Sims v. Diaz

Background

Derrick J. Sims moved for reconsideration of the court’s earlier order denying his request for a preliminary injunction. A preliminary injunction is temporary relief issued while a case is pending. Sims claimed that he was threatened by other inmates in a security threat group and had been attacked three times. The opinion states that the most recent attack occurred more than a year before Sims filed this action.

Parties’ Positions and Analysis

Sims essentially asked the court to review again the evidence he had submitted in support of preliminary relief because he believed the court had not considered it carefully enough. Under Civil Local Rule 7-9(b), reconsideration required him to show a material difference in fact or law from what had previously been presented, new material facts or a change in law after the earlier order, or a manifest failure by the court to consider material facts previously presented.

The court found that Sims had not made any of those showings. Instead, the motion reflected only disagreement with the court’s conclusion that he was not entitled to interim relief. The court explained that prison officials may have different ways to protect an inmate, so a threat and an earlier attack do not automatically establish a present need for preliminary injunctive relief. The fact that more than 18 months had passed since Sims’s most recent attack suggested that officials had found a way to protect him at his current facility and were not then acting with deliberate indifference to his safety. The court concluded that Sims had not shown an immediate threatened injury or entitlement to interim relief.

Ruling

Judge Susan Illston denied Sims’s motion for reconsideration of the denial of his request for a preliminary injunction. The order also stated that no further motions for reconsideration of the earlier preliminary-injunction order or of the March 3, 2020 order could be filed.