Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_15-cv-02493/USCOURTS-casd-3_15-cv-02493-3/pdf.json

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

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Adam Jimenez,

Plaintiff,

v.

Department of Corrections, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No.: 15-cv-2493-BAS-AGS

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION 

ON DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO 

DISMISS (ECF No. 24)

Plaintiff sued prison officials for transferring him to an area with an increased Valley 

Fever risk, notwithstanding his greater susceptibility to the disease. Those officials now 

assert qualified immunity, which shields them from suit unless they violated a “clearly 

established” constitutional right. In the nine years since this prison transfer occurred, a split 

has developed among the district courts in our Circuit as to whether these facts might give 

rise to a constitutional claim, with many finding that it does not. “If judges thus disagree 

on a constitutional question, it is unfair to subject [officials] to money damages for picking 

the losing side of the controversy.” Wilson v. Layne, 526 U.S. 603, 618 (1999).

One day higher-risk prisoners may have a clearly established right to be free from a 

heightened environmental chance of disease. But that day has not yet come. It certainly 

had not nine years ago. The officials thus have qualified immunity.

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BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Adam Jimenez asserts that he has a high risk of contracting Valley Fever 

because he suffers from hepatitis C, breathing difficulties, kidney failure, and chest and 

back pain. (ECF No. 12, at 3.) In November 2008, Jimenez learned he was being transferred 

to Kern Valley State Prison, which is in an area where Valley Fever is more prevalent. (Id. 

at 3-4.) He protested on the ground that, given his existing ailments, “the Desert would 

[adversely] affect my health.” (Id. at 3.) But prison officials nevertheless transferred him 

that same month. He eventually contracted Valley Fever, which was diagnosed in 2012. 

(Id. at 4-5.)

Jimenez sued various officials at his original facility, R.J. Donovan Prison, for 

violating his civil rights. Two of those defendants—E. Ravelo and Dr. Silva—move to 

dismiss based on qualified immunity and failure to state a claim.

DISCUSSION

A. Qualified Immunity

The qualified immunity doctrine immunizes government officials from civil liability 

so long as “their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional 

rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 

223, 231 (2009) (citation omitted). To pierce the qualified-immunity shield, the court must 

find: (1) the facts alleged or shown “make out a violation of a constitutional right”; and 

(2) that right was “‘clearly established’ at the time of defendant’s alleged misconduct.” Id.

(citations omitted). “[P]laintiff bears the burden of proof that the right allegedly violated 

was clearly established.” Tarabochia v. Adkins, 766 F.3d 1115, 1125 (9th Cir. 2014) 

(citation and bracketing omitted). Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in deciding 

which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first[.]” 

Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236.

It is unclear whether transferring an immunocompromised inmate to an area with a 

higher incidence of disease violates any constitutional right. Inmates certainly have a right 

to be free from concentrated exposure to serious diseases, as might occur if prison officials 

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knowingly forced someone into the same cell as an infected person. See Hutto v. Finney, 

437 U.S. 678, 682 (1978) (holding that Eighth Amendment prohibited forcing prisoners in 

“punitive isolation” to share mattresses with inmates suffering “from infectious diseases 

such as hepatitis and venereal disease”) (citation omitted); cf. Helling v. McKinney, 509 

U.S. 25, 27, 33, 35 (1993) (holding that Eighth Amendment barred subjecting inmate to 

dangerous amounts of second-hand smoke by placing him in a cell with “another inmate 

who smoked five packs of cigarettes a day,” and analogizing this to “exposure of inmates 

to a serious, communicable disease”). But it is less obvious that prisoners have a right to 

be free from more generalized disease exposure, such as by housing vulnerable inmates in 

a geographical area with a higher incidence of a particular illness.

Many federal courts have struggled to identify such a right in Valley Fever cases 

like this one. In fact, they have not even been able to agree on how broadly or narrowly to 

define the right purportedly violated. See, e.g., Williams v. Biter, No. 1:14-cv-02076-DADEPG (PC), 2017 WL 431353, at *10-12 (E.D. Cal. Jan. 31, 2017) (reviewing Valley Fever 

cases and arguing that most courts have defined the right at issue with an improper degree 

of specificity).

Even assuming such a right exists, prison officials still have qualified immunity if 

that right was not clearly established. While the “weight of authority is that an inmate 

cannot state a claim for violation of the Eighth Amendment on confinement in a location 

where Valley Fever is present,” there is some disagreement about whether a prisoner who 

is particularly susceptible to Valley Fever might state such a claim. Smith v. 

Schwarzenegger, No. 1:14-cv-00060-LJO-SAB, 2015 WL 2414743, at *20-21 (E.D. Cal. 

May 20, 2015) (citation omitted) (collecting cases). In the nine years since Jimenez’s 

transfer to a Valley Fever-endemic area, many courts have found no such clearly 

established right, see id., including as recently as last month. See Duran v. Lewis, No.

