United States District Court, D. Idaho
MEMORANDUM DECISION AND ORDER
B.
Lynn Winmill, United States District Court Chief Judge
INTRODUCTION
The
Court has before it Defendant Kevin Wayt's Second Motion
to Dismiss Plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint and
Demand for Jury Trial (Dkt. 49). Earlier, the Court addressed
motions to dismiss by all defendants. The Court denied some
motions, granted some motions with leave to amend, and
granted some motions without leave to amend. Defendant Kevin
Wayt's motion was granted with leave to amend in part.
Hanson amended his complaint, but Wayt once again asks the
Court to dismiss the claims against him. Hanson failed to
respond to the motion, and the deadline for such a response
has passed.
LEGAL
STANDARD
Federal
Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only “a short
and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is
entitled to relief, ” in order to “give the
defendant fair notice of what the . . . claim is and the
grounds upon which it rests.” Bell Atlantic Corp.
v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 1964
(2007). While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6) motion
to dismiss “does not need detailed factual allegations,
” it must set forth “more than labels and
conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a
cause of action will not do.” Id. at 555. To
survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain
sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to “state
a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”
Id. at 570. A claim has facial plausibility when the
plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to
draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable
for the misconduct alleged. Id. at 556. The
plausibility standard is not akin to a “probability
requirement, ” but it asks for more than a sheer
possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.
Id. Where a complaint pleads facts that are
“merely consistent with” a defendant's
liability, it “stops short of the line between
possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to
relief.' ” Id. at 557.
The
Supreme Court identified two “working principles”
that underlie Twombly in Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). First, the court need not accept as
true, legal conclusions that are couched as factual
allegations. Id. Rule 8 does not “unlock the
doors of discovery for a plaintiff armed with nothing more
than conclusions.” Id. at 678-79. Second, to
survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must state a
plausible claim for relief. Id. at 679.
“Determining whether a complaint states a plausible
claim for relief will . . . be a context-specific task that
requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial
experience and common sense.” Id.
A
dismissal without leave to amend is improper unless it is
beyond doubt that the complaint “could not be saved by
any amendment.” Harris v. Amgen, Inc., 573
F.3d 728, 737 (9th Cir. 2009) (issued 2 months after
Iqbal).[1] The Ninth Circuit has held that “in
dismissals for failure to state a claim, a district court
should grant leave to amend even if no request to amend the
pleading was made, unless it determines that the pleading
could not possibly be cured by the allegation of other
facts.” Cook, Perkiss and Liehe, Inc. v. Northern
California Collection Service, Inc., 911 F.2d 242, 247
(9th Cir. 1990). The issue is not whether plaintiff will
prevail but whether he “is entitled to offer evidence
to support the claims.” Diaz v. Int'l Longshore
and Warehouse Union, Local 13, 474 F.3d 1202, 1205 (9th
Cir. 2007)(citations omitted).
BACKGROUND
The
factual background is set forth in detail in the Court's
earlier Memorandum Decision and Order. Dkt. 44. The Court
will not repeat all of it here, but will generally note that
as to Wayt, Hanson alleges that Wayt arrested him for a
parole violation on September 19, 2014. At the time of his
arrest, Hanson informed Wayt that he had recently had eye
surgery and required prescription eye drops. Wayt refused to
allow Hanson to take his prescription eye drops with him to
the county jail. Id.
Hanson's
initial claim against Wayt was that Wayt was deliberately
indifferent towards his serious medical needs by refusing to
transport his prescription eye drops to the county jail. Wayt
argued he was entitled to qualified immunity. The Court
agreed, and granted Wayt qualified immunity. But the Court
allowed Hanson to amend his complaint against Wayt to allege
facts which would satisfy the “state created
danger” doctrine. In granting Hanson leave to amend,
the Court explained that, construed liberally, the original
complaint can be seen as alleging that Wayt placed Hanson in
a situation that would otherwise not exist. But the Court
concluded that Hanson failed to satisfy the last two elements
of the “state created danger” doctrine. There
were no allegations that Wayt was aware of an immediate and
known danger to Hanson if he refused to take the prescription
eye drops to the jail. Therefore, the complaint did not
adequately allege the facts necessary to assert liability
under a “state created danger.” The Court
cautioned Hanson that if he amended his complaint, he must
allege specific facts about what the immediate and known
danger was, and how Wayt was aware of the danger. Simply
stating that Wayt did not allow Hanson to take his eye drops
would not be enough to allege a valid claim. Furthermore, the
Court explained that the allegations must be specific - the
Court stated that it would not entertain a simple statement
that Hanson acted with deliberate indifference.
ANALYSIS
In his
Amended Complaint, Hanson alleges that Wayt was a parole
officer who arrested him for a parole violation. He states
that he told Wayt on at least three occasions the details of
his recent series of eye surgeries, and that he required his
prescription eye drops to avoid complications. He states that
Wayt refused to let him take the eye drops with him to jail,
and that Wayt told him that he would be seen by medical staff
at the jail. He further states that after he was returned to
the jail after an appointment with an optometrist, he told
Wayt that he had lost sight in his right eye and that he
would likely need more surgery, to which Wayt replied,
“I don't care, maybe IDOC will.” As explained
in the Court's earlier decision, “the Fourteenth
Amendment's Due Process Clause . . . does not confer any
affirmative right to governmental aid” and
“typically does not impose a duty on the state to
protect individuals from third parties.” Henry A.
v. Willden, 678 F.3d 991, 998 (9th Cir. 2012)(citing
Patel v. Kent Sch. Dist., 648 F.3d 965, 971 (9th
Cir. 2011) (citations and alterations omitted). The
“state created danger” doctrine is an exception
to this rule, so that liability exists when “the state
affirmatively places the plaintiff in danger by acting with
‘deliberate indifference' to a ‘known and
obvious danger.'” Henry A., 678 F.3d at
998.
To
determine whether the “state created danger”
doctrine applies, courts must look at “(1) whether any
affirmative action of the official placed the individual in
danger he otherwise would not have faced; (2) whether the
danger was known or obvious; and (3) whether the officer
acted with deliberate indifference to that danger.”
Id. at 1002. In other words, Wayt must have known
something was going to happen, but ignored the risk and
knowingly exposed Hanson to it.
Taking
the facts in the light most favorable to Hanson, the Court
can conclude that Wayt arrested Hanson and transported him to
the jail. The Court can conclude that Hanson made his eye
condition and need for prescription eye drops known to Wayt
during that time. The Court can conclude that Wayt did not
allow Hanson to take his eye drops with him to the jail, but
that he informed Hanson that he could get ...