Rhodes v. State of California
- Edward Davila
- 5:22-cv-00905
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 10
In Rhodes v. State of California, Judge Corley dismissed some claims during prisoner screening but allowed others to proceed.
Kenneth D. Rhodes and the named state-prison defendants were affected. Claims against Does 1 through 20 and the familial-association claim were dismissed without prejudice; the state-created-danger claim was dismissed with prejudice; the remaining specified claims were allowed to proceed to service.
What happened
In Kenneth D. Rhodes v. State of California, et al., the court screened a civil-rights complaint filed by a California prisoner representing himself. Rhodes alleged that officials mishandled a 2020 transfer of prisoners to San Quentin State Prison, contributing to the spread of COVID-19, and that he became infected.
The court dismissed claims against the unidentified defendants without prejudice and dismissed Rhodes’s familial-association claim without prejudice. It dismissed his state-created-danger claim with prejudice. The court found that the complaint stated claims involving deliberate indifference to his health and safety under the Eighth Amendment, California’s Bane Act, negligent infliction of emotional distress, and the Rehabilitation Act, and ordered service on the named defendants connected to those claims.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley issued the July 11, 2022 order. The case was not finally resolved; the allowed claims were to proceed, and the court directed the clerk to begin service on the defendants.
The detailed version
- Rhodes v. State of California · No. 5:22-cv-00905
- Edward Davila
- July 11, 2022
Background
Kenneth D. Rhodes, a California prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. §
- He alleged that defendants participated in transferring more than 100 prisoners, some infected with COVID-19, from the California Institution for Men to San Quentin State Prison in May
- According to the complaint, officials failed to take adequate precautions, including timely testing and symptom screening, distancing on transfer buses, and testing and isolating prisoners after arrival. Rhodes alleged that San Quentin went from having no COVID-19 cases to hundreds of cases and that 26 prisoners had died by late July
- He also alleged that defendants knew about his COPD, cardiovascular disease and hypertension, pre-diabetic status, heart murmur, obesity, sleep apnea, and age, and that he contracted COVID-19 around June 25, 2020.
Rhodes asserted claims against individual defendants for deliberate indifference to his medical and safety needs, interference with familial association, a state-created danger under the Fourteenth Amendment, and violation of California Civil Code section 52.1, known as the Bane Act. He also asserted Rehabilitation Act claims against the State of California, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and San Quentin State Prison, and a negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim against several individual defendants and unidentified defendants.
Screening standard
Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the court screened the prisoner’s complaint to identify claims that were frivolous, malicious, inadequately pleaded, or sought money from an immune defendant. The court stated that a self-represented complaint must be read generously, but it still must provide enough facts to make a claim plausible and give defendants fair notice of the grounds for relief.
Claims dismissed
The court dismissed the claims against Does 1 through 20 without prejudice because the complaint contained no specific allegations about any unidentified defendant. “Without prejudice” means the dismissal did not bar refiling or amendment based on proper allegations, although the order itself did not separately direct an amendment.
The court dismissed the familial-association claim without prejudice because Rhodes made no specific allegations showing a deprivation of that right.
The court dismissed the Fourteenth Amendment state-created-danger claim with prejudice. The court reasoned that this doctrine concerns an official’s failure to protect someone from harm caused by third parties, while Rhodes alleged that he was harmed by contracting COVID-19. The court also noted that the Eighth Amendment supplies the applicable standard for conditions-of-confinement claims brought by convicted prisoners.
Claims allowed to proceed
The court found that the allegations about the May 2020 prisoner transfer stated cognizable Eighth Amendment claims for deliberate indifference to health and safety against Ralph Diaz, the Estate of Robert S. Tharratt, Ronald Davis, Ronald Broomfield, Clarence Cryer, Alison Pachynski, and Shannon Garrigan. A cognizable claim is one that is sufficiently stated to proceed past the initial screening stage; the ruling was not a final decision on liability.
The court also found a cognizable Bane Act claim based on the allegation that defendants acted with reckless disregard for Rhodes’s constitutional rights. It found a cognizable negligent-infliction-of-emotional-distress claim based on the alleged breach of defendants’ duty of care to him as a prisoner by exposing him to COVID-19.
The court further found a cognizable Rehabilitation Act claim against the State of California, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and San Quentin State Prison. Rhodes alleged that he had several medical conditions and that these defendants failed to provide disability-related accommodations, including enhanced personal protective equipment, N-95 respirators, environmental changes for social distancing, enforcement of masking and distancing requirements, and compliance with public-health guidance.
Order and next steps
The court ordered service to proceed through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s electronic-service program for prisoner civil-rights cases. The clerk was directed to send the complaint, order, waiver form, and summons to the department, which was required to report on service waivers within the time stated in the order. The order also stated that the court would issue a scheduling order for summary judgment or other dispositive motions after resolution of common issues in a related matter. Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley signed the order.
Read the full 10-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.