Feal v. Allen
- Jacquelyn Corley
- 5:23-cv-05077
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 5
In Feal v. Allen, Judge Corley dismissed claims against Trent Allen with prejudice and ordered service on five other defendants in Lorenzo Feal’s prison civil-rights case.
Lorenzo Vazquez Feal; Trent Allen, whose claims were dismissed with prejudice; and R. Jimenez, Martinez, Sanquest, Palacio, and Lopez, who were ordered to be served. The order also refers to a John Doe defendant, but the service directive does not list that defendant.
What happened
In Feal v. Allen, Lorenzo Feal, a California prisoner without a lawyer, sued seven Salinas Valley State Prison officials under a federal civil-rights law. He alleged that officials failed to address plumbing and ventilation problems at the prison.
The court had dismissed the claims against Trent Allen for failing to state a claim that could be decided by the court and allowed Feal 28 days to amend. Feal did not file an amended complaint, so the court dismissed those claims with prejudice. The court ordered service on R. Jimenez, Martinez, Sanquest, Palacio, and Lopez.
Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley also set deadlines for the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, Feal’s opposition, and the defendants’ reply, and allowed discovery to proceed.
The detailed version
- Feal v. Allen · No. 5:23-cv-05077
- Jacquelyn Corley
- June 3, 2024
Background
Lorenzo Vazquez Feal, a California prisoner proceeding without an attorney, brought this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against seven officials at Salinas Valley State Prison: Chief Deputy Warden Trent Allen; Plant Operations Manager R. Jimenez; Institution Plumber Martinez; Correctional Officers Sanquest, Palacio, and Lopez; and a John Doe defendant whom Feal described as operating the prison’s Building One control tower.
The claims against the defendants other than Allen arose from alleged failures to address plumbing and ventilation problems at the prison.
Dismissal of Allen
On April 10, 2024, the court dismissed the claim against Allen for failure to state a claim capable of judicial determination. The court gave Feal 28 days to file an amended complaint and warned that, if he did not amend or the amendment was insufficient, the dismissed claims would not remain in the case.
The deadline passed without Feal filing an amended complaint. The court therefore dismissed the claims against Allen with prejudice, meaning the order states that those claims are dismissed on that basis and may not be refiled in this case.
Service and Further Proceedings
The court ordered that R. Jimenez, Martinez, Sanquest, Palacio, and Lopez be served at Salinas Valley State Prison through the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s electronic-service program for prisoner civil-rights cases. The order describes procedures for determining whether those defendants waive service and for arranging service by the United States Marshals Service if they do not waive it.
The court ordered defendants to file a motion for summary judgment by August 23, 2024, or to inform the court before that date if they believed the case could not be resolved by summary judgment. Feal’s opposition was due September 20, 2024, and defendants’ reply was due October 4, 2024. The court stated that no hearing would be held unless it later ordered one.
The court also allowed discovery under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and required Feal to serve defendants or their counsel with copies of his communications to the court.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.