Marcus R. Ellington, Sr. v. California Dept. of Corr. and Reh., Secretary of, 2:20-cv-09116

Plaintiff Marcus R. Ellington, Sr. filed a Fourth Amended Complaint in CV 20-9116 alleging constitutional claims against California prison officials.
The assigned Magistrate Judge issued an Amended Report and Recommendation (Oct. 20, 2022) recommending dismissal with prejudice for failure to comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8.
Plaintiff filed multiple pro se filings (Dkts. 71, 72, 73, 74)—characterized variously as objections, motions to supplement, and a declaration—seeking to cure defects and to add claims/defendants for alleged denial of medical care.
The District Court conducted de novo review, granted Plaintiff’s Motion to Correct to treat certain filings as motions to supplement, and evaluated the proposed supplemental complaints on the merits.
The court found the Fourth Amended Complaint and all proposed supplements too confusing to satisfy Rule 8, that proposed claims were futile (e.g., impermissible supervisory liability, grievance-processing claims), and that the declaration added no new material facts.
Conclusion: the Fourth Amended Complaint was dismissed with prejudice and Plaintiff’s motions for leave to file supplemental complaints were denied.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether the Fourth Amended Complaint should be dismissed for failure to comply with Rule 8	Ellington sought leave to cure pleading defects and argued his submissions clarify claims	Magistrate and Court found pleadings too confusing to identify claims/defendants and thus noncompliant with Rule 8	Dismissed with prejudice for Rule 8 failure
Whether leave to file supplemental complaints should be granted	Ellington sought to add new claims/defendants for recent alleged denial of medical care	Proposed supplements were incoherent, attempted to base liability on supervision or grievance processing, and thus futile	Motion to supplement denied as futile
Whether the Court should treat certain filings as objections versus motions to supplement	Ellington argued the Court misconstrued his filings and sought correction	Magistrate had construed filings as objections; Court reviewed and clarified treatment	Court granted Motion to Correct and considered filings as motions to supplement but denied them on merits
Whether the Declaration filed by Ellington affected the Court's analysis	Ellington filed a declaration in support of his § 1983 complaint	Court found the declaration merely repeated existing allegations and added no new material facts	Declaration was not material to preventing dismissal or supplementation

Keith v. Volpe, 858 F.2d 467 (9th Cir. 1988) (trial court has broad discretion on permitting supplemental pleadings)
Crowley v. Bannister, 734 F.3d 967 (9th Cir. 2013) (supervisory liability not actionable under § 1983 absent more)
Mann v. Adams, 855 F.2d 639 (9th Cir. 1988) (no constitutional right to a particular grievance procedure)
Bonin v. Calderon, 59 F.3d 815 (9th Cir. 1995) (futility of amendment can justify denial of leave to amend)
Hamilton v. Brown, 630 F.3d 889 (9th Cir. 2011) (court accepts alleged material facts as true when assessing sufficiency of complaint)