Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-1_15-cv-00691/USCOURTS-caed-1_15-cv-00691-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

CHRISTOPHER LIPSEY, JR.,

Plaintiff,

v.

SATF PRISONS AD-SEG PROPERTY

OFFICERS, et al.,

Defendants.

_____________________________________/

Case No. 1:15-cv-00691-SKO (PC)

ORDER DISMISSING COMPLAINT, WITH 

LEAVE TO AMEND, FOR FAILURE TO 

STATE A CLAIM

(Doc. 1)

THIRTY-DAY DEADLINE

I. Screening Requirement and Standard

Plaintiff Christopher Lipsey, Jr. (“Plaintiff”), a state prisoner proceeding pro se and in 

forma pauperis, filed this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on May 6, 2015. The 

Court is required to screen complaints brought by prisoners seeking relief against a governmental 

entity or an officer or employee of a governmental entity. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). The Court must 

dismiss a complaint or portion thereof if the prisoner has raised claims that are legally “frivolous 

or malicious,” that fail to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or that seek monetary 

relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1), (2). 

“Notwithstanding any filing fee, or any portion thereof, that may have been paid, the court shall 

dismiss the case at any time if the court determines that . . . the action or appeal . . . fails to state a 

claim upon which relief may be granted.” 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). 

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A complaint must contain “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the 

pleader is entitled to relief. . . .” Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2). Detailed factual allegations are not 

required, but “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere 

conclusory statements, do not suffice,” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937 

(2009) (citing Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (2007)), and 

courts “are not required to indulge unwarranted inferences,” Doe I v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 572 

F.3d 677, 681 (9th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). While factual 

allegations are accepted as true, legal conclusions are not. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

Under section 1983, Plaintiff must demonstrate that each defendant personally participated 

in the deprivation of his rights. Jones v. Williams, 297 F.3d 930, 934 (9th Cir. 2002). This 

requires the presentation of factual allegations sufficient to state a plausible claim for relief. Iqbal, 

556 U.S. at 678-79; Moss v. U.S. Secret Service, 572 F.3d 962, 969 (9th Cir. 2009). The mere 

possibility of misconduct falls short of meeting this plausibility standard. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678; 

Moss, 572 F.3d at 969. However, prisoners proceeding pro se in civil rights actions are still 

entitled to have their pleadings liberally construed and to have any doubt resolved in their favor. 

Hebbe v. Pliler, 627 F.3d 338, 342 (9th Cir. 2010) (citations omitted).

II. Discussion

A. Summary of Complaint

Plaintiff is currently incarcerated at California State Prison-Corcoran (“CSP-Corcoran”). 

He brings this action against Officer Urban, Appeals Coordinators J. Jasso and C. M. Heck, and 

Doe defendants working in the mailroom at California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and 

State Prison (“SATF”). Also named as defendants are Doe property officers employed at CSPCorcoran. Plaintiff categorizes his allegations into three claims. Claim one arises from events at 

SATF in 2012, and claims two and three arise from events at CSP-Corcoran in 2014.1 

 

1 As discussed in subsection D, the unrelated claims are not properly joined in one action but since none of the claims 

are viable, the Court will provide Plaintiff with notice of the deficiencies and an opportunity to amend. Whether any 

claims will be subject to severance by future order will depend on which claims are pled in the amended complaint 

and which of those pled are viable. 

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On February 7, 2012, Plaintiff was transferred from SATF to Pelican Bay State Prison

(“PBSP”). Before his transfer, he had been trying to obtain redress from a vendor for a defective 

television. However, Officer Urban failed to ensure that the prison mailroom sent Plaintiff’s 

television back to the vendor in time for Plaintiff to receive reimbursement for it. Although 

Plaintiff notified the vendor in advance, it took months for Officer Urban to collect the television 

from Plaintiff and give it to the mailroom. Plaintiff told Officer Urban that all he had to do was 

check the television and call the vendor to verify it was defective, but Urban “decided to do it his 

way.” (Doc. 1, Comp., p. 3.) Plaintiff was informed that the mailroom received the television on 

January 18, 2012, and it was to be returned by Officer Garcia. Plaintiff followed up on February 

22, 2012, from PBSP and he thereafter submitted an inmate appeal. Plaintiff alleges that he spent 

more than three years trying to resolve the issue through the appeals process and state court

proceedings. 

Next, Plaintiff alleges that on September 11, 2014, he was transferred from PBSP to the 

Security Housing Unit (“SHU”) at CSP-Corcoran to finish his SHU term in a mental health 

program. After arriving, a counselor informed Plaintiff that he should not have been transferred

because of pending issues at PBSP. Plaintiff responded that his appeal had been granted and he 

was to be excluded from PBSP housing due to mental health issues. Plaintiff subsequently 

experienced a mental health related episode that led to his hospitalization. While Plaintiff was in 

the hospital, his property was sent back to PBSP. Following his release, Plaintiff submitted 

numerous request forms regarding his property informing staff that he needed his property because 

he had a pending legal deadline. On October 21, 2014, Plaintiff engaged in a two-day hunger 

strike and filed an inmate appeal. As a result, he finally received his legal property on or around 

November 15, 2014, which gave him only five days to prepare his petition for filing. 

In addition, during the course of being transported to PBSP and then back to CSPCorcoran, numerous items of Plaintiff’s property were disposed of, lost, or damaged. Plaintiff 

received compensation for his CD player, pictures, and tumbler, but his attempt to obtain redress 

for his defective television and missing CDs was thwarted. Plaintiff alleges that his television 

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now works but there are problems with it, possibly caused by the long period of time it traveled by 

bus up and down the state. 

B. Events at SATF - Claim One - Due Process and Equal Protection

Section 1983, the statute under which this suit was brought, provides a cause of action for 

the violation of Plaintiff’s constitutional or other federal rights by persons acting under color of 

state law. Nurre v. Whitehead, 580 F.3d 1087, 1092 (9th Cir 2009); Long v. County of Los 

Angeles, 442 F.3d 1178, 1185 (9th Cir. 2006); Jones, 297 F.3d at 934. “Section 1983 is not itself 

a source of substantive rights, but merely provides a method for vindicating federal rights 

elsewhere conferred.” Crowley v. Nevada ex rel. Nevada Sec’y of State, 678 F.3d 730, 734 (9th 

Cir. 2012) (citing Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 393-94, 109 S.Ct. 1865 (1989)) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). To state a claim, Plaintiff must allege facts demonstrating the existence 

of a link, or causal connection, between each defendant’s actions or omissions and a violation of 

his federal rights. Lemire v. California Dep’t of Corr. and Rehab., 726 F.3d 1062, 1074-75 (9th 

Cir. 2013); Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1205-08 (9th Cir. 2011). 

Plaintiff alleges that Officer Urban’s failure to ensure that the mailroom sent his television 

back to the vendor, and mailroom staff’s failure to send it back, violated his rights to due process 

and equal protection. “The Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause protects persons against 

deprivations of life, liberty, or property; and those who seek to invoke its procedural protection 

must establish that one of these interests is at stake.” Wilkinson v. Austin, 545 U.S. 209, 221, 125 

S.Ct. 2384 (2005). Prisoners have a protected interest in their personal property, Hansen v. May, 

502 F.2d 728, 730 (9th Cir. 1974), but the procedural component of the Due Process Clause is not 

violated by a random, unauthorized deprivation of property if the state provides an adequate postdeprivation remedy, Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 533, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 3204 (1984); Barnett 

v. Centoni, 31 F.3d 813, 816-17 (9th Cir. 1994). Instead, the Due Process Clause is violated only 

when the agency “prescribes and enforces forfeitures of property without underlying statutory 

authority and competent procedural protections.” Nevada Dept. of Corrections v. Greene, 648 

F.3d 1014, 1019 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing Vance v. Barrett, 345 F.3d 1083, 1090 (9th Cir. 2003)) 

(internal quotations omitted). Here, the delay in returning Plaintiff’s television to the vendor does 

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not give rise to a viable claim under section 1983. To the extent this event is even subject to 

characterization as a property deprivation, it was an unauthorized one and as Plaintiff has an 

adequate post-deprivation remedy under California law for personal property loss, his attempt to 

pursue a claim under federal law fails as a matter of law. Barnett, 31 F.3d at 816-17 (citing Cal. 

Gov’t Code §§810-895). 

Next, Plaintiff lacks a protected liberty interest with respect to the inmate appeals process

and his dissatisfaction with the appeals process, including the length of time the process took 

and/or how his appeals were resolved does not give rise to a claim for relief under section 1983. 

Ramirez v. Galaza, 334 F.3d 850, 860 (9th Cir. 2003) (citing Mann v. Adams, 855 F.2d 639, 640 

(9th Cir. 1988)). 

Finally, the Equal Protection Clause requires that persons who are similarly situated be 

treated alike. City of Cleburne v. Cleburne Living Center, Inc., 473 U.S. 432, 439, 105 S.Ct. 3249 

(1985); Hartmann v. California Dep’t of Corr. & Rehab., 707 F.3d 1114, 1123 (9th Cir. 2013); 

Furnace v. Sullivan, 705 F.3d 1021, 1030 (9th Cir. 2013); Shakur v. Schriro, 514 F.3d 878, 891 

(9th Cir. 2008). Plaintiff fails to allege any facts supporting a claim that he was intentionally 

discriminated against based on his membership in a protected class or otherwise treated differently 

than other similarly situated inmates. Hartmann, 707 F.3d at 1123; Furnace, 705 F.3d at 1030; 

Serrano v. Francis, 345 F.3d 1071, 1082 (9th Cir. 2003); Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 

686 (9th Cir. 2001). Therefore, he fails to state a claim based on denial of equal protection.

C. Events at CSP-Corcoran

1. Claim Two - Access to the Courts

Plaintiff alleges a claim for denial of access to the courts stemming from his inability to 

access his legal material between September 2014 and mid-November 2014. Inmates have a 

fundamental constitutional right of access to the courts. Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 346, 116 

S.Ct. 2174 (1996); Silva v. Di Vittorio, 658 F.3d 1090, 1101 (9th Cir. 2011); Phillips v. Hust, 588 

F.3d 652, 655 (9th Cir. 2009). To state a viable claim for relief, Plaintiff must show that he

suffered an actual injury, which requires “actual prejudice to contemplated or existing litigation.” 

Greene, 648 F.3d at 1018 (citing Lewis, 518 U.S. at 348) (internal quotation marks omitted); 

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Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 415, 122 S.Ct. 2179 (2002); Lewis, 518 U.S. at 351; 

Phillips, 588 F.3d at 655. Although Plaintiff alleges that he had a legal deadline and by the time 

he received his property back from PBSP, he had only five days to file his petition, he sets forth no 

facts that support a viable claim under section 1983. That Plaintiff merely had much less time to 

file his petition does not give rise to a constitutional claim. Plaintiff must identify specific facts 

demonstrating that he suffered an actual injury as a result of these events and he has not done so. 

2. Claim Three – Due Process and Equal Protection

Plaintiff also alleges a due process violation and an equal protection violation arising out 

of the transfer of his property to PBSP in September 2014. However, Plaintiff’s temporary 

separation from his personal property is not a constitutional violation; Plaintiff may not pursue a 

due process claim based on the damage to his television, the loss of his CDs, or the response to his 

inmate appeals; and Plaintiff has not alleged any facts that demonstrate he was discriminated 

against. Hartmann, 707 F.3d at 1123; Greene, 648 F.3d at 1019; Ramirez, 334 F.3d 850 at 860. 

