Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_19-cv-00787/USCOURTS-casd-3_19-cv-00787-1/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

ANTONIO LASALE HANNAH,

Plaintiff,

v.

CORPORAL RAMIREZ, #4746,

Defendant.

Case No.: 19cv787-LAB(BLM)

REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION 

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S 

MOTION TO DISMISS

[ECF No. 9]

This Report and Recommendation is submitted to United States Chief Judge Larry Alan 

Burns pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b) and Civil Local Rule 72.1(c) of the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of California. For the following reasons, the Court 

RECOMMENDS that Defendant’s motion to dismiss for failure to exhaust administrative 

remedies be DENIED.

PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Antonio Lasale Hannah is a state prisoner proceeding pro se and in forma 

pauperis, who currently resides at San Diego Central Jail (“SDCJ”). ECF No. 1 at 1. Plaintiff 

initiated this action on April 29, 2019 when he filed a complaint under the Civil Rights Act, 42 

U.S.C. § 1983, alleging Eighth Amendment violations.1 See id. at 3, 14. On June 18, 2019, 

 

1 See ECF No. 5 at n.2 (for screening purposes only, Chief Juge Burns presumed Plaintiff was a 

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Chief Judge Burns dismissed Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants South Bay Detention Facility 

and the County of San Diego for failing to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. See

ECF No. 5 at 5-7. Additionally, Chief Judge Burns dismissed Plaintiff’s claims against Defendant 

Sheriff Gore for failing “to show how, or to what extent, Sheriff Gore may be held individually 

liable,” and holding that vicarious liability does not apply to § 1983 suits. Id. at 7. Therefore, 

Plaintiff’s only remaining claim before the Court is against Defendant Corporal Ramirez alleging 

unreasonable use of force in violation of Plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment. Id. at 8.

On September 18, 2019, Defendant Ramirez filed the instant motion to dismiss pursuant 

to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) for failure to exhaust all administrative remedies. 

ECF No. 9-1 at 1-2. On September 20, 2019, this Court set a briefing schedule governing 

Defendant Ramirez’s motion. ECF No. 10. On October 7, 2019, Plaintiff filed on opposition to 

Defendant Ramirez’s motion. ECF No. 11. On November 15, 2019, Defendant filed a reply to 

Plaintiff’s opposition. ECF No. 14.

DISCUSSION

Defendant argues Plaintiff’s claims are barred as a matter of law because Plaintiff failed 

to exhaust his administrative remedies. ECF No. 9-1 at 3. Specifically, Defendant states that 

“nowhere in the Complaint does the [p]laintiff allege” exhaustion and, on the form complaint 

that explicitly asked Plaintiff as much, Plaintiff did not respond. Id. at 5. Additionally, Defendant 

argues that, “[t]o exhaust administrative remedies, a grievance must be factually sufficient to” 

put the prison on notice “as to the nature of the wrong for which Plaintiff now seeks redress.” 

ECF No.14 at 2-3. Defendant claims that Plaintiff fails to put jail officials on notice of Defendant’s 

alleged assault in the grievances attached to Plaintiff’s Complaint and, therefore, “it cannot 

reasonably be found that [Plaintiff] exhausted his administrative remedies.” Id. at 3. Finally, 

Defendant argues that Plaintiff’s attached grievances fail “to indicate that no further grievances 

or administrative remedies remained available to the plaintiff when he filed his lawsuit.” Id. at 

 

pretrial detainee at the South Bay Detention Facility on the date of the onset of the alleged 

injury, therefore invoking claims under the Fourteenth Amendment, not the Eighth. See Castro 

v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060, 1067-8 (9th Cir. 2016)).

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5.

In his opposition, Plaintiff contends that he “clearly answered the 1983 Complaint Form 

on pg(6)2,” thereby showing that he exhausted all available administrative remedies. ECF No. 

11 at 3. In support of his claim, Plaintiff states that he “attached [his] administrative remedy, 

a Sheriff Department [G]rievance Form.” Id. Plaintiff argues that the “Sheriff Dept. Jail 

grievance . . . was deemed not a grievance” thereby rendering his “administrative remedy 

unavailable.” Id. Plaintiff notes that “jail officials routinely mark grievance ‘Not a grievance’ so 

that they don’t have to process the grievance and perform an investigation,” which “ultimately 

renders the administrative remedy unavailable.” Id.

In his reply, Defendant reiterates that Plaintiff did not fully complete the complaint, did 

not state in the complaint that he had exhausted all administrative remedies, and did not attach 

documents to either the complaint or his opposition that proved he had exhausted his 

administrative remedies. ECF No. 14 at 1-4. Defendant argues that Plaintiff is required to prove 

in his complaint that he exhausted all administrative remedies and Plaintiff did not do so. Id. 

