Bolden v. Allison

Background

The order concerns several cases assigned to Judge Orrick for limited purposes, including Bolden v. Allison, No. 22-cv-2059-PJH. The pro se plaintiffs alleged that transferring prisoners from CIM to San Quentin State Prison, including the transfer procedures, testing, and housing arrangements, caused an outbreak and their COVID-19 infections. The order states that Bolden and another plaintiff alleged positive COVID-19 tests and symptoms on June 29, 2020.

The limited assignment covered four issues: whether J. Clark Kelso had quasi-judicial immunity; whether the defendants had immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act; whether qualified immunity applied at the motion-to-dismiss stage; and whether the complaints contained enough facts to state a claim.

Kelso’s immunity

Judge Orrick found that federal receiver J. Clark Kelso had quasi-judicial immunity. The order explains that the court appointing the receiver gave the receiver and his staff the same immunities as the court. It further states that Kelso was appointed with the powers, privileges, and responsibilities of the receiver, and that courts had consistently treated him as protected by quasi-judicial immunity for conduct within his appointed role.

The court stated that the plaintiffs did not allege, and based on their other allegations could not allege, that Kelso acted outside his appointed capacity or without jurisdiction. It therefore stated that Kelso should be dismissed from the cases naming him, including Bolden v. Allison. However, the order gave the relevant plaintiffs an opportunity to object and said the court would issue a later order resolving the matter. It did not itself enter the dismissal in this order.

PREP Act and qualified immunity

In an earlier order involving represented cases, the court had concluded that the pleadings adequately showed, at the motion-to-dismiss stage, that neither Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act immunity nor qualified immunity prevented the claims from proceeding. This order directed defendants to show why the same conclusion should not apply to the pro se cases. Defendants could incorporate their earlier arguments or raise new arguments based on allegations unique to these cases. The court reserved a later ruling on these issues.

Failure to state a claim

The defendants had argued that the complaints failed to state a claim because they lacked specific facts connecting the prisoner transfers to the plaintiffs’ illnesses. Judge Orrick rejected those arguments as presented to date. The order states that an Eighth Amendment claim requires allegations that defendants were deliberately indifferent to an objectively serious safety, medical, or prison-conditions risk and were subjectively aware of that risk.

The court concluded that the pro se complaints generally alleged enough to proceed at the pleading stage. It stated that contracting COVID-19 met the objective-seriousness requirement and that the claims against individual defendants could proceed when plaintiffs alleged that those defendants made, supported, or facilitated transfer decisions or protocols, or knew about flawed protocols and failed to reduce the risk. The court also stated that plaintiffs did not need to allege that defendants knew of the risk to each plaintiff personally; awareness of a risk to San Quentin prisoners could suffice.

The court rejected the argument that possible intervening causes required dismissal at this stage. It stated that plaintiffs needed only to allege generally that defendants caused their infections, while the truth of those allegations and the effect of each defendant’s conduct could be addressed through discovery and possibly trial. The court ordered defendants to show why its conclusion that the pro se plaintiffs had adequately stated their claims was mistaken.

Disposition and next steps

This was an order to show cause, not a final decision on all assigned issues. Defendants were given a deadline to respond, and plaintiffs could respond if defendants filed substantive responses. The court said it would later take the matters under submission and issue an order intended to resolve the assigned issues while preserving the parties’ ability to appeal those resolutions.

The opinion contains an apparent inconsistency about the deadline for objections to the proposed dismissal of Kelso: one passage states March 20, 2023, while another states March 1, 2023. The text also says that the order is intended to resolve issues in later proceedings, so the final status of Kelso’s dismissal and the immunity and pleading issues is not fully stated in this order.