Herrera-Ramos v. CDCR

Background

Jose Herrera-Ramos filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law that allows claims against people acting under state authority for violating federal rights. He sued the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Officer Orosco, unidentified officers, and Warden J. Lewis. The court also noted that Herrera-Ramos was proceeding without a lawyer. The court’s separate ruling on his request to proceed without paying the filing fee was not included in this order.

The complaint alleged that Herrera-Ramos was transferred for his protection and later moved to another prison. He said he warned officers that Sureño gang members threatened to kill him and asked to be separated from other inmates during transportation. According to the complaint, officers mocked him, placed him near active gang members, and watched while three inmates assaulted him. He alleged that the officers then refused to obtain medical care even though he had serious injuries and was in severe pain.

Court’s analysis

The court conducted the preliminary screening required when a prisoner sues a governmental entity. At this stage, the court must identify claims that are legally sufficient and dismiss claims that are frivolous, fail to state a claim, or seek money from an immune defendant.

For Claim One, the court held that the allegations were sufficient to state a failure-to-protect claim against Orosco and the unidentified officers. The court allowed Herrera-Ramos an opportunity to identify the John Doe defendants through discovery and later seek to amend the complaint to name them. However, the court held that the retaliation portion of Claim One was insufficient because the complaint did not adequately allege that the defendants acted because of protected conduct or that their actions chilled Herrera-Ramos’s exercise of his First Amendment rights. The court dismissed that retaliation claim with leave to amend.

For Claim Two, the court held that the allegations were sufficient to state an Eighth Amendment claim for deliberate indifference to serious medical needs against Orosco and the unidentified transportation officers. In plain terms, the claim alleges that officials knowingly disregarded a serious need for medical care. The retaliation portion of Claim Two was also insufficient for the same reasons as the retaliation claim in Claim One. The court directed Herrera-Ramos to amend one retaliation claim rather than plead duplicative retaliation claims.

For Claim Three, the court found that the allegations concerning failure to protect and denial of medical care repeated Claims One and Two. The court also held that Herrera-Ramos could not make CDCR liable merely because its employees allegedly acted unlawfully, and that he had not alleged a CDCR policy that caused the constitutional violation. Finally, the court held that it had no jurisdiction over events at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, which is located in the Southern District of California. That ruling included claims involving Warden J. Lewis.

Disposition

The court dismissed without prejudice all claims against defendants based on events at the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, allowing those claims to be filed in a separate action in the Southern District of California. It terminated J. Lewis from this case because no claims against him remained.

The court dismissed the retaliation claim against Orosco and the John Doe defendants with leave to amend. Herrera-Ramos had 28 days from the filing of the order to file an amended complaint using the court’s form and to include the required case number and wording. The court stated that failure to file the amended complaint on time would result in dismissal with prejudice of the deficient claims. Subject to that amendment requirement, the case would proceed on the failure-to-protect and deliberate-indifference-to-serious-medical-needs claims against Orosco and the unidentified officers, with an opportunity to identify the John Doe defendants through discovery.