Watson v. Allison
- Edward Davila
- 5:22-cv-04522
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 8
In Watson v. Allison, Judge Davila screened Rhone Watson’s prison-rights suit, dismissed unnamed and deceased parties, and allowed claims against remaining defendants to proceed.
Rhone Watson; the unnamed “John Doe 1-400” plaintiffs, who were dismissed; R. Tharratt, who was dismissed; and the remaining defendants, against whom service was ordered and Watson’s Eighth Amendment claims may proceed.
What happened
In Watson v. Allison, Rhone Watson, a prisoner representing himself, sued over the May 2020 transfer of more than 100 prisoners from California Institution for Men to San Quentin State Prison. He alleged that some transferred prisoners had COVID-19 and that the transfer violated the Eighth Amendment.
The court found that the allegations stated an allowable Eighth Amendment claim under the federal civil-rights law against the defendants. Watson also named 400 unnamed people as additional plaintiffs, but a person representing himself cannot represent other people in court. The court therefore dismissed those unnamed plaintiffs.
Judge Davila also dismissed R. Tharratt because the court took notice of information indicating that Tharratt died before Watson filed this case. The court ordered service to proceed against the other defendants listed in its conclusion, so the case continues against them; the order did not decide whether Watson will ultimately prevail.
The detailed version
- Watson v. Allison · No. 5:22-cv-04522
- Edward Davila
- Sept. 16, 2022
Background
Rhone Watson, an inmate at San Quentin State Prison, proceeded without a lawyer and filed a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Section 1983 provides a way to seek relief for a violation of federal rights by a person acting under state law. Watson alleged that defendants transferred more than 100 inmates from the California Institution for Men, where there was a COVID-19 outbreak, to San Quentin in May 2020. He alleged that some transferred inmates were infected and that the transfer and related conditions violated the Eighth Amendment.
Watson incorporated factual allegations concerning the transfer, including allegations that inmates were not screened for symptoms before boarding buses, were not given space for distancing, and were housed in conditions where they shared showers and dining areas with other inmates. The allegations stated that 15 transferred inmates tested positive immediately after the transfer and that San Quentin later experienced an outbreak with more than 499 confirmed cases.
Watson named the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, California Correctional Health Care Services, San Quentin State Prison, the California Institution for Men, and individual defendants. He also identified “John Doe 1-400” as additional plaintiffs and sought “10,000,00 million dollars or release.” The court stated that it would address Watson’s request to proceed without paying filing fees in a separate order.
Screening standard
Because Watson was a prisoner seeking relief from governmental entities or employees, the court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Under that statute, the court must identify claims that can proceed and dismiss claims that are frivolous, malicious, inadequately pleaded, or seek money from an immune defendant. The court also applied the rule that pleadings filed without a lawyer should be read liberally, while still requiring enough factual matter to make a claim plausible rather than merely speculative.
Doe plaintiffs
The court dismissed the unnamed plaintiffs identified as “John Doe 1-400.” It explained that a person proceeding without a lawyer has no authority to act as an attorney for other people and therefore could not represent those unnamed plaintiffs.
Eighth Amendment claim
The court held that the allegations concerning the May 2020 transfer stated cognizable Eighth Amendment claims against the defendants. A claim is “cognizable” when it is legally sufficient to proceed past the initial screening stage. The court cited the rule that a prison official violates the Eighth Amendment through deliberate indifference when the official knows a prisoner faces a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable steps to reduce it.
This ruling allowed the claim to proceed; it was not a final determination that Watson proved the alleged constitutional violation.
R. Tharratt
The court took judicial notice of a filing in another case and an obituary indicating, to the best of the Attorney General’s knowledge, that Dr. Tharratt died on August 20, 2020. Because that death preceded Watson’s filing of this action, the court concluded that Tharratt was not properly named as a defendant at the beginning of the lawsuit. The court dismissed Tharratt.
Disposition and service
The court ordered service to proceed under the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s electronic-service program for prisoner civil-rights cases against the defendants listed in the conclusion. It directed the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to provide a report identifying which defendants waived service and which required service through the United States Marshals Service. The court also set procedures for future service, communications, scheduling, address changes, and requests for extensions of time.
The order stated that summary-judgment or other dispositive-motion briefing would be scheduled after resolution of common issues in a related multidistrict matter. The order therefore resolved the screening and service issues but did not decide the ultimate merits of Watson’s surviving claim.
Read the full 8-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.