Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_13-cv-01605/USCOURTS-azd-2_13-cv-01605-1/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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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Michael Jeffrey Pratt, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Bradley Carroll, et al., 

Defendants.

No. CV-13-01605-PHX-GMS (MEA)

ORDER 

 Pending before the Court is Plaintiff Michael Jeffrey Pratt’s Motion to Amend 

Pleading. (Doc. 51.) On November 5, 2014, Magistrate Judge Mark E. Aspey issued a 

Report and Recommendation (“R & R”) recommending that the Motion be denied. (Doc. 

60.) Plaintiff filed objections to the R & R. (Doc. 63.) For the following reasons, the 

Court adopts the R & R of Magistrate Aspey and denies the Motion. 

BACKGROUND 

 The facts of this case are outlined in this Court’s previous orders. Relevant to the 

current Motion, Plaintiff has filed a proposed Second Amended Complaint (“SAC”), 

alleging that, following his arrest, medical staff at the Chandler Regional Hospital, 

including Dr. Keith Butler and nurses Sandra Sovereign, Wilma Egan, and John 

Plummer, inserted two separate catheters in Plaintiff to run a urinalysis while he was 

restrained by Officer John Lucas, Officer Brian Morganthaler, and one unknown 

Chandler police officer. (Doc. 52.) In the proposed SAC, Plaintiff seeks to join the 

medical staff as Defendants to his suit and claims that they violated his constitutional 

rights and performed an illegal search by inserting the catheters after he refused medical 

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treatment. (Id.) 

DISCUSSION 

 Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 15(a)(2) states that a court should “freely give 

leave” to amend pleadings “when justice so requires.” The Ninth Circuit has further held 

that requests for leave are generally granted with “extreme liberality.” Rosenberg Bros. & 

Co. v. Arnold, 283 F.2d 406, 406 (9th Cir. 1960) (per curiam). In addition, “[t]he 

Supreme Court has instructed the federal courts to liberally construe the ‘inartful 

pleading’ of pro se litigants.” Eldridge v. Block, 832 F.2d 1132, 1137 (9th Cir. 1987) 

(quoting Boag v. MacDougall, 454 U.S. 364, 365 (1982) (per curiam)). However, “a 

party is not entitled to an opportunity to amend his complaint if any potential amendment 

would be futile.” Mirmehdi v. United States, 689 F.3d 975, 985 (9th Cir. 2012). A 

proposed amended complaint is futile if it fails to state a claim for which relief may be 

granted. See Kest v. Kest, 132 F.3d 39 (9th Cir. 1997); 42 U.S.C. § 1997e (also requiring 

dismissal a prisoner’s complaint that “fails to state a claim upon which relief can be 

granted”). 

 To sufficiently plead section 1983 claims, “a plaintiff must both (1) allege the 

deprivation of a right secured by the federal Constitution or statutory law, and (2) allege 

that the deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law.” 

Anderson v. Warner, 451 F.3d 1063, 1067 (9th Cir. 2006) (citing West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 

42, 48 (1988)). In cases where plaintiffs bring section 1983 claims based on the Fourth 

Amendment against private actors, they must also allege that the private actor was an 

“‘instrument or agent’ of the state in effecting a search or seizure.” United States v. 

Walther, 652 F.2d 788, 791 (9th Cir. 1981) (quoting Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 

U.S. 443, 487 (1971)). To allege that medical personnel are instruments or agents of the 

state when they perform medical procedures, plaintiffs must allege that they acted for 

some purpose other than “medical purposes.” United States v. Chukwubike, 956 F.2d 209, 

212 (9th Cir. 1992) (holding that doctors removing balloons from the plaintiff’s stomach 

and intestines without consent of the patient was not a search or seizure). 

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In the proposed SAC, Plaintiff makes no mention of who ordered the urinalysis to 

be conducted or the catheters to be placed. (See Doc. 52.) In the current Motion, Plaintiff 

concedes that “to the best of [his] knowledge,” the catheters were placed at the doctor’s 

orders and that “it was done by [the] doctor’s O.K.” (Doc. 51.) But in his objections to 

this Motion, Plaintiff questions the motives of the doctors, who placed the catheters after 

Plaintiff’s heart rate had returned to a moderate level, and suggests that the police officers 

had “something to do with” the catheterization. (Doc. 63.) These potentially conflicting 

accounts of the officers’ role in ordering the catheterization do not sufficiently plead that 

any of the medical staff at Chandler Regional Hospital acted for any purpose other than 

“medical purposes.” Chukwubike, 956 F.2d at 212. Thus, Plaintiff has failed to 

sufficiently allege that the doctors acted as instruments or agents of the state and that they 

acted under color of state law. See Walther, 652 F.2d at 791.1

 Plaintiff’s proposed SAC 

fails, under section 1983, to state a claim for which relief may be granted. 

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED: 

 1. Magistrate Judge Aspey’s R & R (Doc. 60) is ACCEPTED. 

 2. Plaintiff Michael Jeffrey Pratt’s Motion to Amend Pleading (Doc. 51) is 

DENIED. 

 3. The docket shall reflect that the Court certifies, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915(a)(3) and Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure 24(a)(3)(A), that any appeal of 

this decision would not be taken in good faith. 

 Dated this 27th day of January, 2015. 

Honorable G. Murray Snow

United States District Judge

 

1

 In addition, in their depositions, the medical staff stated that they inserted the 

catheters because Plaintiff refused to provide a urine sample and they performed the urinalysis because Plaintiff’s heart rate was abnormally high and Plaintiff was experiencing an altered level of consciousness. (Doc. 66, Ex. C.) 

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