Poslof v. Arce

Background

Lonnie Poslof, an incarcerated person at Salinas Valley State Prison, filed this pro se civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court screened his earlier pleadings and gave him one final opportunity to amend an excessive-force claim under the Eighth Amendment and state-law claims based on that alleged force. The court had already dismissed other categories of claims without leave to amend and with prejudice in an earlier screening order.

The court screened the most recently received Third Amended Complaint under the prisoner-screening statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Poslof alleged excessive force, denial of medical care, retaliation and intimidation, assault and battery, negligence, false reports, property damage and theft, violation of California’s Bane Act, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Court’s analysis

The court dismissed the denial-of-medical-care and false-report claims for the reasons stated in its earlier screening order. It dismissed the property claims because the complaint stated that other inmates—not the defendants—stole the property, and that the damaged typewriter was replaced. It dismissed the retaliation claim because Poslof did not provide facts showing that a defendant took retaliatory action.

Poslof alleged that 24 officers simultaneously handled, tackled, carried, and slammed him. The court found those allegations impossible and noted that it had previously instructed him to identify which officers touched him and when, or to say that he could not identify them. The court therefore assumed that Poslof intended to accuse the four named defendants—Santana-Zambrano, De La Rosa, Escalante, and Obodozie—of using excessive force. It dismissed the Doe defendants because Poslof had not plausibly identified culpable actions by them.

The court concluded that the complaint stated an Eighth Amendment excessive-force claim against Santana-Zambrano, De La Rosa, Escalante, and Obodozie. It also found cognizable, meaning legally sufficient at the screening stage, state-law claims against those four defendants for assault and battery, violation of California’s Bane Act, and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Disposition and next steps

The court granted Poslof’s motions for a screening order. It dismissed all other claims and defendants without leave to amend and ordered service of the complaint on Santana-Zambrano, De La Rosa, Escalante, and Obodozie through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s electronic-service program.

The order requires the defendants to file one comprehensive motion for summary judgment or another dispositive motion concerning the merits within 90 days after the order’s filing date, unless they notify the court that summary judgment is not appropriate. The court also stated that defendants could seek permission to file a limited dispositive motion concerning exhaustion or abstention. The court did not decide those issues in this order.