Shtilman v. Baker
- Nelson Roman
- 7:14-cv-06589-NSR
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 14
In Shtilman v. Makram, Judge Roman granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed Shtilman’s claims with prejudice.
Sergey Shtilman’s claims against Dr. Mervat Makram and Robert F. Cunningham were dismissed with prejudice; the action was terminated.
What happened
In Shtilman v. Makram and Cunningham, Sergey Shtilman, who represented herself, sued correctional-facility employees under a civil-rights law. She alleged that Dr. Makram and Robert F. Cunningham violated her constitutional rights by denying accommodations for her medical condition and by treating her differently because of her gender identity.
The court ruled that Shtilman did not adequately allege that Cunningham was personally involved in a constitutional violation. It also ruled that her medical-care claim against Dr. Makram did not meet the required standard for deliberate indifference and that her equal-protection claim failed because she did not identify similarly situated people who were treated differently.
Judge Nelson S. Roman granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed the operative complaint in its entirety with prejudice. The court also terminated the action and did not reach the defendants’ qualified-immunity argument.
The detailed version
- Shtilman v. Baker · No. 7:14-cv-06589-NSR
- Nelson Roman
- June 27, 2022
Background
Sergey Shtilman, who represented herself, brought this civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against correctional-facility employees. The operative complaint asserted three claims: an equal-protection claim against Dr. Makram, and deliberate-indifference claims concerning serious medical needs against Dr. Makram and Robert F. Cunningham.
Shtilman alleged that she had a neurogenic bladder disorder and a history of incontinence. She claimed that prison medical staff denied her requests for permission to eat in her cell and that Cunningham denied related grievances. She also alleged that Dr. Makram refused to provide the requested permission, medical undergarments, or follow-up examinations, and made offensive comments about her gender identity. Shtilman claimed that these events caused weight loss, anxiety, mental anguish, and distress.
The defendants moved to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which allows dismissal when a complaint does not allege enough facts to support a legally valid claim. Shtilman did not oppose the motion.
Court’s Analysis
The court dismissed the deliberate-indifference claim against Cunningham because Shtilman did not allege facts showing his personal involvement in the alleged constitutional violations. The court determined that, at most, the complaint alleged that Cunningham affirmed grievance denials. Merely holding a supervisory position or failing to act on grievances was not enough to establish personal involvement under Section 1983.
The court also dismissed the deliberate-indifference claim against Dr. Makram. To state this type of claim, Shtilman had to allege both that the medical deprivation was objectively serious and that Dr. Makram knowingly disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm. The court found that the alleged consequences—weight loss, anxiety, humiliation, and distress resulting from the denial of a feed-in-cell permit—did not meet the required level of seriousness. It also found that the allegations did not show Dr. Makram’s required state of mind. The court treated the dispute over the permit and related treatment as, at most, negligence or a disagreement over medical care, rather than deliberate indifference.
The court dismissed the equal-protection claim against Dr. Makram. Shtilman brought the claim under a “class-of-one” theory, which requires allegations that the plaintiff was intentionally treated differently from similarly situated people without a rational basis. The court found that Shtilman identified no comparators or other similarly situated inmates who were treated differently.
Disposition
The court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss and dismissed Shtilman’s operative complaint in its entirety with prejudice. Because the claims were dismissed for failure to state a claim, the court did not address the defendants’ qualified-immunity argument. The court also declined to allow another amendment because Shtilman had already received several opportunities to amend. Judge Nelson S. Roman directed the Clerk of Court to terminate the motion and the action.
Read the full 14-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.