Paulino Granda v. Carl I. Schulman

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 09-12564 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
APRIL 7, 2010
Non-Argument Calendar
JOHN LEY
________________________
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 09-20670-CV-1-DLG
PAULINO GRANDA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
CARL I. SCHULMAN,
Dr., MD #12360, In His Professional,
Individual, and Official Capacity,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
_________________________
(April 7, 2010)
Before HULL, WILSON and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Paulino Granda, a federal prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the dismissal
of his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 complaint sua sponte pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A for
failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, and in declining to
exercise supplemental jurisdiction over his state law claims against Dr. Carl I.
Schulman, a Jackson Memorial Hospital physician. He contends that he
adequately alleged a constitutional violation of the Eighth Amendment based on
deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. Granda also argues that Dr.
Schulman agreed to all of the allegations against him by failing to submit an
answer denying them. Upon review of the record and Granda’s brief, we find that
Granda failed to state a claim under § 1983, and the district court did not err by
declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction. Therefore, we affirm.
I.
In his complaint, Granda alleged that after sustaining multiple, near-fatal
gunshot wounds inflicted by the Special Response Team of the Miami-Dade Police
Department, he was transferred by ambulance to Jackson Memorial Hospital where
he underwent emergency surgery. Granda alleged that Dr. Jose A. Hernandez and
possibly others performed the emergency surgery, leaving bullet fragments in
Granda’s chest and shoulder, and a complete bullet in his left thigh. Granda
alleged that Dr. Schulman, the only named defendant, approved of Dr. Fernandez
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leaving bullet fragments and an entire bullet in his body. After the emergency
surgery, Granda alleged that Dr. Schulman gave him “an extremely perfunctory
examination” and prescribed (1) 800 milligrams of ibuprofen every six hours for
pain, (2) topically applied bacitracin for his wounds twice daily, and (3) five
milligrams of amoxicillin every eight hours. Dr. Schulman discharged Granda to
the Metro-Dade West Infirmary only nine hours after undergoing emergency
surgery. Granda alleged that Dr. Schulman, inter alia, was deliberately indifferent
to his medical needs by violating the proper standard of medical care, the
Hippocratic Oath, and his fiduciary duty, which resulted in a breach of trust when
he discharged Granda.
Granda claimed he received injuries, including disfiguring scars, because Dr.
Schulman failed to ensure, following his discharge, that “medical personnel [or]
staff that [had] care [or] custody of [him]” properly cleaned and treated his
wounds, as ordered, changed his dressings “daily and consistently,” and gave him
the prescribed medications. Granda also claimed that he suffered a bacterial skin
infection and painful abscesses in his wounds from such deficient treatment.
Granda further alleged that, although Dr. Schulman authorized his release into the
Metro-Dade West Infirmary, Granda “instead was placed in a classification unit
where [he] received absolutely no medical care.”
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Before Dr. Schulman answered Granda’s complaint, a magistrate judge
recommended that the complaint be dismissed sua sponte under 28 U.S.C. §
1915A for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. The district
court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation, dismissed the
complaint, and declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over Granda’s state
law claims.
II.
Pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”), a “court shall
review, before docketing, if feasible or . . . as soon as practicable after docketing,”
a prisoner’s civil rights complaint “seek[ing] redress from a governmental entity or
officer or employee of a governmental entity,” and must dismiss such a complaint
if it is frivolous or “fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.” 28
U.S.C. § 1915A. We review dismissals under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A for failure to
state a claim upon which relief may be granted de novo. Boxer X v. Harris, 437
F.3d 1107, 1110 (11th Cir. 2006). We liberally construe pro se pleadings. Alba v.
Montford, 517 F.3d 1249, 1252 (11th Cir. 2008), cert. denied, 129 S. Ct. 632(2008). Even so, this obligation “is not the equivalent of a duty to re-write [a
complaint] for [the plaintiff].” Snow v. DirecTV, Inc., 450 F.3d 1314, 1320 (11th
Cir. 2006) (citation and quotation omitted) (alteration in original).
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The district court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over
state law claims when it has dismissed all claims over which it has original
jurisdiction. 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). “We have encouraged district courts to
dismiss any remaining state claims when . . . the federal claims have been
dismissed prior to trial.” Raney v. Allstate Ins. Co., 370 F.3d 1086, 1089 (11th Cir.
2004) (per curiam) (citation omitted).
III.
At the pleading stage, a complaint must contain “a short and plain statement
of the claim,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), which possesses “enough heft to sho[w] that
the pleader is entitled to relief.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 557,
127 S. Ct. 1955, 1966 (2007) (alteration in original) (citation and quotation
omitted). Courts must view the complaint in the light most favorable to the
plaintiff, accepting all of the plaintiff’s well-pleaded facts as true. Am. United Life
Ins. Co. v. Martinez, 480 F.3d 1043, 1057 (11th Cir. 2007) (citation omitted); cf.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (“[T]he tenet that a court must
accept as true all of the allegations contained in a complaint is inapplicable to legal
conclusions.”). “While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss
does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff’s obligation to provide the
‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief’ requires more than labels and conclusions,
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and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not do.”
Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S. Ct. at 1964–65 (alteration in original) (internal
citations omitted). “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief
above the speculative level” and must be sufficient “to state a claim to relief that is
plausible on its face.” Id. at 555, 570, 127 S. Ct. at 1965, 1974. The Supreme
Court recently clarified the level of specificity required to state a plausible claim
for relief, as follows:
A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual
content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged. The plausibility
standard is not akin to a “probability requirement,” but it asks for
more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.
Where a complaint pleads facts that are “merely consistent with” a
defendant’s liability, it “stops short of the line between possibility and
plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.’”
Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949 (citations omitted).
Generally, to state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must adequately allege
“that he . . . was deprived of a federal right by a person acting under color of state
law.” Griffin v. City of Opa-Locka, 261 F.3d 1295, 1303 (11th Cir. 2001) (citation
omitted); see 42 U.S.C. § 1983. “Section 1983 creates no substantive rights; it
merely provides a remedy for deprivations of federal statutory and constitutional
rights.” Almand v. DeKalb County, 103 F.3d 1510, 1512 (11th Cir. 1997) (citation
omitted).
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The Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution forbids “cruel and
unusual punishments.” U.S. Const. amend. VIII. The Eighth Amendment is
applicable to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment’s due process clause.
Campbell v. Johnson, 586 F.3d 835, 842 (11th Cir. 2009) (per curiam) (citation
omitted). While the Eighth Amendment applies only to convicted prisoners, the
same standard applies for evaluating pretrial detainees’ claims of inadequate
medical care under the Fourteenth Amendment. See Mann v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 588
F.3d 1291, 1306 (11th Cir. 2009).
The Supreme Court has interpreted the Eighth Amendment to include
“deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners.” Estelle v. Gamble,
429 U.S. 97, 104, 97 S. Ct. 285, 291 (1976) (internal citation omitted). Every
claim by a prisoner that he did not receive adequate medical treatment, however,
does not state a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 105, 97 S. Ct. at 291.
To state a claim of inadequate medical treatment, a prisoner must allege facts that
satisfy both an objective and a subjective requirement. See Taylor v. Adams, 221
F.3d 1254, 1258 (11th Cir. 2000). The plaintiff must allege an “objectively serious
deprivation” of medical care, which requires (1) “an objectively serious medical
need . . . that, if left unattended, pos[es] a substantial risk of serious harm,” and
(2) that the state actor’s response “was poor enough to constitute an unnecessary
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and wanton infliction of pain, and not merely accidental inadequacy, negligen[ce]
in diagnosi[s] or treat[ment], or even [m]edical malpractice actionable under state
law.” Id. (alterations in original) (internal quotations and citations omitted). A
serious medical need is “one that has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating
treatment or one that is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize
the necessity for a doctor’s attention.” Farrow v. West, 320 F.3d 1235, 1243 (11th
Cir. 2003) (citation and quotations omitted).
A prisoner also must allege the state actor’s subjective intent to punish by
pleading facts that would show that he acted with deliberate indifference. Taylor,
221 F.3d at 1258. Accordingly, a prisoner alleges deliberate indifference by
pleading: (1) the actor’s “subjective knowledge of a risk of serious harm;” (2) the
actor’s “disregard of that risk;” and (3) “conduct that is more than mere
negligence.” Brown v. Johnson, 387 F.3d 1344, 1351 (11th Cir. 2004) (citation
omitted).1 Allegations of a complete denial of readily available treatment for a
1
However, it should be noted that there is an intra-circuit split as to the third prong of
deliberate indifference regarding the actor’s conduct. In Bozeman v. Orum, the third prong
consisted of “conduct that is more than [gross] negligence.” 422 F.3d 1265, 1272 (11th Cir.
2005) (per curiam) (quoting Brown, 387 F.3d at 1351) (emphasis added). Subsequent reported
Eleventh Circuit cases that cite the Bozeman construct include Danley v. Allen, 540 F.3d 1298,
1312 (11th Cir. 2008); Burnette v. Taylor, 533 F.3d 1325, 1330 (11th Cir. 2008); Goebert v. Lee
County, 510 F.3d 1312, 1326–27 (11th Cir. 2007); Andujar v. Rodriguez, 486 F.3d 1199,
1203–04 (11th Cir. 2007). Regardless of what standard is applicable, Granda fails to sufficiently
allege the lower standard of “conduct that is more than mere negligence.” Brown, 387 F.3d at
1351.
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serious medical condition would state a claim for deliberate indifference. Harris v.
