Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_03-cv-00716/USCOURTS-caed-2_03-cv-00716-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

GLEN R. CALDWELL,

Plaintiff,

v.

GINGRICH, FOUGHT, ESPINOZA, WILEY

M., MARY B. LOYCHE,

Defendants.

CIV S-03-0716 LKK PAN PS

FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS 

—NFN—

On December 23, 2004, in response to plaintiff’s motion

for relief pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b)(6), I vacated my

Findings and Recommendations filed September 16 to reconsider

defendants’ motion for summary judgment in light of plaintiff’s

newly submitted evidence.

Plaintiff, proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis,

commenced this action April 8, 2003. Although plaintiff’s claims

relate to injuries he allegedly suffered October 22, 1999, during

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his incarceration at Avenal State Prison, plaintiff is no longer

imprisoned and has at no time been imprisoned during the pendency

of this action.

Plaintiff named as defendants “Gingrich, Fought,

Espinoza, Wiley M., [and] Mary B. Loyche.” 

Plaintiff has not provided proof of service upon Wiley M.

I therefore recommend plaintiff’s claims against defendant Wiley

M. be dismissed without prejudice. Fed. R. Civ. P. 4(m). 

Service upon defendant Gingrich was attempted by the

United States Marshal on May 22, 2003. The California Department

of Corrections (CDC) filed a notice July 7, 2003, that defendant

Gingrich is deceased and that CDC could not accept service on

behalf of his estate. More importantly, plaintiff did not

provide the Marshal with the correct complaint for service upon

Gingrich. Plaintiff gave the Marshal a copy of the complaint

plaintiff filed in the Fresno Division, Glen R. Caldwell v.

Avenal State Prison, et al., CV-S-01-5665 AWI DLB P. I therefore

find that Gingrich has not been properly served with summons and

complaint in this case and recommend that plaintiff’s claims

against defendant Gingrich be dismissed without prejudice. Fed.

R. Civ. P. 4(m). 

The remaining defendants, Foucht (sued as Fought),

Espinoza, and Loyche, and correctional lieutenant A.J. Valdez,

move for summary judgment.

Valdez was served with the complaint but is not a named

defendant. Valdez is not, therefore, considered a party to this

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action. 

Foucht, Espinoza, and Loyche move for summary judgment

upon plaintiff’s claim they violated his Eighth Amendment

guarantee from cruel and unusual punishment.

A party may move, without or without supporting

affidavits, for summary judgment and the judgment sought shall be

rendered forthwith if the pleadings, depositions, answers to

interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the

affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any

material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment

as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)-(c). 

An issue is “genuine” if the evidence is such that a

reasonable jury could return a verdict for the opposing party. 

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242 (1986). A fact is

“material” if it affects the right to recover under applicable

substantive law. Id. The moving party must submit evidence that

establishes the existence of an element essential to that party’s

case and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at

trial. Celotex Corporation v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). 

The moving party “always bears the initial responsibility of

informing the district court of the basis for its motion and

identifying those portions of ‘the pleadings, depositions,

answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with

the affidavits, if any’” that the moving party believes

demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. 

Id., at 323. If the movant does not bear the burden of proof on

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an issue, the movant need only point to the absence of evidence

to support the opponent’s burden. To avoid summary judgment on

an issue upon which the opponent bears the burden of proof, the

opponent must “go beyond the pleadings and by her own affidavits,

or by the “‘depositions, answers to interrogatories, and

admissions on file,’ designate ‘specific facts showing that there

is a genuine issue for trial.’” Id., at 324. The opponent’s

affirmative evidence must be sufficiently probative that a jury

reasonably could decide the issue in favor of the opponent. 

Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Inc. v. Zenith Radio

Corporation, 475 U.S. 574, 588 (1986). When the conduct alleged

is implausible, stronger evidence than otherwise required must be

presented to defeat summary judgment. Id., at 587.

Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e) provides that “supporting and

opposing affidavits shall be made on personal knowledge, shall

set forth such facts as would be admissible in evidence, and

shall show affirmatively that the affiant is competent to testify

to the matters stated therein.” Nevertheless, the Supreme Court

has held that the opponent need not produce evidence in a form

that would be admissible at trial in order to avoid summary

judgment. Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324. Rather, the questions are

(1) whether the evidence could be submitted in admissible form

and (2) “if reduced to admissible evidence” would it be

sufficient to carry the party’s burden at trial. Id., at 327. 

Thus, in Fraser v. Goodale, 342 F.3d 1032 (9th Cir. 2003),

objection to the opposing party’s reliance upon her diary upon

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the ground it was hearsay was overruled because the party could

testify to all the relevant portions from personal knowledge or

read it into evidence as recorded recollection.

A verified complaint based on personal knowledge setting

forth specific facts admissible in evidence is treated as an

affidavit. Schroeder v. McDonald, 55 F.3d 454 (9th Cir. 1995);

McElyea v. Babbitt, 833 F.2d 196 (9th Cir. 1987). A verified

motion based on personal knowledge in opposition to a summary

judgment motion setting forth facts that would be admissible in

evidence also functions as an affidavit. Johnson v. Meltzer, 134

F.,3d 1393 (9th Cir. 1998); Jones v. Blanas, 393 F.3d 918 (9th

Cir. 2004).

Defects in opposing affidavits may be waived if no motion

to strike or other objection is made. Scharf v. United States

Attorney General, 597 F.2d 1240 (9th Cir. 1979) (incompetent

medical evidence).

Defendants contend the following facts are undisputed. 

Plaintiff was a prisoner at Avenal State Prison where defendants

Foucht and Espinoza were employed as correctional officers and

Loyche was employed as a medical technical assistant or “MTA.” 

At 1:45 p.m., October 22, 1999, on account of disruptive

behavior, plaintiff was taken to administrative segregation,

where Loyche worked, arguing with his escort. Plaintiff was

uncooperative when Foucht attempted to search him. Foucht was

joined by other officers to subdue plaintiff without striking any

blows. After a scuffle, Foucht saw blood over plaintiff’s right

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eye and called Loyche who dressed the wound. Four days later a

physican examined the wound, noted “no apparent serious injury,”

and prescribed Tylenol.

November 16, 2004, plaintiff filed a copy of an unsworn

document dated April 7, 2000, in which plaintiff says he was four

times thrown against a wall, thrown to the ground and a bag

placed over his head causing him to lose consciousness, that he

suffered injury to his back, neck, and shoulder and that he was

locked up without treatment for 102 days. 

Medical records submitted by plaintiff include a medical

report made October 22, 1999, by defendant Loyche that she saw

plaintiff at 1:45 p.m. and found a 1/4 inch laceration 1/16 inch

deep and bruising over plaintiff’s right eye. Plaintiff’s

submission also includes a report made October 28 by another MTA. 

Plaintiff complained of a “gash” under his right eye as a result

of officers slamming him against the wall. There is also an

outpatient record made October 26, 1999, recording plaintiff’s

statement he was injured during an incident with custody staff

and his complaint of injury around his right eye and back pain. 

Examination disclosed mild swelling above the right eye; the

examiner’s impression and mid-back pain. The examiner concluded

there was “no apparent serious injury” and prescribed Tylenol and

another examination in one week. Another medical record shows

that on October 30 plaintiff complained of low back pain and

difficulty breathing. (I note that the records provided by

plaintiff show that airway disease was diagnosed in 1994.) 

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November 24, plaintiff complained of vomiting blood and abdominal

pain. December 3, plaintiff complained he could not sleep

because of back pain and an x-ray was ordered and Motrin

prescribed. December 6, plaintiff was given a bag to collect any

bloody vomit but his complaints then ceased for three weeks. By

December 12, an x-ray had been taken and was in the hands of a

radiologist for interpretation. Plaintiff refused to be

interviewed for purposes of treatment. On December 21, plaintiff

complained of low back pain without radiation and denied shoulder

pain and denied mid and upper back pain. Stomach complaints were

attributed to gastritis. On December 28, the day before

plaintiff was scheduled to be released on parole, the x-rays were

discussed with him and he was advised to give them to his

personal physician. Plaintiff presented himself to the Emergency

Room at Scripps Mercy Hospital on February 10, 2000, complaining

of back pain. He said he had been released from prison three

days before and there he had been “thrown to the ground and was

stomped on his back with the knee” and had back pain ever since. 

