Solorio v. Ducart
- Yvonne Rogers
- 4:18-cv-07708
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 3
In Solorio v. Ducart, Judge Rogers dismissed Adrian Solorio’s action without prejudice after he failed to follow pleading instructions and prosecute his civil-rights claims.
Adrian Solorio’s action was dismissed without prejudice, and the file was closed. He may move to reopen it by filing a fourth amended complaint limited to the deficiencies in Claim 2; the defendants were not subjected to a merits ruling on the new claims.
What happened
In Solorio v. Ducart, Adrian Solorio, who was incarcerated and representing himself, sued prison officials under a federal civil-rights law. His second amended complaint included seven claims against about twenty defendants and did not clearly explain why the claims belonged in one case.
The court had allowed Solorio to amend his complaint and directed him to file a third amended complaint addressing only Claim 2, concerning alleged deprivation of legal materials. Instead, he filed two documents raising new medical and religious-access claims and did not amend Claim 2 as instructed.
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers dismissed the action without prejudice for failing to follow the court’s instructions and for failing to prosecute it. The file was closed, but Solorio may ask to reopen the action by filing a fourth amended complaint addressing only the identified defects in Claim 2.
The detailed version
- Solorio v. Ducart · No. 4:18-cv-07708
- Yvonne Rogers
- Jan. 12, 2021
Background
Adrian Solorio, who was incarcerated at the time of the order and represented himself, brought a civil-rights complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against officials at Pelican Bay State Prison, where he had previously been incarcerated. His second amended complaint asserted seven claims against approximately twenty defendants.
The court focused on the federal rules governing the joining of defendants and claims in one lawsuit. Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20 allows defendants to be joined only when the claims arise from the same transaction, occurrence, or related series of events and share a common legal or factual question. Rule 21 permits the court to remove misjoined parties or claims. The court had previously warned Solorio that unrelated claims against different defendants had to be brought in separate lawsuits.
Prior Orders and Amendments
In a July 24, 2020 order, the court dismissed Claim 1, concerning a random and unauthorized deprivation of property, for failure to state a legally valid claim under § 1983 and did not allow amendment of that claim. The court also dismissed Claim 2, concerning alleged deprivation of legal materials on October 4, 2016, but allowed Solorio to amend it. The court stated that the allegations did not show actual injury or identify how specific individuals deprived him of legal materials in a way that prevented him from meeting a court deadline.
The court dismissed the remaining claims without prejudice to bringing them in separate state or federal actions. It directed Solorio to file a third amended complaint limited to Claim 2 and warned that any other claims would be summarily dismissed.
Ruling
Solorio filed two documents labeled as third amended complaints. Neither amended Claim 2. Instead, the documents asserted two new claims involving a November 4, 2016 medical incident and a January 3, 2017 denial of access to religion. The court dismissed the action without prejudice for failure to comply with its July 24, 2020 order and for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).
The clerk was directed to close the file. Because the dismissal was without prejudice, Solorio may move to reopen the action. Any such motion must include a fourth amended complaint addressing only the deficiencies identified for Claim 2.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.