Fields v. Henry

Background

Victor Donnell Fields, an inmate at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City, brought a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged that the defendants violated his constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment by deliberately disregarding his serious medical needs. The order addressed three pretrial motions.

Proposed supplemental complaint

Fields submitted a document titled “Proposed Supplemental Complaint” concerning alleged retaliation, race discrimination, and restrictions on his law-library access. In an earlier order, the court had instructed him to submit a proposed pleading with a proper caption, individually numbered factual allegations, clear identification of the defendants, and clarification of the claims. The deadline was December 14, 2018.

Fields submitted his document on December 28, 2018. The court found that he had not complied with any of the earlier instructions and had not shown that any delay in receiving the earlier order resulted from retaliation. The court therefore denied his motion for leave to file a supplemental complaint, ECF No. 101. It also denied his request that defendants return his “legal logs.”

Personnel and disciplinary records

Fields moved to compel the Minnesota Department of Corrections defendants to produce information about their educational backgrounds, job histories, positions, training, disciplinary actions, and complaints. The court denied the motion to compel, ECF No. 73.

The court found that the record did not show how the requested personnel files would help Fields establish his deliberate-indifference claims. The defendants also represented that they had already produced Fields’s behavioral-health file, medical file, kites, grievances, and disciplinary records. In addition, the court found that producing the requested personnel information would be inappropriate under the circumstances because of concerns about Fields’s possible use of private staff information and evidence that he had previously sent threatening messages to Department of Corrections personnel.

Request for expert examination

Fields had asked the court to have certain female experts examine him. The court found the request unclear but considered whether it sought a medical examination under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 35 or appointment of an expert under Federal Rule of Evidence 706.

The court agreed with the defendants that Rule 35 does not authorize the type of examination Fields requested or allow the court to appoint an expert to examine a party at that party’s request. The court also found that the circumstances did not justify appointing an expert under Rule 706, which permits court-appointed experts in compelling circumstances. The court therefore denied Fields’s request to have one of the identified experts examine him, ECF No. 69 at 8.

Other order

The court ordered Fields to stop submitting gratuitous and prurient sexual material concerning people involved in the litigation, including the court. It warned that future pleadings containing similar material would be stricken from the record.

Disposition and scope

The order denied all three identified motions and related requests. It was a pretrial and discovery ruling; it did not decide the merits of Fields’s underlying claim that defendants were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs.