Dawkins v. Copeland

Background

Edward C. Dawkins, incarcerated and representing himself, sued employees of New York City’s Department of Correction and medical professionals connected with the City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. He alleged inadequate medical care, unconstitutional conditions of confinement, and interference with his legal mail while he was a pretrial detainee at Rikers Island.

The opinion addressed motions to dismiss filed by Officer Tanoya Copeland, Officer Shirley Canady, and Captain Lounette Dawkins. The court also considered claims against defendants who had not been served. Because Dawkins was representing himself, the court considered factual allegations in an affidavit submitted with his opposition papers along with the amended complaint.

Dawkins alleged that, after an assault caused serious injuries, he received inadequate treatment and inadequate mattresses, lacked a humidifier for his breathing machine, and experienced poor air quality. He also alleged that prison staff failed to mail notices of claim that he intended to send to the City’s Health and Hospitals Corporation. He claimed that these actions hindered his ability to pursue potential legal claims.

Legal standards and analysis

A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss tests whether the complaint states a legally sufficient claim, not whether the plaintiff will ultimately win. The court generally accepts plausible factual allegations as true and draws reasonable inferences for the plaintiff. For a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege that the defendant acted under state law and personally participated in violating a constitutional or federal right.

Access to the courts and mail

The court allowed Dawkins’s access-to-the-courts claim against Copeland to proceed. It found that he plausibly alleged an actual injury because interference with his attempted mailing of notices of claim could have prevented him from timely pursuing a potential state-law negligence or malpractice claim against the Health and Hospitals Corporation. Dawkins also sufficiently alleged Copeland’s personal involvement by asserting that she collected the notices, failed to record them in the outgoing-mail log, and did not mail them despite his lack of funds.

The court dismissed the access-to-the-courts claims against Captain Dawkins and Canady because Dawkins alleged only that he complained to them and that they investigated the matter. The court stated that merely receiving or investigating a grievance did not establish personal involvement in the alleged constitutional violation.

The court also dismissed Dawkins’s separate claim that the defendants violated his right to the free flow of mail. The allegations described only one or two possible incidents and did not plausibly show a regular, unjustified practice of interfering with legal mail.

Conditions of confinement

The court dismissed the conditions-of-confinement claims against all moving defendants. Because Dawkins was a pretrial detainee, the claims were governed by the Fourteenth Amendment. He had to allege both sufficiently serious conditions and that each defendant recklessly failed to act with reasonable care despite knowing, or having reason to know, that the conditions posed an excessive risk to his health or safety.

The court concluded that Dawkins did not allege enough facts showing that the moving defendants knew, or should have known, of the relevant risks. His allegations that he complained about a thin mattress to Captain Dawkins did not state that he explained the excessive health or safety risk. Emails from a Legal Aid Society attorney were not addressed to the defendants, and Dawkins did not allege facts showing that the defendants knew about them or the risks they described.

Medical-care claims

The court dismissed the medical-care claims against the moving defendants. Dawkins alleged that prison medical personnel had his medical history and that he told Captain Dawkins he needed a thicker mattress, but he did not allege facts showing that the defendants read, or should have read, his medical records. He also did not allege that he told Captain Dawkins about his injured back or its connection to the mattress. He made no medical-care allegations against Canady or Copeland.

Claims against non-moving defendants

The court dismissed with prejudice all claims against Holiness, Scully, Katz, Saunders, Rice, Vaz, Tillery, Ramos, and Chowdhury. The claims against Holiness, Scully, Rice, Katz, Saunders, Vaz, and Tillery had previously been dismissed because Dawkins did not timely serve them, and the court treated that decision as controlling. The claims against Ramos and Chowdhury were dismissed as untimely because their alleged conduct occurred in January 2015, while Dawkins added them in June 2019, more than three years later. The court also concluded that the amended complaint did not relate back to the original complaint as to these newly added defendants.

The court dismissed the claims against Colon, Cooper, and Grace without prejudice. Dawkins was allowed one more opportunity to amend those claims. The court found that he did not allege that Colon or Grace knew, or should have known, about his medical conditions when they participated in removing the mattress. As to Cooper, the court concluded that his consultation with a doctor before removing the mattress could not establish deliberate indifference to Dawkins’s medical needs.

Disposition

The court granted Canady’s and Captain Dawkins’s motions to dismiss in their entirety and dismissed all claims against them with prejudice. It granted Copeland’s motion to dismiss in part and denied it in part: the § 1983 claim based on alleged interference with access to the courts survived, while all other claims against Copeland were dismissed with prejudice. All claims against the moving defendants in their official capacities, and any unsupported claim concerning contact with consular officials, were dismissed with prejudice.

The court dismissed the amended complaint as to Grace, Colon, and Cooper without prejudice and permitted Dawkins to file a second amended complaint concerning those three defendants by June 1, 2020. The court denied the moving defendants’ motion to stay discovery as moot. It directed Copeland to answer the second amended complaint and proceed with discovery-related requirements concerning the surviving claim.