DePonte v. Bierman

Background

David Arthur DePonte, identified as a state prisoner, filed a civil-rights complaint without a lawyer under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The court had previously dismissed his amended complaint while allowing him to file another amendment. DePonte then filed a second amended complaint.

Screening standard

The court screened the complaint under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, which requires courts to review prisoner complaints seeking relief from governmental entities or their officers or employees. The court must dismiss claims that are frivolous, malicious, fail to state a claim for relief, or seek money from a defendant who is immune from that relief. The court also explained that a § 1983 claim requires allegations that a federal right was violated by a person acting under state law.

Claims and deficiencies

DePonte alleged that officials at several prisons retaliated against him for protected conduct. For a prison-retaliation claim, he needed to allege, among other things, that a state actor took an adverse action because of constitutionally protected conduct and that the action did not reasonably advance a legitimate correctional goal.

The court said DePonte’s earlier complaints did not clearly explain the alleged harassment, identify protected conduct, or show how the alleged adverse actions were related to his reports. The court also found that some alleged retaliation occurred before the reported conduct or at a different prison. In the second amended complaint, DePonte did not address the earlier claims or the deficiencies identified by the court. Instead, he referred back to his earlier complaints and added allegations about unrelated incidents at several other prisons in 2023 and 2024, including an alleged failure to investigate an assault, placement in administrative segregation, mold and asbestos in his cell, and flooding.

The court had previously instructed DePonte that unrelated claims involving different defendants should be brought in separate complaints. It found that the new incidents were unrelated, occurred over several years and at multiple prisons, and were not supported by an adequate connection to the 2021 incidents.

Ruling

Judge Donato dismissed the retaliation claims without leave to amend because DePonte had received multiple opportunities to plead them plausibly and continued to provide conclusory allegations without addressing the identified deficiencies. The court dismissed the new claims because they were unrelated and stated that DePonte could pursue them in separate actions in the districts where they occurred.

The court’s conclusion states: “This action is dismissed without leave to amend.” The Clerk was requested to close the case.