Thompson v. Booth

Background

Kevin Thompson brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against Sgt. Booth, C.O. Salerno, C.O. Garnot, C.O. Jordan, C.O. Vigna, Hearing Officer Woods, MD Hill, and RN Peterson. He alleged that his constitutional rights were violated while he was incarcerated as a convicted prisoner at Fishkill Correctional Facility.

An earlier decision dismissed all claims against Woods and Hill, Thompson’s Eighth Amendment claims concerning unconstitutional conditions of confinement, and his Fourteenth Amendment due-process claims. The claims remaining in this opinion were Eighth Amendment excessive-force claims against Booth, Salerno, Garnot, Jordan, and Vigna concerning the January 13, 2014 incident, and an Eighth Amendment claim against Peterson for deliberate indifference to medical needs after that incident.

Three motions were before the court: the represented officers’ motion for summary judgment, Peterson’s pro se motion for summary judgment, and Thompson’s motion for sanctions seeking to strike Booth’s Answer.

Excessive-force claims

The represented officers argued that they used the least force necessary to restrain Thompson after he swung a chair at Vigna and Salerno. Their evidence described body holds, handcuffing, and use of a spit mask. Thompson said he had a seizure, blacked out, and did not remember swinging a chair. He alleged that officers used broomsticks to hold down his legs, kicked and punched him, used overly tight handcuffs, and placed a spit mask over his head. Other inmates’ statements and testimony supported parts of Thompson’s account.

The court explained that an Eighth Amendment excessive-force claim examines both the officers’ state of mind and whether the force was sufficiently serious. At the summary-judgment stage, the court does not decide which evidence is truthful or resolve credibility disputes. It concluded that the parties’ sharply different accounts created genuine disputes of material fact. Whether the officers were responding to an inmate attacking them with a chair or to an inmate suffering a seizure involved materially different circumstances, and a fact-finder—not the court—had to decide whether the evidence established excessive force.

Administrative exhaustion

The represented officers also argued that Thompson’s claims should fail because he did not complete the prison grievance process required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. Thompson acknowledged that he did not appeal a grievance but argued that the process was unavailable because he was held in the infirmary or the Special Housing Unit and had to depend on correction officers to submit his grievances. He claimed that he gave prison officials multiple grievances, but they were never filed and he received no responses.

The court found a material factual dispute about whether Thompson’s grievance was left unfiled and whether the grievance process was therefore unavailable to him. It declined to weigh conflicting testimony or make credibility determinations at summary judgment. The court denied the represented officers’ motion for summary judgment on the exhaustion ground as well as on the excessive-force claims.

Peterson’s motion

The court treated Thompson’s allegations liberally as asserting an Eighth Amendment deliberate-indifference claim against Peterson. The complaint alleged that Peterson failed to take pictures for medical purposes; the court also considered allegations that she gave Thompson medication that made him feel relaxed and tired and that he was then transported to St. Luke’s Hospital. The court did not consider additional allegations raised for the first time in Thompson’s opposition to Peterson’s summary-judgment motion because Thompson had not amended his complaint and was represented by counsel at that stage.

To prove deliberate indifference, Thompson had to show an objectively serious medical need and that Peterson knowingly disregarded it. The court concluded that his sparse allegations did not show the required culpable state of mind. Instead, the allegations showed that Peterson gave him medication and that he was transported for additional treatment. The court granted Peterson’s motion for summary judgment and dismissed the Eighth Amendment medical-care claim against her.

Sanctions against Booth

Thompson moved for sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37, arguing that Booth failed to attend a court-ordered deposition and otherwise failed to participate. The motion was unopposed. The record showed that Booth did not appear for the March 3, 2020 deposition, did not appear at a May 11, 2020 court conference, did not oppose the sanctions motion, and did not communicate with the court after the New York State Office of the Attorney General withdrew as his counsel.

The court held that this conduct demonstrated the willful and bad-faith disobedience that justified the severe sanction of striking a pleading. It granted Thompson’s motion for sanctions and struck Booth’s Answer. The clerk was directed to strike that Answer from the docket and terminate Charlotte Peterson from the docket.

Disposition

Judge Philip M. Halpern’s order denied the represented defendants’ motion for summary judgment, granted Peterson’s motion for summary judgment, and granted Thompson’s motion for sanctions. The court also directed that the pending motions be terminated and scheduled a case-management conference for April 7, 2021.