Case ID: f-appx_436/html/0022-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Joel MURRAY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William F. HULIHAN, Superintendent, Mid-State Correctional Facility; M. Debraccio, Correction Counselor, Mid-State Correctional Facility; R. Ferraro, Correction Counselor, Mid-State Correctional Facility; W. Koagle, Correction Counselor, Mid-State Correctional Facility; S. Moore, Correction Counselor, Mid-State Correctional Facility; B. Simons, Senior Correction Counselor, Mid-State Correctional Facility; Cheyne, Social Worker; M. Strumlofler, Mid-State Correctional Facility, Defendants-Appellees.
    No. 10-1485-cr.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    Aug. 30, 2011.
    
      Joel Murray, Elmira, NY, pro se.
    Owen Demuth, Assistant Solicitor General (Denise A. Hartman, Assistant Solicitor General; Barbara D. Underwood, Solicitor General, on the brief), for Eric T. Schneiderman, Attorney General for the State of New York, Albany, NY, for Defendants-Appellees.
    PRESENT: RALPH K. WINTER, JOSEPH M. MCLAUGHLIN and JOSÉ A. CABRANES, Circuit Judges.
   SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiff-appellant Joel Murray (“plaintiff’), pro se, appeals the judgment of the District Court adopting the Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation (“R & R”) granting judgment on the pleadings to defendants, various state actors whom plaintiff encountered while incarcerated in the New York State Department of Correctional Services at Mid-State Correctional Facility, and dismissing plaintiffs 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for failure to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, proceedings below, and specification of issues on appeal.

We review de novo a district court’s grant of judgment on the pleadings, drawing all factual inferences in favor of the non-moving party. See, e.g., Desiano v. Warner-Lambert & Co., 467 F.3d 85, 89 (2d Cir.2006). Dismissal on the pleadings is appropriate when the complaint, including accompanying exhibits and documents incorporated by reference, fails to plead “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (a claim will have “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”).

In his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, plaintiff asserted, inter alia, that defendants violated his First Amendment rights by taking various actions to prevent him from completing the Alcohol and Substance Abuse Treatment (“ASAT”) program as retaliation against him for filing a series of inmate grievances. To state a First Amendment retaliation claim, a plaintiff must plead facts from which a court can reasonably infer that (1) plaintiff engaged in constitutionally protected conduct, (2) defendants took an adverse action against plaintiff that was substantially motivated by that conduct, and (3) the protected conduct and adverse action were causally connected. Bennett v. Goord, 343 F.3d 133, 137 (2d Cir.2003). Defendants cannot be liable for First Amendment retaliation if they would have taken the adverse action even in the absence of the protected conduct. Id.

Following de novo review of the record, we affirm the judgment of the District Court for substantially the reasons stated by the Magistrate Judge in his thorough and well-reasoned R & R, which the District Court adopted in toto after conducting a de novo review, see Order, Murray v. Hulihan, Docket No. 08-CV-912 (N.D.N.Y. Mar. 31, 2010). As the Magistrate Judge noted, although filing grievances is constitutionally protected conduct, plaintiff failed to claim facts indicating that his filing of grievances either substantially motivated or actually caused defendants’ allegedly adverse actions. In contrast, plaintiff concedes that the ASAT program dictated those actions as legitimate remedial responses to plaintiffs violations of the program’s rules, which indicates that defendants would have taken similar measures regardless of whether plaintiff had filed grievances. Accordingly, plaintiff failed to state a valid First Amendment retaliation claim.

CONCLUSION

We have considered plaintiffs other arguments on appeal and have found them to be without merit. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court is hereby AFFIRMED.