Cortez v. Hart

Background

Jason Cortez, a pretrial detainee confined at the Santa Cruz County Jail, filed this self-represented civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against jail officers and supervisors. He alleged that Lt. Jacob Ainsworth assaulted him on November 2, 2020, causing wanton pain. He also alleged that David Ganchon failed to stop the assault; Racheal Seavers maliciously sprayed him with a chemical agent while he was seated in a secure room with his hands restrained behind his back; Kyle Ward failed to stop staff from causing unnecessary and wanton pain; and Sgt. Karen Wells failed to intervene. Cortez also named Sheriff Jim Hart, Lt. Dee Baldwin, Chief Paul Ramos, and unidentified jail staff called Does 1 through 10.

The court explained that it had to screen a prisoner’s complaint seeking relief from a governmental entity or officer. To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that a federal right was violated by a person acting under state law.

Claims and analysis

For excessive force, the court applied the Fourteenth Amendment standard for a pretrial detainee. The question is whether force purposely or knowingly used against the detainee was objectively unreasonable. The court held that Cortez’s allegations, read generously because he was representing himself, were sufficient to state Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claims against Ainsworth and Seavers.

For failure to protect, the court explained that a pretrial detainee must show that the defendant made an intentional decision about the conditions of confinement, those conditions created a substantial risk of serious harm, the defendant failed to take reasonable available measures despite the obvious risk, and that failure caused the injury. The court held that Cortez’s allegations that Ganchon, Ward, and Wells failed to stop or intervene in the assault did not provide enough facts to satisfy these requirements. The court dismissed those claims with leave to amend.

The court also held that the allegations against Hart, Baldwin, and Ramos appeared to rely only on their supervisory positions. A supervisor may be liable for personal involvement or a sufficient causal connection to the violation, including culpable action or inaction in training, supervision, or control. The court found no allegations showing personal involvement, a causal connection, culpable supervisory conduct, or reckless or callous indifference. It also stated that a failure to investigate the assault afterward did not establish liability for the assault itself. The court dismissed these supervisor-liability claims with leave to amend.

As to the unidentified Does 1 through 10, the court allowed Cortez to use unidentified defendants if he could allege facts showing that they violated § 1983 and that their identities could be discovered rather than merely guessed. Because the complaint contained no allegations establishing liability by those individuals, the court dismissed the claims against the John Doe defendants with leave to amend.

Order

The court dismissed with leave to amend the failure-to-protect claims against Ganchon, Ward, and Wells; the supervisor-liability claims against Hart, Baldwin, and Ramos; and the claims against the John Doe defendants. It found a cognizable excessive-force claim against Ainsworth and Seavers.

Cortez had 28 days from the filing of the order to file an amended complaint correcting the stated deficiencies. Alternatively, he could notify the court that he wished to proceed only with the cognizable excessive-force claims. The court stated that an amended complaint would replace the original complaint, so claims or defendants left out would no longer be part of the case. It further ordered that failure to respond would result in the matter proceeding on the excessive-force claims against Ainsworth and Seavers and all other claims and defendants being dismissed with prejudice for failure to state a claim.

The court denied Cortez’s discovery motion as premature because the case had not yet been served on the defendants. The order terminated the discovery motion.