Holestine v. Atchley
- Beth Freeman
- 5:20-cv-06677
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Holestine v. Atchley, Judge Freeman denied Holestine’s COVID-19 mask-related temporary restraining order without prejudice for lack of likely success.
Ernest Kelly Holestine’s request for emergency relief against Warden M. B. Atchley and Chief Executive Officer G. Padilla was denied without prejudice; the underlying civil-rights action was not resolved by this order.
What happened
In Holestine v. Atchley, state inmate Ernest Kelly Holestine, representing himself, sued Salinas Valley State Prison staff under a federal civil-rights law. He asked the court to require prison supervisors to train and monitor staff about properly wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The court explained that a temporary restraining order generally requires notice, although an emergency order may sometimes issue without notice. Holestine acknowledged that he had not provided notice. The court also found that he had not shown a likely chance of winning his claim because the record did not establish whether improper mask use resulted from inadequate training or from individual staff members’ conduct, for which the supervisors might not be responsible.
Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied Holestine’s motion for a temporary restraining order without prejudice. The court did not decide whether he would suffer irreparable harm because failure to show likely success was enough to deny emergency relief, and the order terminated the motion docket entry.
The detailed version
- Holestine v. Atchley · No. 5:20-cv-06677
- Beth Freeman
- Sept. 29, 2020
Background
Ernest Kelly Holestine, a state inmate proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against staff at Salinas Valley State Prison. Along with his complaint, he moved for a preliminary injunction and a temporary restraining order against Warden M. B. Atchley and Chief Executive Officer G. Padilla. He sought instructions requiring the supervisors to educate, supervise, and monitor prison staff regarding proper mask use and COVID-19 safety protocols.
Legal standard
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65 governs preliminary injunctions and temporary restraining orders. A preliminary injunction generally requires notice to the opposing party and cannot be decided until the parties have been served. A temporary restraining order can be issued without notice only when specific facts show that immediate, irreparable injury will occur before the opposing party can respond, and the required certification about notice is provided. The court applied the four requirements for preliminary emergency relief: likely success on the merits, likely irreparable harm without relief, a favorable balance of equities, and consistency with the public interest.
Court’s analysis
Holestine conceded that he had not satisfied the notice requirement. The court nevertheless considered whether the record justified a temporary restraining order and found that he had not satisfied all the applicable requirements. In particular, he had not shown that he was likely to succeed on his request for injunctive relief against supervisors responsible for overseeing prison staff.
Holestine alleged that staff continued to wear masks improperly even after a message assuring inmates that the prison would do what it could to keep them safe and would continue following federal and California public-health guidelines. The court said it was unclear whether the alleged conduct resulted from the supervisors’ failure to provide proper training or from individual staff members’ negligence or intentional disregard of procedures they had already been taught. If the latter explanation applied, the supervisors could not be held responsible on that basis. Because Holestine had not shown likely success, the court exercised its discretion not to address irreparable harm.
Disposition
The court denied Holestine’s motion for a temporary restraining order without prejudice. The order terminated Docket No. 3. The opinion did not state a separate disposition of the preliminary-injunction request beyond explaining that such a request could not be decided before the defendants were served.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.