Summers v. Perry

Background

Pro se plaintiff Baysir Summers sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a federal law allowing claims against people acting under state authority for violating federal rights. He alleged that prisoners demanded $500 from him to remain in housing unit B-West at Fishkill Correctional Facility and that he warned several correctional officers about threats to his safety. Summers alleged that he was later assaulted by about five prisoners and suffered multiple injuries.

Summers also alleged that Wolf, a medical staff member, failed to document his injuries adequately and denied requested imaging, medication, and later medical care. He asserted Eighth Amendment claims for deliberate indifference to medical needs and failure to protect him, a Fourteenth Amendment equal-protection claim, and a state-law negligence claim. The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which tests whether a complaint alleges enough facts to support a legally plausible claim. Summers did not oppose the motion.

Rulings on the Claims

The court dismissed Summers’s Eighth Amendment medical-care claim against Wolf without prejudice. It found that Summers’s allegations did not adequately show either a sufficiently serious medical condition for this type of claim or that Wolf deliberately disregarded a known risk. The court noted that Wolf provided pain relievers and completed a medical record, and that disagreement with the treatment provided was not enough by itself.

The court declined to dismiss the Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claims against Christopher Perry, Jane Doe #1, and Nicholas Cicala. It held that Summers plausibly alleged that these defendants were told about an imminent threat from gang-affiliated prisoners and failed to take reasonable steps to protect him. The court also held that these defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity at this stage because the right to protection from a substantial risk of prison violence was clearly established and, as alleged, a reasonable correctional officer would have known that allowing a specifically threatened attack would be unlawful.

The court dismissed the failure-to-protect claims against Superintendent Edward Burnett, Santos Deleon, and Marianna Cordovano without prejudice. It found that the allegations against Burnett improperly relied on supervisory responsibility alone. It found that Cordovano and Deleon allegedly took reasonable steps in response to the reported threat, even though those steps did not prevent the assault.

The court dismissed Summers’s Fourteenth Amendment equal-protection claim without prejudice because the complaint contained no allegations that he was treated differently from similarly situated people because of intentional discrimination. The court dismissed the negligence claim with prejudice under New York Correction Law § 24, reasoning that the alleged conduct arose from state correctional employees’ work and that such a damages claim could be maintained only against the State of New York in the New York Court of Claims.

The court also dismissed with prejudice claims seeking monetary damages against the defendants in their official capacities, based on state immunity under the Eleventh Amendment and the limits of § 1983.

Disposition and Amendment

Judge Nelson S. Roman granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The motion was granted with prejudice as to claims against the named defendants in their official capacities, granted without prejudice as to Wolf’s medical-care claim, granted without prejudice as to the failure-to-protect claims against Burnett, Deleon, and Cordovano, and granted without prejudice as to the equal-protection claim. It was denied as to the failure-to-protect claims against Perry, Jane Doe #1, and Cicala. The opinion’s discussion also expressly dismissed the negligence claim with prejudice.

The court granted Summers leave to file an amended complaint by November 17, 2025. The amended complaint must replace, rather than supplement, the original complaint. The court directed Summers to substitute the identified names for John Doe #1 and John Doe #2, provide additional information to help identify Jane Doe #1 if he wishes to pursue a claim against her, and name Janice Wolf-Friedman as the defendant previously identified as Wolf. If Summers did not timely amend, the claims dismissed without prejudice would be deemed dismissed with prejudice, while Perry, Jane Doe #1, and Cicala would be required to answer the original complaint.