STEPHAN M. VIDMAR, Magistrate Judge.
THIS MATTER is before the Court on Plaintiff's Prisoner Civil Rights Complaint ("Complaint") under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, filed December 29, 2014. [Doc. 1]. Defendant Gary Maciel filed an Answer on August 31, 2015. [Doc. 36]. The Honorable James O. Browning, United States District Judge, referred this case to me for analysis and a recommended disposition. [Doc. 3]. Having reviewed the record and relevant law, and being otherwise fully advised in the premises, I recommend that Plaintiff's Complaint be
Plaintiff is incarcerated at the Penitentiary of New Mexico in Santa Fe. [Doc. 1] at 8. Plaintiff filed his Complaint on December 29, 2014, [Doc. 1], and a Motion to Amend his Complaint on February 2, 2015, [Doc. 9]. On June 30, 2015, Judge Browning issued a Memorandum Opinion and Order, dismissing all Defendants except for unit manager Gary Maciel. [Doc. 19]. The Order also dismissed certain of Plaintiff's claims. Id. Judge Browning denied Plaintiff's Motion to Amend Complaint, [Doc. 9], as moot, construing it as a Supplemental Complaint. [Doc. 19] at 6.
In the same Order, Plaintiff was given leave to file a second amended complaint for the limited purpose of "[naming] as Defendants the individuals who allegedly committed the remaining constitutional violations that he asserts." [Doc. 19] at 6-7. Plaintiff filed a second motion to amend on July 2, 2015. [Doc. 21]. Because this second motion to amend did not add "new substantive allegations" or "name additional Defendants," [Doc. 40] at 2, Judge Browning denied it, as well as Plaintiff's Motion for Reconsideration, [Doc. 23], in a Memorandum Opinion and Order issued on November 2, 2015, [Doc. 40].
Plaintiff has also filed three interlocutory appeals to the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. [Docs. 25, 41, 46]. The Tenth Circuit dismissed each of his appeals. [Docs. 33, 44, 52].
In addition to his Complaint, [Doc. 1], Plaintiff currently has pending before this Court a Motion for Protective Order and for Summary Judgment, [Doc. 12], Motion for Summary Judgment, [Doc. 16], Motion for Default and/or Memo in Opposition to Answer, [Doc. 37], and Motion for Order to Show Cause, Preliminary Injunction and/or Temporary Restraining Order, [Doc. 45].
A party may amend its pleading once as a matter of course within 21 days after serving it, or, if the pleading is one to which a responsive pleading is required, within 21 days after service of a responsive pleading or twenty-one days after service of a motion under Rule 12(b), (e), or (f), whichever is earliest. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1). Otherwise, "a party may amend its pleading only with the opposing party's written consent or the court's leave." Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2). "The court should freely give leave when justice so requires." Id. The decision to grant leave is within the court's discretion. Pallottino v. City of Rio Rancho, 31 F.3d 1023, 1027 (10th Cir. 1994). A court may choose to withhold leave to amend if the proposed amendment would be futile; that is, if it "would not withstand a motion to dismiss or if it otherwise fails to state a claim." Beach v. Mut. of Omaha Ins. Co., 229 F.Supp.2d 1230, 1234 (D. Kan. 2002).
A court may dismiss a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6). To avoid dismissal, a party's claims must be nudged "`across the line from conceivable to plausible.'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 680 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). "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 678. Although a court must accept as true all of the allegations in a complaint, deference is "inapplicable to legal conclusions," and "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Id. Thus, should Plaintiff's motions to amend be denied as futile due to failure to state a claim on which relief can be granted, his case is subject to dismissal.
Since filing his Complaint [Doc. 1] and Supplemental Complaint [Doc. 9], Plaintiff has barraged the Court with a flurry of additional papers. Besides his pending motions, [Docs. 12, 16, 37, 45], he has filed Exhibits [Docs. 6, 15, 17], Memorandums/Notices [Docs. 9, 18, 20, 29, 30, 38], a Request for Hearing and Notice, [Doc. 13], a Notice regarding Request to be Heard, [Doc. 14], a second amended complaint, [Doc. 21], and a motion for reconsideration, [Doc. 23]. While he has given these documents different titles, it seems that Plaintiff's intent is to supplement his original complaint. The Court construes these filings as motions to amend and reviews them for futility. Thus, the Court's inquiry is whether, even after considering all of his additional filings and construing them liberally, Plaintiff has stated a claim on which relief may be granted.
Plaintiff has added to his voluminous list of complaints in each document he has filed over the past year, often in the form of a stream of consciousness. Because Plaintiff's complaints are so diverse and numerous, it is difficult to group them neatly. They all have one thing in common, however—their lack of merit. Some of these assorted claims about the conditions of his confinement fail because Plaintiff makes only conclusory allegations, while others fail because he has not provided the requisite factual support. Finally, some of Plaintiff's claims are simply frivolous. Plaintiff's motions to amend his complaint should be denied, and granting him further leave to amend would be futile. Plaintiff has been given a number of opportunities to amend his complaint, along with specific instruction on how to do so. Despite this, and despite over 200 pages of filings, Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
Although a court must accept as true all of the factual allegations in a complaint, deference will not be given to legal conclusions, and "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. A number of Plaintiff's allegations are nothing more than the barest conclusions of law.
