Cervantes v. Elsen

Background

Adrian L. Cervantes, who was in custody at Sonoma County’s Main Adult Detention Facility (MADF), filed this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 without a lawyer. He also requested permission to proceed without paying the filing fee; the court stated that request would be granted in a separate order. Cervantes sought only injunctive relief—an order requiring him to receive proper medical treatment wherever he went.

He named Wellpath physicians Dalizu Elsen, Niloofar Fadaki, and Michael L. Medvin; MADF Lieutenant Jason Squires; and Sonoma County Sheriff Eddie Engram. The court stated that venue was proper because the alleged events occurred at MADF, which is in the district.

Screening standard

Because Cervantes was a prisoner seeking relief from government officials, the court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. That law requires the court to identify claims that can proceed and dismiss claims that are frivolous, malicious, inadequately pleaded, or seek money from an immune defendant. The court also explained that a § 1983 claim requires an alleged violation of a federal right by a person acting under state law, and that each defendant must be linked through personal conduct or a sufficient causal connection to the alleged violation. Supervisors are not automatically liable for the conduct of people they supervise.

Alleged claims and deficiencies

Cervantes raised claims concerning his confinement at MADF from 2022 to 2023, including:

- Medical care: Cervantes alleged that Elsen, Fadaki, and Medvin were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs because they did not provide proper treatment for his “critical conditions.” He did not identify the illness or injury involved or explain what treatment he expected. His allegation that Medvin touched him inappropriately on December 22, 2022, was too conclusory to state a cognizable claim. - Access to the courts: Cervantes alleged that unnamed jail officials lost his legal mail and that he lost a case as a result. He did not state when the mail was lost, explain how the loss caused him to lose the case, clarify whether the case he mentioned was the same case, or connect any named defendant to the alleged loss. - Squires: Cervantes alleged that Squires lied in a declaration about whether Cervantes had received legal help. The court found it unclear what constitutional claim this allegation was intended to raise. - Engram: Cervantes sued Engram in a supervisory capacity but did not allege facts showing that Engram personally violated his federal rights, directed a violation, knew of one and failed to prevent it, or maintained a deficient policy that caused a constitutional violation.

The court also found that Cervantes’s complaint gave conflicting answers about whether he had completed the jail grievance process. The court stated that it appeared he had not exhausted his administrative remedies as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a), and directed him to explain why the action should not be dismissed without prejudice so that he could properly exhaust his claims.

The court noted that it was unclear whether Cervantes was a convicted prisoner or a pretrial detainee. It directed him to identify his status in an amended complaint because the constitutional standards can differ depending on that status.

Joinder and amendment requirements

The court warned that any amended complaint must comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20(a). Claims against different defendants may be joined only when they arise from the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences and share a common question of law or fact. The court stated that the medical-treatment allegations appeared to arise from a different series of events than the access-to-courts allegations, and that unrelated claims could be brought in a separate lawsuit.

Disposition

The court dismissed Cervantes’s complaint with leave to amend. It required an amended complaint to state each claim clearly and separately, identify the specific conduct of each defendant, explain exhaustion of administrative remedies for each claim and defendant, include only properly joined claims, directly link each defendant to the alleged violation, provide sufficient facts concerning any unnamed defendant, identify any basis for supervisory or municipal liability, state whether Cervantes was a pretrial detainee or convicted prisoner, and provide the dates of the alleged violations.

Cervantes was given 28 days from the date of the order to file the amended complaint. The court stated that failure to file an amended complaint by the deadline, or failure to correct the identified deficiencies, would result in dismissal of the action without prejudice. The clerk was directed to send him a blank civil-rights complaint form.