Richards v. Walensky
- Haywood Gilliam
- 4:21-cv-05128
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 4
In Richards v. Walensky, Judge Gilliam denied fee-waiver and emergency-order motions, dismissed the complaint with leave to amend, and allowed 45 days to refile.
Larry Richards and the defendants named in his complaint, including Rochelle P. Walensky, other government officials, and Dr. Masami Hattori.
What happened
In Richards v. Walensky, Larry Richards, representing himself, sued Rochelle P. Walensky and other defendants over reductions in his prescription quantities. He asked to proceed without paying filing fees and sought an emergency order stopping the defendants from continuing to reduce his prescriptions.
The court found that Richards could not afford the fees, but that his complaint did not state a legally valid claim. The complaint contained one paragraph and attached articles, but did not explain what each defendant did, identify the legal basis for the claims, or provide enough facts. The court said it could not determine the claims even after reading the complaint liberally.
Judge Gilliam denied the fee-waiver motion without prejudice, dismissed the complaint with leave to amend, and denied the emergency-order motion without prejudice to renewal after a sufficient amended complaint was filed. Richards was given 45 days to file an amended complaint and a new fee-waiver motion.
The detailed version
- Richards v. Walensky · No. 4:21-cv-05128
- Haywood Gilliam
- July 6, 2021
Background
Larry Richards, representing himself, filed a complaint against numerous defendants, including various government officials and Dr. Masami Hattori. He alleged that he was experiencing extreme pain and was not receiving what he considered proper doses of Oxycontin 30 and Methadone 10. He asked the court to issue a temporary restraining order—an emergency order intended to prevent specified conduct—stopping the defendants from continuing to reduce the quantities of his prescriptions. He also asked to proceed without paying the filing fee.
Court’s analysis
The court found that Richards was unable to pay the full amount of the filing fees, costs, or security. But a person may proceed without paying those fees only if the complaint also states a claim on which relief may be granted. The court applied the same basic pleading standard used for a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim: the complaint had to provide a short and plain statement of the legal claims and enough factual matter to make relief plausible.
The complaint consisted of a single paragraph followed by articles about opioid prescribing, pain-management physicians, threats faced by doctors, and federal prescribing guidelines. It did not explain what any identified defendant had done or identify the legal authority supporting the lawsuit. The court said it could not decipher the causes of action from the complaint and attached articles. It also explained that disagreement with physicians’ prescribing decisions, by itself, does not create a federal claim, and that the court has no general authority to manage the details of Richards’s medical care without an adequate legal basis.
Disposition
Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. denied the motion to proceed without paying filing fees without prejudice. He dismissed the complaint with leave to amend because the court could not say that amendment would be futile. He also denied the motion for a temporary restraining order without prejudice to renewal after Richards filed a complaint that sufficiently alleged a claim for relief.
The court directed Richards to file an amended complaint and a motion to proceed without paying filing fees within 45 days of the order. The court instructed him to identify, for each claim, the defendant who allegedly committed the violation, the constitutional or legal provision allegedly violated, and the actions or inactions that constituted the violation.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.