IN RE CIM-SQ TRANSFER CASES

Background

The plaintiff, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights action concerning the May 2020 transfer of 122 people from the California Institution for Men to San Quentin State Prison. The action was consolidated with related cases concerning that transfer. The court had dismissed the original complaint while allowing an amended complaint to be filed. The plaintiff then filed a First Amended Complaint.

The order identifies the defendants as Ronald Broomfield, Acting Warden of San Quentin State Prison; California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Secretary Ralph Diaz; California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Director Kathleen Allison; and Dr. Joseph Bink of California Correctional Health Care Services. The plaintiff alleges that the defendants’ deliberate indifference during the transfer violated the Eighth Amendment and led to the plaintiff’s COVID-19 infection. The plaintiff seeks damages.

Screening and Claim

The court reviewed the amended complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, which requires preliminary screening of prisoner complaints against governmental entities or their officers or employees. At screening, the court must identify claims that can proceed or dismiss claims that are frivolous, malicious, inadequately pleaded, or seek money from an immune defendant. The court also applied the requirement that a complaint provide enough factual content to make the claimed right to relief plausible.

Liberally construing the plaintiff’s allegations, the court concluded that the amended complaint stated a plausible Eighth Amendment deliberate-indifference claim concerning the plaintiff’s safety. The order did not decide the ultimate merits of that claim.

Order

The court ordered service on all four defendants through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s electronic-service program for prisoner civil-rights cases. The order directs the clerk to send the operative complaint, the order, a service-waiver report, and summons materials to the department. Defendants who do not waive service may be served through the United States Marshals Service.

The order also requires the plaintiff to serve copies of communications on the defendants or their counsel, keep the court informed of address changes, comply with deadlines, and prosecute the case. The consolidated case will remain stayed for all purposes other than service of the complaint. The docket for Case No. 25-cv-01728 and other individual dockets was closed, and motions related to the plaintiff’s case must be filed in Case No. 5:20-cv-06326-EJD with the original case number included in the heading.