Taylor v. Microgenics Corporation

Background

Gladstone Taylor alleged that, while he was participating in a work release program at Fishkill Correctional Facility, an Indiko Plus urinalysis analyzer produced by the Microgenics Defendants reported a false positive for opiates. Taylor alleged that prison officials removed him from work release, denied him commissary and visitation privileges, moved him to the general prison population, revoked his good-time credit, and kept him imprisoned until March 26, 2020, fourteen days after his alleged conditional release date.

Taylor alleged that Microgenics Corporation and Thermo Fisher Scientific knew about problems causing false positive results, failed to disclose manufacturer standards requiring confirmatory testing, and helped train or guide New York prison officials. He brought constitutional claims under Section 1983, a New York deceptive-business-practices claim, and a negligence claim against those companies. Against the State Defendants, he brought Section 1983 claims alleging procedural and substantive due-process violations, Eighth Amendment violations, and fabrication of evidence, as well as a state-law false-imprisonment claim.

Rulings on the Microgenics Defendants

The court granted in part and denied in part the Microgenics Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

The court dismissed Taylor’s Section 1983 claims against the Microgenics Defendants. It concluded that Taylor had not plausibly alleged that those companies were personally involved in imposing the discipline. The court reasoned that, by the time of Taylor’s January 2020 test and disciplinary hearing, the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision had revised its directive to require confirmatory testing before discipline and, according to Taylor’s allegations, was no longer relying on the companies’ representations or training about the reliability of the tests.

The court also dismissed Taylor’s claim under New York General Business Law § 349. It held that the alleged injury was derivative of the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision’s alleged injury: the agency was the entity allegedly misled into contracting for and using the testing system, while Taylor’s injuries allegedly followed from that conduct.

The court allowed Taylor’s negligence claim against the Microgenics Defendants to proceed. Applying New York law, the court held that Taylor plausibly alleged that the companies owed him a duty to follow professionally accepted scientific testing standards, breached that duty by failing to disclose or follow confirmatory-testing requirements, and caused his discipline and extended incarceration. The court declined to resolve at the dismissal stage the companies’ contrary assertions about the testing materials and whether they breached their duty.

Rulings on the State Defendants

The court granted in part and denied in part the State Defendants’ motion to dismiss.

The court dismissed all Section 1983 claims against Anna Icarri, Ana Rubio, Yuan Wu, and Aaron Hernandez for lack of alleged personal involvement. Icarri, Rubio, and Hernandez were alleged to have attended the disciplinary hearing, but the court held that presence alone was insufficient. Although Wu administered the initial test, Taylor did not allege that administering that test itself violated his rights, and his allegations about the report concerned Damon Glover instead. Hernandez’s alleged role in escorting Taylor to retrieve his naproxen did not show a constitutional violation.

The court allowed Taylor’s procedural due-process claim to proceed against Renee Mulligan and Damon Glover. It held that prisoners in work release have a liberty interest in continued participation in the program. Taylor plausibly alleged that Mulligan was not neutral because she allegedly warned him that he would lose privileges if he contested the charges and that an appeal was unlikely to succeed. Taylor also plausibly alleged that Glover contributed to the denial of due process by preparing a false misbehavior report and refusing his request for another urine test.

The court dismissed Taylor’s procedural due-process claims against Pamela Berry, Francis Sioco, and Nicole Hilton because the alleged conduct—denying requests for testing after the disciplinary hearing—did not show that those defendants denied him adequate process during the hearing. The court also dismissed claims based solely on alleged violations of state regulations or Department of Corrections procedures, and claims concerning his preliminary removal from work release because Taylor did not identify any State Defendant as personally responsible for that removal.

The court dismissed Taylor’s substantive due-process claim concerning his extended incarceration because he did not identify which State Defendant was personally involved in keeping him imprisoned past his conditional release date.

The court dismissed Taylor’s Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claim based on his placement in the general prison population. Although Taylor alleged violence, fear, and worsening mental and physical symptoms, he did not allege that he was physically harmed or threatened by other prisoners, or that any State Defendant knew of and disregarded the alleged risks.

The court allowed Taylor’s Eighth Amendment claim based on imprisonment beyond his conditional release date to proceed against Glover and Mulligan. The court held that Taylor plausibly alleged both that he was imprisoned fourteen days past his mandatory release date and that Glover and Mulligan deliberately disregarded the risk that the disciplinary process was wrongly keeping him imprisoned. The same claim was dismissed against Berry, Sioco, and Hilton for lack of alleged personal involvement.

The court dismissed Taylor’s separate Section 1983 fabrication-of-evidence claim as duplicative of his procedural due-process claim. It also dismissed his state-law false-imprisonment claim against the State Defendants because New York Corrections Law § 24 provides immunity for state-law claims against Department of Corrections and Community Supervision employees and requires such claims to be brought against the State in the New York Court of Claims. Taylor had withdrawn his negligence claim against the State Defendants.

Qualified Immunity and Injunctive Relief

The court declined at this stage to dismiss the claims against Glover and Mulligan on qualified-immunity grounds. It concluded that Taylor plausibly alleged constitutional violations and that the complaint did not establish that those defendants reasonably believed their conduct was lawful. The court did not decide qualified immunity for the other State Defendants because their claims were dismissed for failure to state a claim.

The court held that it lacked jurisdiction over Taylor’s request for injunctive relief because his release from prison and the end of the alleged injuries made that request moot.

Disposition

The Microgenics Defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. Taylor’s negligence claim against them may proceed, and all other claims against them were dismissed.

The State Defendants’ motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part. Taylor’s Fourteenth Amendment procedural-due-process claim and his Eighth Amendment claim based on incarceration beyond his conditional release date may proceed against Glover and Mulligan. All other claims against the State Defendants were dismissed. The clerk was directed to terminate Berry, Sioco, Hernandez, Hilton, Icarri, Rubio, and Wu as defendants, and the remaining defendants were directed to answer the amended complaint.