Walker v. Kernan
- Susan Illston
- 3:19-cv-01430
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In G. Daniel Walker v. W. L. Muniz, Judge Illston denied Walker’s motions to undo dismissal and require prison accommodations.
G. Daniel Walker; the prison officials and facilities he identified; and the state-court proceeding involving his remaining state-law claims.
What happened
G. Daniel Walker’s federal claims had been dismissed after he failed to file an amended complaint, and his remaining state claims were sent to state court. Walker asked the federal court to undo that dismissal, citing serious vision problems and difficulty preparing his amended complaint.
The court denied the motion to set aside the earlier order. It also denied Walker’s request to require prison officials to provide accommodations, explaining that he had not submitted a complaint stating a federal claim and that the officials and facilities involved were in the Eastern District of California.
Judge Illston said Walker could file a new action in the Eastern District of California if he believed prison officials had denied him court access or disability accommodations. The clerk was directed to send the order to the San Francisco County Superior Court.
The detailed version
- Walker v. Kernan · No. 3:19-cv-01430
- Susan Illston
- Oct. 21, 2019
Background
On September 24, 2019, the court dismissed Walker’s federal claims and sent the removed action back to the San Francisco County Superior Court so he could pursue his state-law claims there. The earlier federal dismissal allowed him to amend, and the court had identified deficiencies that needed to be corrected. Walker did not file the amended complaint during the more than three months available to him.
Walker then filed two requests: a motion to set aside the September 24 order and a notice asking for disability accommodations. He said prison officials at the California Medical Facility in Vacaville and Corcoran State Prison were not adequately accommodating his serious vision problems, which interfered with his ability to prepare the amended complaint. Both facilities are in the Eastern District of California.
The court said it was doubtful that it had jurisdiction over a matter already remanded to state court, but it assumed for purposes of these requests that it could consider them because Walker sought to undo an order issued by the federal court.
Rulings
The court denied Walker’s motion to set aside the September 24, 2019 order. It explained that the federal claims had properly been dismissed because the original complaint did not state a federal claim on which relief could be granted, and Walker had not filed an amended complaint to correct the identified problems. The court also discussed Walker’s statement that he was unable to plead and his evidence suggesting that only the first page of an amended complaint had been completed.
The court separately denied Walker’s request for an order requiring prison officials to provide accommodations. The court treated the request as seeking interim relief, including possible appointment of counsel, but concluded that it could not evaluate likelihood of success on the merits without an amended complaint stating a claim. A preliminary injunction is a court order preserving or requiring action before final judgment; the court explained that such relief requires, among other things, a showing of likely success. The court also noted that the alleged accommodation problems involved facilities in the Eastern District of California, not the Northern District of California.
Additional Direction
The court stated that, if Walker believed the dismissal of his federal claims resulted from prison officials’ conduct at those facilities, he could file a new action against those officials asserting denial of access to the courts, a claim under the Americans with Disabilities Act, or both. The court identified the Eastern District of California as the proper venue for such an action. The clerk was directed to send a copy of the order to the San Francisco County Superior Court for filing in Case Number CGC 17-560446.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.