PHILADELPHIA – A federal judge has denied an attempt by Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility and its officials to dismiss a suit from a Delaware County man, who alleged that he was subjected to a lack of medical care and cruel and unusual punishment in violation of his constitutionally protected civil rights, while incarcerated there.
Maurice Taylor of Upper Darby first filed suit in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on Jan. 26 versus the City of Philadelphia (doing business as “Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility”) and Curran-Fromhold’s Warden Pierre LaCombe, Commissioner Blanche Carney, Deputy Commissioner Terrence Clark, Deputy Warden Karen Butler and Deputy Warden Robert Rose, all of Philadelphia.
“On or about May 2021, plaintiff was arrested and brought to CFCF. Plaintiff was incarcerated in CFCF from May through July 2021. For approximately one month of his incarceration, from in or around May until June 2020, without reason, plaintiff was subjected to barbaric and inhumane treatment,” the suit said.
“This treatment included, but is not limited to: Not being allowed to leave his cell, not being given single shower, not being given a toothbrush, not being allowed to change his sheets, not being allowed to remove the trash from his cell and properly clean his cell, causing the cell to become insanitary, not being able to exchange his jumper for a clean one and not being allowed to receive or make any phone calls.”
The suit added while plaintiff asked numerous times for a shower, toothbrush, trash removal, clean sheets and a clean jump suit, his requests were denied. The plaintiff was eventually moved to an intake floor to be transferred to another facility, however, he was never transferred and instead was forced to sleep on the concrete floor for two days straight.
“This intake floor consisted of approximately nine other inmates who slept next to plaintiff. Plaintiff sustained serious personal injuries to his back as a result of sleeping on a concrete floor. Upon information and belief, all defendants knew or should have known about the deplorable treatment of plaintiff and should have done something about it,” the suit stated.
“Specifically, defendants did not take the proper precautions to make sure that inmates were being treated properly. Upon information and belief, it was common for inmates not to be provided necessities. Upon information and belief, defendants Carney, LaCombe, Clark, Butler and Rose, are the decision-makers regarding the aforesaid custom, policy and/or practice.”
The defendants removed the action to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on Feb. 28, and then motioned to dismiss the case in its entirety on March 7.
“Plaintiff Maurice Taylor disregards the law by suing defendants the City of Philadelphia (doing business as “Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility”), Carney, LaCombe, Clark, Butler and Rose under 42. U.S.C. Section 1983 without making sufficient factual allegations that he suffered a cognizable constitutional injury. Specifically, plaintiff’s kitchen sink approach to his failure to protect, failure to keep safe, failure to provide medical care and cruel and unusual punishment claim in violation of the Fourth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments against all defendants (Count I), somehow, fails to illustrate how any of the moving defendants violated his constitutionally-protected rights,” according to the motion to dismiss.
“Moreover, plaintiff fails to appreciate that the moving defendants are immunized by Pennsylvania statute against state law claims. Plaintiff’s claim of negligence brought under Pennsylvania common law against the City and all individual moving defendants, the City’s employees (Count II), is barred by the Pennsylvania Tort Claims Act. Finally, plaintiff failed to plead sufficient facts to raise a municipal liability claim by failing to identify a municipal decision-maker or a policy, custom, or practice that was the moving force behind the alleged constitutional violation (Count III). Accordingly, the Court should dismiss the plaintiff’s claims against the moving defendants with prejudice.”
After an amended complaint was filed on March 21 (which dismissed Clark, Butler and Rose as defendants in the case and rendered the initial motion to dismiss as moot), the remaining defendants filed a renewed dismissal motion for failure to state claims upon which relief could be granted, on April 4.
“Plaintiff’s first amended complaint does not allege that individual moving defendants, Prison Commissioner Blanche Carney and Warden Pierre LaCombe, were personally involved in, or aware of, the specific treatment that plaintiff alleges he was being subjected to by unnamed correctional officers while in his holding cell between May and June 2020 and on the intake floor sometime thereafter. A municipal official sued in his or her individual capacity, such as Commissioner Carney and Warden LaCombe, cannot be held vicariously liable for the constitutional violations of the employees that the official supervises,” the motion stated.
“Accordingly, to the extent that Count I of plaintiff’s complaint seeks to hold individual moving defendants Carney and LaCombe vicariously liable for the constitutional violations of other officials – none of whom were named or alluded to with sufficient specificity by the plaintiff in his complaint – the claim fails on its face. To the extent that plaintiff seeks to hold Carney and LaCombe liable as policymakers for the City, the claim fails for the same reason as the municipal liability claims (Counts I and II) against the City under Monell. Count I should be dismissed against individual moving defendants Prison Commissioner Blanche Carney and Warden Pierre LaCombe in their individual capacity because of the pleading deficiencies in plaintiff’s first amended complaint.”
The dismissal motion continued by arguing that the plaintiff had failed to illustrate municipal liability on the part of the defendants.
“Plaintiff’s first amended complaint lacks non-conclusory allegations plausibly supporting the conclusion that, from May 2020 to July 2020, the City had any of 1) A custom of deliberately failing to protect and provide the appropriate living conditions or necessities to plaintiff or had a policy or custom of or otherwise were deliberately indifferent to the living conditions of plaintiff such as to support a plausible municipal liability or supervisory liability claim under Section 1983; 2) A custom of deliberately being indifferent to the constitutional rights of plaintiff or ‘developed and maintained policies, practices, procedures and customs’ or otherwise were deliberately indifferent to the constitutional rights of plaintiff such as to support a plausible municipal liability or supervisory liability claim under Section 1983; or 3) A policy or custom of not taking proper precautions to keep inmates safe from corrections officers,” the motion stated.
“Here, the first amended complaint fails to allege facts to support a plausible inference that plaintiff’s injury was the result of a specific policy or custom on the part of Commissioner Carney, Warden LaCombe or the City to deliberately fail to protect and provide the appropriate living conditions or necessities to plaintiff, to deliberately be indifferent to the constitutional rights of plaintiff, or to not take proper precautions to keep inmates safe from correctional officers. Plaintiff’s allegations here were no better than the conclusory and general averments referred to in Wood, Butler and Torres. In fact, plaintiff’s Monell allegation boils down to, effectively, that the City as a matter of policy did not take ‘the proper precautions to keep inmates safe, from corrections officers.”
The dismissal motion explained that Taylor “failed to demonstrate in what way the City’s policy was insufficient to keep inmates safe from corrections officers”, did not list the alleged “barbaric and inhumane treatment” he was subjected to while he was held at CFCF, cannot “identify in what manner the City’s existing policies were insufficient to address these risks” and finally, cannot explain “any plausible way in which the barbaric and inhumane treatment he alleges was actually committed by corrections officers at CFCF or can possibly evidence a “policy or procedure” that caused the alleged constitutional violation.
“Plaintiff makes conclusory statements and blanket allegations that individual moving defendants were decision-makers and were deliberately indifferent to the failure to protect and provide him with appropriate living conditions and necessities, but ultimately plaintiff fails to show how the named decision-makers made decisions to cause or even perpetuate his alleged living conditions or were deliberately indifferent to his living conditions, his alleged lack of necessities, or even those of detainees as a group,” the motion stated.
On May 18, plaintiff counsel filed an opposing response to the dismissal motion, countering that the plaintiff’s Monell claim and individuals claims against defendants LaCombe and Carney were indeed valid, based on the series of plausible allegations as to his treatment by the prison and its officials.
“These allegations, in turn support a reasonable inference that defendant City of Philadelphia’s policymakers did not engage in reasonable, corrective efforts to address a systemic problem of failing to keep prisoners safe. At this stage, when giving plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences, plaintiff has alleged a Monell claim against defendant City of Philadelphia,” the response stated.
“Here, as outlined above, there is no question that plaintiff was deprived of ‘minimal civilized measure of life's necessities.’ Further, plaintiff has alleged the individual defendants’ personal involvement and deliberate indifference of those defendants. Simply, plaintiff has alleged that these defendants knew plaintiff was subjected to inhumane conditions of confinement but ignored those conditions and allowed them to continue. At this stage, when giving plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences plaintiff has alleged claims against these defendants.”
UPDATE
On June 30, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro denied the defense’s motion to dismiss.
“Defendants move to dismiss all of the claims asserted against the individual defendants on the basis that plaintiff has failed to allege facts sufficient to plausibly show each of the individual defendants’ personal involvement in the alleged wrongful conduct. Defendants are mistaken. In the amended complaint, plaintiff has alleged that the individual defendants were aware of the deplorable detention conditions underlying his claims, that they were the decision-makers with respect to the customs, policies and/or practices underlying the deplorable conditions, and that they did not take necessary actions to remedy the deplorable conditions. As such, at this stage, plaintiff has alleged sufficient facts as to the personal involvement of each of the individual defendants to assert plausible Section 1983 claims against the individual defendants,” Quiñones Alejandro said.
“Defendants also move to dismiss all of plaintiff’s Monell claims on the basis that plaintiff has failed to allege facts sufficient to plausibly show the existence of a particular unlawful policy or custom or that plaintiff’s injuries were the result of the requisite policy or custom. To state a viable claim for municipal liability under Section 1983, a plaintiff must plead facts sufficient to plausibly show (1) A constitutional violation by a municipal actor (2) that was caused by a municipal policy or custom. The policy or custom must be the ‘moving force’ behind the constitutional tort. Thus, the plaintiff must allege facts showing an ‘affirmative link’ or ‘plausible nexus’ between the policy or custom and the alleged constitutional violation. The policy or custom must also exhibit deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of those it affect.”
Quiñones Alejandro explained that case law provides that “a policy or custom may exist where ‘the policymaker has failed to act affirmatively at all, [though] the need to take some action to control the agents of the government ‘is so obvious, and the inadequacy of existing practice so likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights, that the policymaker can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need.”
“Here, plaintiff has alleged that for the duration of his near one-month confinement, he was deprived of various basic necessities, such as a shower, toothbrush, clean sheets, clean prison jumper and clean cell. He was also prevented from receiving or making any phone calls and was forced to sleep on a concrete floor for two days. Plaintiff also alleges that defendants Carney and LaCombe, as decision-makers, were aware and in control of these inhumane conditions, yet did nothing to remedy them. At this stage of the proceedings, these allegations are sufficient to assert plausible Monell claims against all defendants. As such, defendants’ motion to dismiss is denied,” Quiñones Alejandro concluded.
For counts of failure to protect, failure to keep safe, failure to provide medical care, cruel and unusual punishment, negligence and violation of Monell, the plaintiff is seeking damages individually, jointly and/or severally, in excess of $50,000, including punitive damages and further relief as this Honorable Court deems necessary and just, including attorney’s fees and costs.
The plaintiff is represented by David A. Berlin and Matthew B. Weisberg of Weisberg Law in Morton and Gary Schafkopf of Hopkins Schafkopf, in Bala Cynwyd.
The defendants are represented by Jonah Santiago-Pagan of the City of Philadelphia’s Law Department.
U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania case 2:23-cv-00785
Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas case 230100333
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com