement among defendants from which a reasonable jury could
have inferred a conspiracy among them"). So it is here.
In reaching this conclusion, we bear in mind that not
every agreement is sufficient to ground a section 1985(3)
conspiracy: the agreement must involve "some racial, or perhaps
otherwise class-based, invidiously discriminatory animus behind
the conspirators' action." Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88,
102 (1971). Thus, the plaintiff needed to allege facts that would
permit us plausibly to infer an agreement among the defendants,
motivated by some discriminatory animus, to deprive the plaintiff
of her right to be free from sexual abuse while in custody. See
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Pérez-Sánchez, 531 F.3d at 107. Her proposed amended complaint is
devoid of facts that would warrant such an inference. It
necessarily follows that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in deeming her proposed section 1985(3) claim futile.
See Aulson v. Blanchard, 83 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 1996).
The plaintiff makes a last-ditch effort to salvage her
federal claims. She suggests that she needs discovery in order to
obtain "internal materials" from state agencies that would support
her conclusory allegations and, thus, her federal claims were
prematurely dismissed. This suggestion, though, puts the cart
before the horse: the plausibility analysis takes into account
whether "'modest discovery may provide the missing link' that will
allow the appellant to go to trial on her claim." García-Catalán,
734 F.3d at 105 (quoting Menard v. CSX Transp., Inc., 698 F.3d 40,
45 (1st Cir. 2012)).
The assertion of a need for discovery does not trump the
plausibility requirement: a plaintiff must state a plausible claim
before she can invoke a right to discovery. In other words, a
plaintiff can open the door to discovery only if she first alleges
"enough fact[s] to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery
will reveal evidence" of actionable misconduct. Twombly, 550 U.S.
at 556.4
4 The Twombly Court considered this question in the context
of an antitrust claim against a telephone service provider. See
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As we already have explained, the proposed amended
complaint does not pass this test. It fails to set forth facts
plausibly supporting the plaintiff's charges of supervisory
liability and civil rights conspiracy. Nor does it set forth facts
sufficient to create a reasonable expectation that discovery would
be anything more than a shot in the dark. Because there is nothing
in the proposed amended complaint that lifts the plaintiff's
supervisory liability and conspiracy claims beyond the realm of
speculation, we cannot "unlock the doors of discovery." Iqbal,
556 U.S. at 678.
III
We add a coda. The Supreme Court has made pellucid that
assault in prison is "not 'part of the penalty that criminal
offenders pay for their offenses against society,'" Farmer v.
Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) (quoting Rhodes v. Chapman, 452
U.S. 337, 347 (1981)), and we do not hesitate to condemn the
deviant behavior of the rogue officer who abused the plaintiff.
We find such abuse even more concerning where, as in this case,
the inmate alleges that she did all that she reasonably could be
expected to do: she alerted a correctional officer — Shanks — to
the ongoing misconduct. Here, however, the proposed amended
550 U.S. at 548-49. The Court determined that the plaintiffs had
not pleaded facts sufficient to clear the "reasonable expectation"
hurdle and, thus, had failed to "raise a right to relief above the
speculative level." Id. at 555-56.
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complaint does not allege that Shanks shared the plaintiff's report
with any of her supervisors. Nor has the plaintiff alleged that
the DOC lacked adequate reporting protocols or was otherwise
complicit in Shanks's failure to report what she was told up the
chain of command.
Given the absence of any such allegations and the lack
of any factual averments that would plausibly support a claim of
willful blindness on the defendants' part, liability in this case
cannot be premised on Shanks's failure to spread the word. We
caution, though, that no one should read our opinion as insulating
from liability correctional officials who fail to maintain a
meaningful and clearly communicated process for detecting sexual
abuse of inmates, as that would be inconsistent with our view of
the deliberate indifference standard.
IV
We need go no further. Moral indignation alone is not
enough to permit a court either to hold prison officials liable
for every abuse that occurs within a correctional facility or to
authorize a plaintiff to embark on a fishing expedition. Cf. id.("It is not . . . every injury suffered by one prisoner at the
hands of another that translates into constitutional liability for
prison officials responsible for the victim's safety."). The facts
alleged in the plaintiff's proposed amended complaint are simply
too exiguous to make out plausible claims of either supervisory
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liability or civil rights conspiracy against the defendants.5
Accordingly, we hold that the district court acted well within the
encincture of its discretion in rejecting as futile the plaintiff's
motion for leave to file her amended complaint.
Affirmed.
5 Indeed, the district court noted that the plaintiff's
allegations seemed to "establish that corrections officials had
acted to investigate and address threats of inmate sexual abuse by
corrections officers." Parker, 2017 WL 6210892, at *6.
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