Coweta County, 21 F.3d 388, 393 (11th Cir. 1994). Deliberate indifference
includes: (1) “grossly inadequate care,” (2) “a decision to take an easier but less
efficacious course of treatment,” and (3) medical care that is “so cursory as to
amount to no treatment at all.” Brown, 387 F.3d at 1351 (citation and quotation
omitted) (holding that a prisoner stated a claim under the Eighth Amendment
where he alleged that he was prescribed medications to treat hepatitis and the
human immunodeficiency virus (“HIV”), but “complain[ed] of complete
withdrawal of treatment”).
Allegations of a delay in medical care for “serious and painful injuries” also
can state a claim for a violation of the Eighth Amendment, especially where delay
in treating a “known or obvious” serious medical condition is unexplained. Harris,
21 F.3d at 393 (citation omitted); Brown v. Hughes, 894 F.2d 1533, 1538 (11th Cir.
1990) (per curiam) (citations omitted). Likewise, allegations that state officials
knowingly interfered with a physician’s prescribed course of treatment would state
a claim under the Eighth Amendment. Young v. City of Augusta, 59 F.3d 1160,
1169 n.17 (11th Cir. 1995) (citation omitted).
Nevertheless, “a complaint that a physician has been negligent in diagnosing
or treating a medical condition does not state a valid claim of medical mistreatment
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under the Eighth Amendment.” Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106, 97 S. Ct. at 292; see
Hamm v. DeKalb County, 774 F.2d 1567, 1575 (11th Cir. 1985) (“Although [the
prisoner] may have desired different modes of treatment, the care the jail provided
did not amount to deliberate indifference.”). In Estelle, the Supreme Court held
that a prisoner failed to state a claim of deliberate indifference by alleging that
medical personnel failed to diagnose and treat his back injury properly, which
caused him to suffer pain for a three-month period, because he admitted to
receiving treatment, including painkillers and muscle relaxants, on multiple
occasions. 429 U.S. at 99–101, 106–07, 97 S.Ct. at 288–89, 292–93.
As an initial matter, it is unclear whether Dr. Schulman was acting under
color of state law during the relevant time period, or whether he was acting solely
as a private physician. See Griffin, 261 F.3d at 1303. Granda did not allege that
Jackson Memorial Hospital was a state-owned facility, and he did not allege that a
contractual relationship existed between Dr. Schulman and state prison officials to
provide prisoners with medical care. However, because Granda is a pro se litigant,
we must construe his complaint liberally. See Alba, 517 F.3d at 1252 (citation
omitted). Even assuming that Dr. Schulman acted under color of state law, Granda
failed to allege facts sufficient to support a plausible deliberate indifference claim
against him under the Fourteenth Amendment.
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First, accepting as true Granda’s claim that Dr. Schulman approved the
operating surgeon’s decision to leave bullet fragments and an entire bullet in
Granda’s body, this fact alone cannot nudge his claim across the line from
conceivable to plausible without further allegations that would show an
impermissible motive behind Dr. Schulman’s decision. Iqbal, 129 S. Ct. at 1949.
Likewise, Granda’s claim that Dr. Schulman discharged him when he was not
stable, following an “extremely perfunctory” examination and after only nine hours
in the hospital, does not support a reasonable inference that he received grossly
inadequate care. Granda admitted that he received treatment in the form of surgery
and sutures, that Dr. Schulman oversaw the surgery, and that Dr. Schulman
prescribed various medications, including painkillers and antibiotics, before
approving his discharge. Second, Granda claimed that he remained under Dr.
Schulman’s care after his discharge from the hospital and his release into the
custody of the corrections center, and that Dr. Schulman was liable for failing to
provide him with any of the prescribed treatment for four days following his
discharge. These are conclusory assertions insufficient to raise his “right to relief
above the speculative level.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S. Ct. at 1965. Third,
while Granda claimed that corrections center personnel interfered with
Dr. Schulman’s prescribed course of treatment and delayed his receipt of proper
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treatment for four days following his discharge from the hospital, which allegedly
caused him to suffer permanent injuries, he named no such personnel as
defendants. Further, he failed to allege a causal connection in this regard sufficient
to state a claim against Dr. Schulman. See Gonzalez v. Reno, 325 F.3d 1228, 1234
(11th Cir. 2003) (discussing § 1983 liability under a theory of supervisory liability
which requires either direct participation in the constitutional violation or a causal
connection between the actor and the supervisor).
Finally, Dr. Schulman’s failure to answer Granda’s letters, which were not
legal pleadings, or his complaint, which the district court dismissed prior to
service, did not amount to an admission because Dr. Schulman had no legal
obligation to respond to these documents. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(b)(6) (“An
allegation . . . is admitted if a responsive pleading is required and the allegation is
not denied. If a responsive pleading is not required, an allegation is considered
denied or avoided.”).
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s dismissal of Granda’s
constitutional claims for failure to state a claim under § 1983. Likewise, we affirm
the district court’s dismissal of Granda’s pendent state law claims to allow him to
re-file them in state court.
AFFIRMED.
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