Cavan v. Mayer

Background

Seui Cavan, representing himself, brought a constitutional-damages lawsuit against federal prison personnel Thomas Mayer, Peter Bennet, Michael Weber, and Heidi Voss in their individual capacities. Cavan alleged that personnel at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sandstone violated the Eighth Amendment by acting with deliberate indifference to his health. As to Weber, Cavan alleged that Weber deliberately caused him to receive a work assignment that Weber knew would cause or worsen an injury. Cavan sought money damages and an order requiring specified medical treatment or consultations.

The magistrate judge recommended dismissing the claims against Mayer, Bennet, and Voss but denying Weber’s motion to dismiss. Weber objected. Cavan and the other defendants did not object to the remaining portions of the recommendation.

Weber’s Objections

The court rejected Weber’s argument that Cavan failed to exhaust the prison’s grievance process. Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, prisoners generally must complete available prison grievance procedures before filing suit. The defendant bears the burden of showing that the prisoner failed to do so. Cavan alleged that prison counselors threatened to destroy his grievance forms, that he had seen a counselor destroy one, and that such conduct was known at the prison. The court held that these allegations were enough to raise a question about whether the grievance process was actually available. At the motion-to-dismiss stage, Weber had not shown as a matter of law that Cavan failed to exhaust his remedies. The court therefore denied Weber’s motion on this ground.

The court also rejected Weber’s argument that he was not responsible for Cavan’s work assignment. Because a court generally assumes the complaint’s factual allegations are true when deciding a motion to dismiss, and gives a self-represented plaintiff’s allegations a liberal reading, the court accepted Cavan’s allegation that Weber instructed the prison’s Unit Team to place him in the assignment. The court therefore denied Weber’s motion on this ground as well.

The court sustained Weber’s objection concerning injunctive relief. It concluded that the constitutional-damages lawsuit recognized in Bivens allows money damages but not injunctive relief. The court dismissed Cavan’s claims for injunctive relief with prejudice.

Other Motions and Order

The court adopted the remaining recommendations after finding no clear error. It granted Cavan’s motion to dismiss Mayer and dismissed all claims against Mayer without prejudice. It denied Mayer’s motion for summary judgment or dismissal as moot. It granted Bennet and Voss’s motion to dismiss and dismissed all claims against them without prejudice. It granted Weber’s motion to dismiss in part: Cavan’s claims for injunctive relief were dismissed with prejudice, and the remainder of Weber’s motion was denied. The court denied Cavan’s other two identified motions.

Judge John R. Tunheim overruled Weber’s objections in part and sustained them in part, and adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation in part.