Weisner v. Salinas

Background

Frankie J. Weisner, a state prisoner proceeding without a lawyer, filed a First Amended Complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that L. Salinas retaliated against him for challenging, through prison appeals, her calculation of his sentence. According to Weisner, Salinas caused two Investigative Services Unit officers to threaten and intimidate him and later filed a false Rules Violation Report accusing him of harassment.

Weisner also alleged that H. Andrade, P. McDonald, S. Handley, S. Balli, and K. Binning participated in processing the report and securing a guilty finding. The report resulted in the assessment of 30 days of lost good-time credit. The court’s earlier screening order had limited the case to damages claims for retaliation under § 1983; it had found that the complaint did not state additional damages claims for cruel and unusual punishment or denial of due process.

Defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), arguing that the retaliation claims were barred by the favorable-termination rule recognized in Heck v. Humphrey and Edwards v. Balisok, and that Weisner had not alleged enough facts to state a First Amendment retaliation claim.

False-disciplinary-report claim

The court held that Heck and Edwards barred Weisner’s claim that defendants retaliated against him by knowingly filing, processing, and adjudicating a false disciplinary report. Under these cases, a prisoner generally cannot use a civil-rights claim to challenge conduct when success would necessarily establish that a conviction, sentence, or prison disciplinary punishment affecting the length of confinement was invalid, unless that punishment has first been invalidated through another process.

The court reasoned that Weisner’s allegation that the report was fabricated and issued for retaliation conflicted with the disciplinary hearing’s finding that he was guilty based on the evidence. Because the proceeding resulted in the loss of 30 days of good-time credit, success on this claim would necessarily imply that the disciplinary finding and punishment were invalid. The court therefore dismissed this claim as barred by Heck.

Threat-based retaliation claim

The court reached a different conclusion about Weisner’s claim that Salinas arranged for two officers to threaten him with a disciplinary report if he stopped filing appeals or pursuing other legal actions. Success on that claim would not necessarily establish that the length of Weisner’s confinement was invalid, so Heck and Edwards did not bar it.

For a First Amendment retaliation claim in the prison context, a plaintiff must allege that a state actor took adverse action because of protected conduct, that the action chilled the plaintiff’s exercise of First Amendment rights, and that the action did not reasonably advance a legitimate correctional goal. The court found Weisner’s allegations sufficient at the pleading stage. It treated the alleged threat of a disciplinary report as potentially adverse action, filing prison appeals as protected conduct, the timing and alleged reason for the threat as supporting causation, and the threat’s potential consequences as more than minimal harm. The court noted that whether Weisner could later present enough evidence to create a genuine dispute for trial was a question for a later stage.

Disposition

The court granted in part and denied in part defendants’ motion to dismiss. It dismissed the retaliation claim based on the allegedly false disciplinary report and loss of good-time credit. The retaliation claim based on threats intended to stop Weisner from filing appeals or pursuing other legal actions may proceed against Salinas.

The court also dismissed as moot Weisner’s motion seeking a dispositive-motion deadline because the order set such a deadline. It denied without prejudice his motion seeking a settlement conference. The defendants were ordered to file a summary-judgment or other dispositive motion on the remaining claim by June 3, 2024.