1:16-cv-00468-AWI-SAB (PC), 2017 WL 2797743, at *1 (E.D. Cal. June 27, 2017) 

(“Plaintiff cannot state a claim upon which relief may be granted based solely on the mere 

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exposure to Valley Fever spores,” even if “he was at a greater risk of contracting Valley 

Fever due to []his race.”).

This Court will not hold prison officials acting in 2008 to a higher standard of 

constitutional clairvoyance than the many federal judges who—even today—do not discern 

a clearly established constitutional right in similar Valley Fever cases. After all, official 

actions only violate clearly established law “when, at the time of the challenged conduct, 

the contours of a right are sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have 

understood that what he is doing violates that right.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 

741 (2011) (citation and internal punctuation omitted). Caselaw need not have addressed 

the precise factual scenario before, “but existing precedent must have placed the statutory 

or constitutional question beyond debate.” Id. (citations omitted). While the Valley Fever

debate rages on, defendants have qualified immunity.

B. Failure to State a Claim

Even if he had a constitutional right to avoid placement in an area where Valley 

Fever is more common due to his greater vulnerability to the disease, Jimenez fails to state 

a claim that either defendant violated that right. He alleges that Ravelo was responsible for 

updating and reviewing his R.J. Donovan Prison casefile and that Dr. Silva was his primary 

care provider there, but never claims these defendants were responsible for or knew about 

his transfer to Kern Valley State Prison, where he contracted Valley Fever. (ECF No. 12, 

at 2-3.) The Supreme Court has held that “a prison official cannot be found liable under 

the Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless 

the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health and safety[.]” 

Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994). Because there is simply no allegation that 

these defendants knew of or were involved in the prison transfer process—let alone that 

they knew the new prison posed a higher disease risk—Jimenez has failed to state a claim.

See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (“To survive a motion to dismiss, a 

complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief 

that is plausible on its face.’”) (citation omitted).

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C. Dismissal as to All Defendants

The same reasoning applies equally to dismissing the case against the remaining 

codefendants. All of them would likewise have qualified immunity. And the first amended 

complaint fails to specify anyone who knew of or was responsible for Jimenez’s transfer, 

except for possibly defendant Tonya Rothchild.1

D. Injunctive Relief

Finally, Jimenez seeks an injunction barring the defendants from engaging in 

“retaliatory actions” and requiring that “proper medication be administered” to him. (ECF 

No. 12, at 7.) Since the defendants all work at R.J. Donovan Prison—an institution Jimenez 

left nine years ago—his claim for injunctive relief is moot. See Incumaa v. Ozmint, 507 

F.3d 281, 286-87 (4th Cir. 2007) (holding that “the transfer of an inmate from a unit or 

location where he is subject to the challenged policy, practice, or condition, to a different 

unit or location where he is no longer subject to the challenged policy, practice, or condition 

moots his claims for injunctive and declaratory relief”); cf. Jones v. Williams, 791 F.3d 

1023, 1031 (9th Cir. 2015) (finding injunction claim moot once inmate was released from 

prison and citing Incumaa with approval).

E. Opportunity to Amend

A self-represented prisoner plaintiff is entitled to an “opportunity to amend the 

complaint to overcome [any] deficiency unless it clearly appears from the complaint that 

the deficiency cannot be overcome by amendment.” James v. Giles, 221 F.3d 1074, 1077 

(9th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). In light of this Court’s qualified immunity analysis, 

amendment would be futile as to his prison-transfer claims. But Jimenez also alleges that 

more recently he was “denied Valley [F]ever meds” by various doctors who are not named 

 

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Jimenez alleges that Rothchild was “responsible for setting policies to assign or 

prevent assignment of inmates to prisons and making ministerial decisions to assign each 

individual inmate to a specific prison.” (ECF No. 12, at 2.) Yet he still fails to state a claim 

as to her because he never alleges that Rothchild had any reason to know that Jimenez’s 

prison transfer placed him at greater risk of contracting Valley Fever.

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defendants. (ECF No. 12, at 5.) While this allegation does not state a claim against any 

current defendant, and the denial of medication alone does not necessarily demonstrate 

unconstitutional “deliberate indifference,” Jimenez should be allowed to amend his 

complaint one last time, as to this sole claim. But this amendment would create a venue 

problem, as the alleged denial of medical care occurred at his current prison in Los Angeles 

in the Central District of California. So, if Jimenez chooses to amend his complaint on this 

sole ground, the case should be transferred to that district.

CONCLUSION

Thus, this Court recommends that the motion to dismiss be GRANTED as to all 

claims and all defendants. The Court also recommends that Jimenez be given 30 days from 

the District Judge’s ruling on this matter to file a second amended complaint on the sole 

issue of denied medical care. Jimenez should name any defendants involved in the alleged 

denial of medical care and set forth any facts that show those defendants acted with 

deliberate indifference to a serious medical need. If Jimenez does so, this Court then 

recommends the case be transferred to the Central District of California.

Upon being served with a copy of this report, the parties have 14 days to file any 

objections. Upon being served with any objections, the party receiving such objections has 

14 days to file any response. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(b)(2).

Dated: July 14, 2017

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