Moreover, Plaintiff’s speculative allegation that officers “may have” put his property on the bus to 

PBSP to retaliate against him for “mock[ing] them” by way of his hospital admission, which 

circumvented his transfer back to PBSP, does not give rise to a plausible claim for retaliation, in 

violation of the First Amendment.2(Comp., p. 10.)

D. Claims Improperly Joined in Single Suit

Plaintiff’s complaint fails to state any claims for relief under section 1983. In an 

abundance of caution, the Court will permit Plaintiff to file an amended complaint. However, 

Plaintiff is placed on notice that he may not bring unrelated claims against unrelated parties in a 

single action. Fed. R. Civ. P. 18(a), 20(a)(2); Owens v. Hinsley, 635 F.3d 950, 952 (7th Cir. 

2011); George v. Smith, 507 F.3d 605, 607 (7th Cir. 2007). As an initial matter, Plaintiff may 

bring a claim against multiple defendants so long as (1) the claim arises out of the same 

transaction or occurrence, or series of transactions and occurrences, and (2) there are common

 

2 Within the prison context, a viable claim of retaliation entails five basic elements: (1) An assertion that a state actor 

took some adverse action against an inmate (2) because of (3) that prisoner’s protected conduct, and that such action 

(4) chilled the inmate’s exercise of his rights, and (5) the action did not reasonably advance a legitimate correctional 

goal. Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567-68 (9th Cir. 2005) (quotation marks omitted); accord Watison v. Carter, 

668 F.3d 1108, 1114-15 (9th Cir. 2012); Silva, 658 at 1104; Brodheim v. Cry, 584 F.3d 1262, 1269 (9th Cir. 2009).

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questions of law or fact. Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(a)(2); Coughlin v. Rogers, 130 F.3d 1348, 1351 (9th 

Cir. 1997); Desert Empire Bank v. Insurance Co. of North America, 623 F.3d 1371, 1375 (9th Cir. 

1980). Only if the defendants are properly joined under Rule 20(a) will the Court review the other 

claims to determine if they may be joined under Rule 18(a), which permits the joinder of multiple 

claims against the same party.

Here, Plaintiff’s claims arising from events at CSP-Corcoran in 2012 are not related to his 

claims arising from events at SATF in 2014, and these unrelated claims may not be litigated in the 

same action. Because all of the claims are deficient, the Court will permit Plaintiff to amend the 

claims he believes, in good faith, are viable. If Plaintiff pleads unrelated claims in his amended 

complaint, the claims will be subject to severance for improper joinder if they are otherwise 

viable.

III. Conclusion and Order

Plaintiff’s complaint fails to state any claims upon which relief may be granted under 

section 1983. The Court will provide Plaintiff with one opportunity to file an amended complaint. 

Akhtar v. Mesa, 698 F.3d 1202, 1212-13 (9th Cir. 2012); Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1130 (9th 

Cir. 2000); Noll v. Carlson, 809 F.2d 1446, 1448-49 (9th Cir. 1987). Plaintiff may not change the 

nature of this suit by adding new, unrelated claims in his amended complaint, George, 507 F.3d at

607, and Plaintiff is cautioned that an amended complaint supercedes the original complaint,

Lacey v. Maricopa County, 693 F.3d 896, 907 n.1 (9th Cir. 2012) (en banc), and it must be 

“complete in itself without reference to the prior or superceded pleading,” Local Rule 220. 

Accordingly, it is HEREBY ORDERED that:

1. Plaintiff’s complaint is dismissed, with leave to amend, for failure to state a claim;

2. The Clerk’s Office shall send Plaintiff a civil rights complaint form;

3. Within thirty (30) days from the date of service of this order, Plaintiff shall file an 

amended complaint; and

///

///

///

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4. If Plaintiff fails to file an amended complaint in compliance with this order, this 

action will be dismissed, with prejudice, for failure to state a claim.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: December 7, 2015 /s/ Sheila K. Oberto 

UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE

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