Defendant does not address Plaintiff’s argument that the administrative remedy process is 

unavailable to him.

The Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) requires that prisoners exhaust “such 

administrative remedies as are available before commencing a suit challenging prison 

conditions.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997(e)(a). In Albino v. Baca, the Ninth Circuit held that in order for 

the Court to determine whether a plaintiff has exhausted his administrative remedies, the issue 

of failure to exhaust must be raised in a motion for summary judgment as opposed to an 

unenumerated Rule 12(b) motion. 747 F.3d 1162, 1170 (9th Cir. 2014). The Court explained 

that failure to exhaust administrative remedies is an affirmative defense, therefore, making it 

inappropriate to raise in a motion to dismiss. See id. at 1169.

 

2 Plaintiff attached multiple documents to his Complaint, including prison administrative forms 

he filled out regarding his grievances. See ECF No. 1. These documents range from court 

forms, to an Incident Report, to Inmate Grievance forms. Id. It appears to the Court that 

Plaintiff’s reference to “pg(6)” of his 1983 Complaint Form is actually page 15 of ECF No. 1.

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However, the Albino Court set forth the following exception in which a defendant may 

allege failure to exhaust in a Rule 12(b)(6) motion: 

In a few cases, a prisoner’s failure to exhaust may be clear from the face of the 

complaint. However, such cases will be rare because plaintiff is not required to 

say anything about exhaustion in his complaint. As the Court wrote in Jones, 

“failure to exhaust is an affirmative defense under the PLRA, and inmates are not 

required to specifically plead or demonstrate exhaustion in their complaints.” But 

only in those rare cases where a failure to exhaust is clear from the face of the 

complaint, a defendant may successfully move to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6).

Albino, 747 F.3d at 1169 (quoting Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 215-16 (2007)) (emphasis 

added). As a result, a motion to dismiss is proper only where the plaintiff’s complaint contains

facts establishing his failure to exhaust administrative remedies, resulting in no disputed facts 

on the issue of exhaustion. See Albino, 747 F.3d at 1169.

Here, Plaintiff’s complaint does not address exhaustion. ECF No. 1. Plaintiff did not 

complete Section D.2, which requests information on exhaustion of administrative remedies. Id.

at 15. The handwritten factual statement complains that the prison did not conduct a use of 

force investigation and states that Plaintiff wrote grievances, but does not describe what efforts 

Plaintiff made to exhaust his administrative remedies. Id. at 3-4, 9 & 14. The attached 

grievances indicate that Plaintiff complained about several issues [id. at 7-8, 10-11] and that 

one grievance related to Plaintiff’s claim that the prison was covering up his assault was 

determined by a prison official to not constitute a grievance [id. at 7]. The staff member notes 

that he/she “will look up case #” but does not check the box indicating what type of process 

Plaintiff’s submission does constitute nor provide any follow up information. Id. at 7. In addition, 

Plaintiff asserts in his opposition that he did exhaust his administrative remedies and that he 

has additional documents supporting his claim. ECF No. 11 at 4. As such, this case is not one 

of those rare cases in which the failure to exhaust is clear from the face of the complaint and 

the Court RECOMMENDS that Defendant’s motion to dismiss be DENIED. If Defendant files 

a summary judgment motion alleging failure to exhaust administrative remedies, Defendant 

must address Plaintiff’s argument that the administrative remedies were not available to him. 

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See Brown v. Valoff, 422 F.3d 926, 936-37 (9th Cir. 2005) (stating that “a defendant must 

demonstrate that pertinent relief remained available, whether at unexhausted levels of the 

grievance process or through awaiting the results of the relief already granted as a result of that 

process”).

At the end of his opposition, Plaintiff requests leave to file an amended complaint. ECF 

No. 11 at 4. If Plaintiff wants to file an amended complaint, he must file a motion requesting 

permission to do so and must attach the proposed amended complaint to the motion. See

CivLR15.1. Plaintiff must serve the motion on Defendant Ramirez.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION

For all of the foregoing reasons, IT IS HEREBY RECOMMENDED that the District Judge 

issue an Order: (1) approving and adopting this Report and Recommendation; and (2) denying 

Defendants’ motion to dismiss. 

IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that any written objections to this Report must be filed with 

the Court and served on all parties no later than January 24, 2020. The document should 

be captioned “Objections to Report and Recommendation.”

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that any reply to the objections shall be filed with the Court 

and served on all parties no later than February 24, 2020. The parties are advised that 

failure to file objections within the specified time may waive the right to raise those objections 

on appeal of the Court’s order. See Turner v. Duncan, 158 F.3d 449, 455 (9th Cir. 1998).

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 1/2/2020

United 

~ States Maaistrate Judae 

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