Holmes v. Newkirk

Background

Holmes filed this civil-rights case without a lawyer and applied to proceed without paying the filing fee. The court treated his original complaint and several later filings together as the operative complaint for initial screening under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2), which requires dismissal of claims that do not state a legally sufficient claim.

Holmes alleged that, on July 18, 2021, while he was using a telephone in a Ramsey County Adult Detention Center unit, John Doe #1 told him to end the call and threatened to use chemical spray. Holmes alleged that the officer sprayed him, pulled him from his wheelchair, and slammed him onto the floor, placing weight on his lower back near an open surgical wound. Holmes alleged that John Does #2 through #6 later placed him in his wheelchair, handcuffed him, took him to a segregation unit, and left him handcuffed until he fell while trying to obtain medical help. A nurse then sent him to an emergency room, where he stayed overnight.

Holmes asserted claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a statute allowing suits for certain constitutional violations by state or local actors. He alleged constitutional claims involving the Fourth, Eighth, Fourteenth, and Eighteenth Amendments. He sought $400,000 in compensatory damages, $600,000 in punitive damages, and an injunction requiring Ramsey County to improve use-of-force oversight and disability-related training.

Screening and claims

The court recommended dismissing all claims against the Ramsey County Adult Detention Center with prejudice because jails and correctional facilities are not suable entities. It also recommended dismissing the Eighteenth Amendment claims with prejudice, noting that the Eighteenth Amendment’s prohibition on alcohol sales had been repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment.

The court considered the ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims together because the relevant requirements are similar. Assuming Holmes adequately alleged that he had a disability and was denied benefits or services, the court found that he did not allege facts supporting a reasonable inference that the defendants acted because of his disability. It therefore recommended dismissing those claims without prejudice.

The court recommended dismissing Holmes’s official-capacity claims without prejudice. Such claims were effectively claims against Ramsey County, and Holmes did not identify a specific county policy, training deficiency, or widespread practice that caused the alleged injury. The court also recommended dismissing Holmes’s individual-capacity claims against Sheriff Bob Fletcher because Holmes alleged only that Fletcher failed to train and supervise officers, without alleging how Fletcher personally participated in or caused the incident.

By contrast, the court found that Holmes’s individual-capacity claims against John Does #1 through #6 alleged direct involvement in the events and were sufficiently detailed to proceed beyond initial screening. The court expressly made no decision about the ultimate validity of those claims. Holmes was required to identify at least one John Doe defendant and file a stand-alone Third Amended Complaint by July 13, 2023, or the case could be dismissed because unidentified defendants could not be served. The court also said Holmes could instead provide enough additional facts about Ramsey County or Sheriff Fletcher to survive screening.

Motions and disposition

The court granted Holmes’s application to proceed without prepaying fees or costs and directed the U.S. Marshals Service to handle service for claims that survived screening. It denied the motion to serve as moot because service would be addressed through the fee waiver. It denied the motion for appointment of counsel without prejudice, while referring Holmes to the Federal Bar Association’s volunteer-lawyer project for possible assistance. It denied the motion for remote hearings without prejudice and stated that any future hearings would be considered individually.

The recommendation was not itself a final district-court judgment and was subject to written objections within the period stated in the notice. Judge Dulce J. Foster signed the recommendation and order on April 14, 2023.