Luckey v. JonasLuckey v. Jonas
- Reporters:
- ,
- Before:
- Analisa Torres
ANALISA TORRES, District Judge:
Plaintiff pro se, Jeremiah Luckey, brings this action under
BACKGROUND
The following facts are taken from Plaintiff‘s complaint, which the Court accepts as true for the purposes of this motion. See ATSI Commc‘ns, Inc. v. Shaar Fund, Ltd., 493 F.3d 87, 98 (2d Cir. 2007). On July 9, 2019, while housed at MDC, Plaintiff “slipped and fell due to water that wasn‘t cleaned up” while being escorted within the facility. Compl. at 4. There were no
After falling, Plaintiff remained on the floor for an hour and a half until the Emergency Medical Technicians (“EMTs“) put him on a stretcher. Id. During that time, other inmates hit him with objects and splashed him with “an unknown substance which made [his] eyes go blurry.” Id. Defendants did nothing to stop the other inmates’ behavior, which Plaintiff characterizes as “assault[].” Id.
Plaintiff‘s lower back, ankles, and wrists “still bother [him]” and his “eyesight hasn‘t been the same.” Id. at 5. He “received a neck brace.” Id. The incident put him under “extreme emotional and mental distress.” Id.
DISCUSSION
I. Legal Standard
To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, “a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter . . . to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.‘” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). The court must accept the allegations in the complaint as true and draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-movant. See ATSI Commc‘ns, Inc. v. Shaar Fund, Ltd., 493 F.3d 87, 98 (2d Cir. 2007). A plaintiff is not required to provide “detailed factual allegations,” but must assert “more than labels and conclusions.” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. Ultimately, the “[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level.” Id.
Pro se plaintiffs receive special solicitude from courts. Courts must “liberally construe pleadings and briefs submitted by pro se litigants, reading such submissions to raise the strongest arguments they suggest.” Bertin v. United States, 478 F.3d 489, 491 (2d Cir. 2007) (internal
Finally, although Plaintiff failed to oppose Defendants’ motion to dismiss, “failure to oppose a 12(b)(6) motion cannot itself justify dismissal of a complaint.” Haas v. Commerce Bank, 497 F. Supp. 2d 563, 564 (S.D.N.Y. July 30, 2007). “‘[T]he sufficiency of a complaint is a matter of law that the court is capable of determining based on its own reading of the pleading and knowledge of the law.‘” Gregory v. Ricigliano, No. 12 Civ. 4372, 2014 WL 119475, at *5 (E.D.N.Y. Jan. 10, 2014) (quoting Goldberg v. Danaher, 599 F.3d 181, 184 (2d Cir. 2010)). The Court, therefore, “must assume the truth of a pleading‘s factual allegations and test only its legal sufficiency.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
II. Analysis
Construed liberally, Plaintiff claims that Defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights by their (1) deliberate indifference to unconstitutional conditions of confinement, and (2) failure to protect him from an inmate-on-inmate attack.
A. Conditions of Confinement
“A pretrial detainee‘s claims of unconstitutional conditions of confinement are governed by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, rather than the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eight[h] Amendment.” Darnell v. Pineiro, 849 F.3d 17, 29 (2d Cir. 2017).2 This is because pretrial detainees “have not been convicted of a crime and thus may not be punished in any manner—neither cruelly and unusually nor otherwise.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
To establish a claim for deliberate indifference to unconstitutional conditions of confinement, a pretrial detainee must show that “the officers acted with deliberate indifference to the challenged conditions.” Id. This means that a pretrial detainee must satisfy two prongs to state a claim:
an “objective prong” showing that the challenged conditions were sufficiently serious to constitute objective deprivations of the right to due process, and a “subjective prong“—perhaps better classified as a “mens rea prong” or “mental element prong“—showing that the officer acted with at least deliberate indifference to the challenged conditions.
Id. The “mens rea prong” is defined objectively: “the pretrial detainee must prove that the defendant-official acted intentionally to impose the alleged condition, or recklessly failed to act with reasonable care to mitigate the risk that the condition posed to the pretrial detainee even though the defendant-official knew, or should have known, that the condition posed an excessive risk to health or safety.” Id. at 35. Negligence is not enough. Id. at 36.
Courts in this Circuit have routinely held that “allegations of wet floor conditions that cause a prisoner to slip and fall, standing alone, do not satisfy the first prong of a conditions of confinement claim.” Lopez v. Phipps, No. 18 Civ. 3605, 2019 WL 2504097, at *8 (E.D.N.Y. June 17, 2019) (collecting cases); Strange v. Westchester Dep‘t of Corrs., No. 17 Civ. 9968, 2018 WL 3910829, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 14, 2018) (“District courts in this Circuit have repeatedly held that, standing alone, a claim that a prisoner fell on a slippery floor and injured himself fails to satisfy the first prong of a conditions-of-confinement claim.“).
Plaintiff‘s allegations also fail to satisfy the second prong because he does not allege any facts indicating that Defendants acted intentionally or recklessly. Darnell, 849 F.3d at 35; Strange, 2018 WL 3910829, at *3 (plaintiff failed to satisfy second prong when his allegations did not demonstrate that officers acted intentionally or recklessly). He does not plead any facts indicating that Defendants had prior knowledge of the wet floor such that the Court could reasonable infer that Defendants acted intentionally or recklessly.
