Sanchez Martinez v. Freitas
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:23-cv-02508
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 6
In Sanchez Martinez v. Freitas, Judge Gilliam denied amendment-related requests, denied a strike request as moot, and set deadlines for briefing the dismissal motion.
Julio Cesar Sanchez Martinez and the defendants in this § 1983 action. Martinez must file an opposition to the pending motion to dismiss by July 17, 2024; the defendants’ reply is due August 17, 2024.
What happened
In Sanchez Martinez v. Freitas, Julio Cesar Sanchez Martinez, a self-represented jail inmate, asked for more time and permission to file an amended complaint. The defendants asked the court to strike that proposed complaint.
The court denied permission to file the proposed amended complaint because it did not identify violated federal rights, did not adequately connect the defendants to the challenged jail policies, and included a claim for contact visits that failed as a matter of law. The court denied as moot the extension request and the defendants’ request to strike. The court did not decide the pending motion to dismiss.
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. ordered Martinez to oppose the motion to dismiss by July 17, 2024, and ordered the defendants to file any reply by August 17, 2024.
The detailed version
- Sanchez Martinez v. Freitas · No. 4:23-cv-02508
- Haywood Gilliam
- June 17, 2024
Background
Julio Cesar Sanchez Martinez, an inmate at Santa Cruz County Jail, filed this self-represented lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a law that allows claims for certain constitutional violations by state or local officials. The court had previously found a claim concerning the jail’s policy of providing inmates’ mail in electronic format stated a potential constitutional claim. It had allowed Martinez to amend another mail-related claim and extended his deadline to file an amended complaint.
Martinez then requested another extension and sought permission to file a proposed amended complaint. The proposed complaint challenged five jail policies or customs. The defendants separately moved to dismiss the original complaint and asked the court to strike the proposed amended complaint.
Proposed amended complaint
The court found that the proposed amended complaint did not state a legally recognizable claim. First, it listed jail policies that Martinez disliked without identifying the federal law or constitutional provision allegedly violated. Second, it did not sufficiently connect each named defendant to the challenged policies. The court explained that § 1983 does not impose liability merely because someone is a supervisor or reviews a grievance, and that prisoners do not have a constitutional right to an effective grievance procedure.
The court also held that the proposed claim challenging denial of contact visits to male inmates failed as a matter of law because prisoners have no constitutional right to contact or conjugal visitation.
Because the proposed amendment failed to state a legally recognizable claim, the court concluded that allowing it would be futile. The court also explained that an amended complaint would replace the original complaint, potentially eliminating the previously recognized mail-policy claim. The denial of leave to amend was without prejudice to a renewed request, and the court instructed Martinez that any renewed proposed pleading must reproduce the entire pleading and address the identified deficiencies.
Orders
The court’s conclusion ordered the following:
- It denied as moot Martinez’s request for an extension of time to file an amended complaint.
- It denied Martinez leave to file the proposed amended complaint.
- It denied as moot the defendants’ motion to strike the proposed amended complaint.
- It ordered Martinez to file an opposition to the defendants’ motion to dismiss by July 17,
- The defendants’ reply was due August 17,
- The motion would then be submitted without a hearing.
The order terminated the docket entries concerning the extension request, proposed amended complaint, and motion to strike. It did not rule on the pending motion to dismiss.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.