Lugo v. The State of New York

Background

Ulyse Lugo sued the Federal Bureau of Prisons, BOP Health Services, Warden Martha Licon Vitale, Deputy Captain James Healey, Lieutenant Judith Wood, Lieutenant Marquea Rice, Joseph Columbo, Yoon Kang, Rachel Sabatura, and Dr. Robert Beaudouin. Lugo alleged that staff at the New York Metropolitan Correctional Center failed to provide adequate medical treatment after an October 2020 altercation while he was a pretrial detainee. He alleged that his wounds became infected and that he developed post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and insomnia.

Lugo proceeded without a lawyer. The opinion states that he appeared to assert claims under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), a statute allowing certain claims against the United States for torts committed by federal employees, and under Bivens, a judicially recognized damages remedy for certain constitutional violations by federal officials. The court had earlier dismissed the State of New York as a defendant. After identifying the previously unnamed defendants, Lugo filed an amended complaint.

Motion and recommendation

The defendants moved to dismiss the amended complaint. Lugo did not oppose the motion, even after the magistrate judge extended his response deadline and warned that the motion would be decided based only on the defendants’ submissions.

Magistrate Judge Figueredo issued an amended report and recommendation. It recommended that any FTCA claims be dismissed without prejudice because Lugo had not alleged that he exhausted the administrative remedies required by the FTCA. It recommended that any Bivens claims based on deliberate indifference to serious medical needs in violation of the Fifth Amendment be dismissed with prejudice because Bivens does not provide a remedy for that type of claim. The recommendation also concluded that Lugo had not pleaded a plausible claim even if such a remedy were available. Neither party objected.

Court’s ruling

Judge Valerie Caproni reviewed the amended recommendation for clear error because no party objected. She found no clear error and adopted it in full. The court held that, to the extent Lugo intended to assert FTCA claims, he had not alleged exhaustion of administrative remedies, so those claims were dismissed without prejudice. The court held that, to the extent he intended to assert Bivens claims, Bivens did not provide a remedy for the alleged Fifth Amendment medical-care violation; those claims were dismissed with prejudice. The court also agreed that the allegations were not plausible even if a Bivens remedy were available.

The defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted. The court stated that appellate review was precluded because neither party objected to the amended recommendation and the recommendation warned that failing to object would waive objections.