For certain other claims, while Plaintiff does more than list the name of the cause of action, he fails to provide sufficient factual information about the violation.
While he does more than name a cause of action with respect to certain of his claims, Plaintiff has not provided adequate information about the circumstances of those claims. For example, Plaintiff alleges that he has been discriminated against on the basis of his religion in that he is not permitted to observe the sacraments of communion or confession. See, e.g. [Doc. 9] at 4. However, his claim of religious discrimination begins and ends with this unsupported and unsubstantiated assertion. He provides no information about when he was denied access to communion or confession, whether he was denied access more than once, and if so, how often, who was responsible for the denial, whether he attempted to use the prison's internal grievance system to address the issue, or any other context.
Plaintiff has left out one particularly important fact with regard to the vast majority of his claims; he has failed to identify the individuals responsible for the alleged constitutional violations. Judge Browning's Order on June 30, 2015, dismissed certain of Plaintiff's claims and specifically directed Plaintiff to name the individuals responsible for the ones that remained. [Doc. 19] at 6. Since then, Plaintiff has filed six more documents with the Court, totaling 52 pages. [Docs. 20, 21, 23, 29, 37, 38]. Despite specific instructions to the contrary, Plaintiff has not identified any individual responsible for the vast majority of his allegations. In other words, he has not been able to "make clear exactly who is alleged to have done what to whom," Robbins, 519 F.3d at 1250.
Plaintiff occasionally "names names"—that is, he identifies the person who allegedly violated his rights.
Many of Plaintiff's complaints concern aspects of his daily life at the prison with which he is unhappy.
The claims raised by Plaintiff—even if assumed to be true—do not indicate that prison officials have deprived Plaintiff of "the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities," Barney v. Pulsipher, 143 F.3d 1299, 1310 (10th Cir. 1998), as required for relief under § 1983. Indeed, Plaintiff is correct to point out that many of the issues he raises "should be handled internally" through the prison's grievance system. [Doc. 11] at 2; see also [Doc. 1] at 7 (As part of his requested relief, Plaintiff asks that the New Mexico Corrections Department handle his complaints internally rather than "having Plaintiffs have to come before [the Court.]"). His dissatisfaction with the results of the prison's internal grievance system does not open the door for him to inundate the Court with complaints about every aspect of his life in prison. Indeed, "the Eighth Amendment does not mandate comfortable prisons, and conditions imposed may be `restrictive and even harsh.'" Barney, 143 F.3d at 1311.
In his answer, Defendant Maciel "avers that administrative remedies have not been exhausted" by Plaintiff, as required by 42 U.S.C. § 1997(e). [Doc. 36] at 5. The exhaustion requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 42 U.S.C. § 1997(e) provides that:
42 U.S.C. § 1997(e). "[P]roper exhaustion of administrative remedies . . . means using all steps that the [prison] holds out, and doing so properly (so that the [prison] addresses the issues on the merits)." Woodford v. Ngo, 548 U.S. 81, 90 (2006).
A prisoner is only required to exhaust "available" remedies. Tuckel v. Grover, 660 F.3d 1249, 1252-3 (10th Cir. 2011). If prison officials hinder a prisoner's access to administrative remedies, those remedies cease to be available and a prisoner's requirement to exhaust them is excused. Id. District courts are "obligated to ensure that any defects in exhaustion were not procured from the action or inaction of prison officials" before dismissing a claim for failure to exhaust. Aquilar-Avellaveda v. Terell, 478 F.3d 1223, 1225 (10th Cir. 2007).
Plaintiff is clearly unimpressed with the prison's internal grievance system. He appears to argue that the grievance system is "unavailable" to him, though he does not use those exact words. See [Doc. 9] at 6 (Plaintiff alleges that prison employees do not follow proper grievance procedures). Plaintiff has attached copies of some of his grievances and the responses to those grievances. His own submissions show that he has access to the prison's system but has repeatedly failed to follow the steps required to obtain relief through it. See [Doc. 16] at 13, 15. He also acknowledges that he has chosen to forgo the prison's system for handling his complaints, instead choosing to of file them with the Court. [Doc. 11] at 2 (Plaintiff states that if it weren't for the defendants, he "wouldn't needlessly have to waste the Court's time with issues which should be handled internally."). While he may be less-than-thrilled with the result of the outcome of the internal grievance system, that does not entitle him to use the Court as his sounding board, nor does it prove that the grievance system has been made unavailable to him.
For the reasons set forth herein, I respectfully recommend that the Plaintiff's Complaint [Doc. 1] be