Because Plaintiff fails to allege facts satisfying either prong of a deliberate indifference to conditions of confinement claim, Defendants’ motion to dismiss the claim is GRANTED.3
B. Failure to Protect
The Constitution imposes a duty on prison officials to “take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “In particular, a prison official has a duty to protect prisoners from violence from other prisoners.” Nunez v. Goord, 172 F. Supp. 2d 417, 430 (S.D.N.Y. 2001). However, not “every injury suffered by one prisoner at the hands of another . . . translates into constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for the victim‘s safety.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834. A prison official‘s failure to protect is a Fourteenth Amendment violation only “where the officer acted with ‘deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate.‘” Rosen v. City of N.Y., 667 F. Supp. 2d 355, 360-61 (S.D.N.Y. 2009) (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 828).
The two-pronged framework for claims of deliberate indifference set forth in Darnell “applies with equal measure to failure to protect claims.” Taylor v. City of N.Y., No. 16 Civ. 7857, 2018 WL 1737626, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 27, 2018). A plaintiff must therefore show “(1) that the failure to intervene or protect the inmate was sufficiently serious such that it caused an unquestioned and serious deprivation of basic human needs and (2) that the defendant acted with a sufficiently culpable state of mind.” Corley v. City of N.Y., No. 14 Civ. 3202, 2017 WL 4357662, at *12 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 28, 2017) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The second prong is measured by an objective standard: whether a defendant “knew, or should have known” that his or her conduct “posed an excessive risk to health or safety.” Darnell, 849 F.3d at 33, 35.
Beginning with the first prong, “[t]here is no static test to determine whether a deprivation is sufficiently serious; instead, the conditions themselves must be evaluated in light of contemporary standards of decency.” Darnell, 849 F.3d at 30 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The failure of a correction officer to . . . intervene in an attack . . . may under certain circumstances create a condition which poses a substantial risk of serious harm thus constituting a sufficiently serious constitutional violation.” Molina v. Cty. of Westchester, No. 16 Civ. 3421, 2017 WL 1609021, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 28, 2017). “[I]n assessing whether the
Here Plaintiff alleges that he was “hit with objects and splashed with an unknown substance which made his eyes go blurry” for “about an hour and a half” until the EMTs arrived. Compl. at 4. He further alleges that his “eyesight hasn‘t been the same” ever since. Id. at 5. He does not plead any facts indicating that there were prior altercations between him and his alleged attackers. The Court, however, finds this immaterial given the extended duration of the attack. Construing the complaint liberally, and drawing all reasonable inferences in Plaintiff‘s favor, the Court finds that Plaintiff has plausibly alleged that Defendants’ actions may have put Plaintiff at risk of serious harm. Allowing Plaintiff to be “hit with objects and splashed with an unknown substance,” Compl. at 4, for over an hour and a half as he lay on the ground injured, waiting for an EMT to arrive, does not comport with “contemporary standards of decency.” Moreover, this led to an impairment in Plaintiff‘s vision. In reaching this conclusion, the Court is cognizant that Plaintiff‘s injuries from the slip and fall were serious enough to necessitate EMTs and the use of a stretcher.
Defendants argue that Plaintiff has failed to meet the second prong because “there are no facts upon which this Court could plausibly infer that defendants were previously aware of any risk of attack by other inmates” and courts have “recognized that a defendant correction officer cannot be liable for a surprise attack.” Def. Mem. at 13-14. A “surprise attack,” however, is only a surprise for so long: Plaintiff alleges that he was on the floor being “assaulted” for an hour and a half while the Defendants “did nothing to stop” the attack. Compl. at 4. The “surprise attacks” in the cases Defendants cite involve situations where the defendants (1) had no prior knowledge to suggest an attack was coming, and (2) were not present for the attack or the attack was so short that there was no time to intervene. See Franzese v. City of N.Y., No. 17 Civ. 3020, 2018 WL 5924354, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. Nov. 13, 2018) (subjective prong was not met when defendant had no reason to know that the plaintiff‘s safety was at risk and it was “not plausible that [the d]efendant would have been able to intervene and prevent the [30 second] attack“); Parris v. N.Y. State Dep‘t of Corr. Servs., 947 F. Supp. 2d 354, 358 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (correctional officers did not notice the assault for several minutes); Fernandez v. N.Y.C. Dep‘t of Corr., No. 08 Civ. 4294, 2010 WL 1222017, at *1 (S.D.N.Y. Mar 29, 2010) (alleging that no officers were monitoring the area when the assault occurred and separated the two inmates when they saw the altercation).
Although Defendants might not have had prior knowledge that the attack was going to occur, once it began, their failure to stop it for over an hour is sufficient for Plaintiff to adequately allege the second prong.4 See Taylor, 2018 WL 1737626 at *12 (“Likewise, plaintiff
C. Qualified Immunity
“Under
D. Potential State Law Claims
Construed liberally, Plaintiff also asserts negligence-based claims arising out of the slip and fall and the inmate assault. Defendant moves to dismiss the negligence claim “premised upon defendants’ purported failure to clean up water on the floor.” Def. Mem. at 20.
“Under New York law, which applies to this case, a plaintiff must establish three elements to prevail on a negligence claim: (1) the existence of a duty on defendant‘s part as to
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, Defendants’ motion to dismiss is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Plaintiff may proceed on his claims for failure to intervene under
Plaintiff is warned that failure to respond to Court orders may result in dismissal for failure to prosecute under
The Clerk of the Court is directed to terminate the motion at ECF No. 15 and to mail a copy of this order and all unpublished cases cited herein to Plaintiff pro se.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: September 4, 2019
New York, New York
ANALISA TORRES
United States District Judge