X-rays were taken and interpreted as showing a distended stomach

with flue and particulate matter raising the question whether

plaintiff, who was then homeless, had eaten recently. He was

seen again on February 16 but the report provided is incomplete,

containing only plaintiff’s complaints. Finally, there is an

outpatient report made by a CDC physician in February 2002

recording plaintiff’s complaint of a four-month history of low

back pain that began when plaintiff was slammed to the ground in

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October 2001 when he felt a localized pain in his back that

persisted since.

Plaintiff’s submission also includes an incident report

made by a correctional lieutenant, A. J. Valdez, on October 22,

1999, implying that plaintiff caused the injury to his eye when

he “began twisting his face into the sallyport wall” and

explaining that Foucht and Espinoza acted to prevent plaintiff

from “further injury to himself.”

In their reply, defendants present evidence,

conspicuously omitted by plaintiff, that x-rays ordered at Mercy

Healthcare on February 10, 2000, were negative for objective

evidence of back injury and that he was given instructions for

follow-up care that there is no evidence he followed.

October 21, 2003, plaintiff was instructed by the court

what was required to oppose defendants’ summary judgment motion

and he made no attempt to comply; he still has not satisfied his

evidentiary burden under Rule 56. The record supports a finding

that he has grossly exaggerated his claims and any injury he may

have suffered in October 1999. It also supports a finding that

defendant Loyche was entirely without blame and plaintiff’s

persistence in seeking relief from her on this record casts

further suspicion on his case. But none of that matters.

To prove the claimed Eighth Amendment violation,

plaintiff was required to demonstrate defendants used force

maliciously and sadistically for the purpose of inflicting pain

rather than in a good faith effort to maintain or restore the

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order required in a prison, viz., prisoners obey the instructions

of their guards and avoid conduct that reasonably may be viewed

as a threat and evoke precipitate violence. Whitley v. Albers,

475 U.S. 312 (1986); Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1 (1992). (To

be perfectly clear, I reject on the basis of the same authority

any contention by defendants that plaintiff also must prove a

“serious” injury but at the same time I do not ignore that the

extent of the injury is probative evidence of the degree of force

used.) Plaintiff has produced no evidence, not even his own

sworn denial, that he was in the process of being segregated from

the general prison population for disruptive behavior and that he

failed to follow instructions while being searched. In such a

situation, prison guards were authorized to use force to compel

obedience and their precipitate responses inside a prison for

convicted felons ought not to be lightly second-guessed. 

Whitley, 475 U.S. at 320. The immediate sequelae of the force

applied in this case, a trivial cut, abrasion or bruise above or

below plaintiff’s right eye attests the force used was nothing so

violent as plaintiff claims but has no evidence to support. That

a 50-year-old man may (or may not) have suffered a back injury or

aggravated a previous back injury or triggered a naturally

occurring deterioration by a scuffle with prison guards that

indisputably involved some violence simply does not itself make

out an Eighth Amendment violation. On this record, no jury

reasonably could decide the issue in favor of plaintiff.\

////

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Accordingly, I recommend defendants’ motion for summary

judgment be granted.

These findings and recommendations are submitted to the

Honorable Lawrence K. Karlton, the United States District Judge

assigned to this case. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(l). Written

objections may be filed within ten days after being served with

these findings and recommendations. The document should be

captioned “Objections to Magistrate Judge’s Findings and

Recommendations.” The failure to file objections within the

specified time may waive the right to appeal the District Court’s

order. Martinez v. Ylst, 951 F.2d 1153 (9th Cir. 1991).

Dated: April 18, 2005. 

 /s/ Peter A. Nowinski 

 PETER A. NOWINSKI

 Magistrate Judge

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