Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_16-cv-00603/USCOURTS-cand-4_16-cv-00603-10/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 555
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Prison Condition
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

WILLIAM E. BROWN,

Plaintiff,

v.

R. AMIS, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 16-cv-00603-HSG (PR) 

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS’ 

MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Re: Dkt. No. 66

INTRODUCTION

On March 3, 2016, plaintiff, an inmate at California State Prison, Los Angeles County 

(“CSP-LAC”), filed a pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff’s original complaint was 

dismissed with leave to amend on the grounds that the claims were difficult to discern, and there 

was a wide variety of claims that were improperly joined, in violation of Federal Rule of Civil 

Procedure 20(a). On October 3, 2016, plaintiff filed an amended complaint alleging violation of 

his religious rights at Pelican Bay State Prison (“PBSP”), where he was previously incarcerated. 

The Court found that, when liberally construed, plaintiff’s allegations appeared to state cognizable 

claims under § 1983 for violation of the First Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and the 

Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. (“RLUIPA”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000cc-1. 

Defendants PBSP correctional officer Espinoza, PBSP lieutenant R. Amis, and PBSP community 

resource manager Robert Losacco were ordered served. 

On June 28, 2018, the Court granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff’s injunctive

relief claims and RLUIPA claim and denied defendants’ motion for summary judgment on 

exhaustion grounds. Dkt. No. 63. The Court denied defendants’ summary judgment motion on 

the grounds that, in Grievance No. PBSP-14-2313, plaintiff exhausted his claim regarding the 

prison’s failure to grant his religious groups the same religious accommodations as prisoners of

other religious beliefs, and that plaintiff was not required to appeal Grievance No. PBSP-14-2313 

to a final level of review because he was granted the relief sought at the second level of review. 

Case 4:16-cv-00603-HSG Document 67 Filed 11/28/18 Page 1 of 6
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Dkt. No. 63 at 7-9. See Harvey v. Jordan, 605 F.3d 681, 685 (9th Cir. 2010) (“An inmate has no 

obligation to appeal from a grant of relief, or a partial grant that satisfies him, in order to exhaust 

his administrative remedies.”). 

Defendants have filed a motion for reconsideration of the Court’s June 28, 2018 order 

insofar as it did not specifically address defendants Espinoza and Amis’s non-exhaustion defense 

with respect to plaintiff’s claim that Espinoza and Amis confiscated his religious materials in 

January 2015 and denied him the right to assemble.1 Plaintiff has not filed an opposition, and the 

time in which to do so has passed.

DISCUSSION

According to the amended complaint, plaintiff belongs to a religious community that 

identifies itself as United Kings against Genocidal Environments (“KAGE”). Dkt. No. 25 at 7-8, 

14.2 Plaintiff alleges that on January 13, 2015, non-defendant prison chaplain Alex Valuiski 

permitted KAGE members to assemble in the PBSP Facility A chapel. Id. at 7. At or around this 

time, however, defendants Amis and Espinoza confiscated plaintiff’s religious materials and 

denied him the right to religious assembly. Id. at 7-8, 12. Plaintiff further asserts that defendant 

Losacco prohibited plaintiff from assembling in the prison chapel until he changed the name of his 

religious ideology to that of a nonreligious group known as Prisoners Embracing Anti-Hostilities 

Cultural Evolution (“PEACE”). Id. at 14. Plaintiff asserts that defendant Losacco and nondefendant PBSP Warden Ducart had previously granted KAGE the right to religious assembly via 

a formal grant of plaintiff’s inmate appeal, PBSP-A-14-2313. Id. This grant was made without 

any condition that the group change its name. Id.

In their motion for reconsideration, defendants argue that plaintiff’s Grievance No. PBSP14-2313 could not have exhausted administrative remedies as to Amis and Espinoza because it: 

(1) only grieved the denial of plaintiff’s right to religious assembly whereas the instant action 

 

1 The Court granted defendants leave to file a motion for reconsideration pursuant to Local Rule 7-

9(a) on August 7, 2018. Dkt. No. 65.

2 All page numbers used herein refer to those affixed to the top of the page by the Court’s 

electronic filing program. 

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alleges that Amis and Espinoza denied him the right to religious assembly AND confiscated his 

religious materials; and (2) failed to name Amis and Espinoza as wrongdoers and indeed could not 

have named them because their alleged involvement took place in 2015, i.e., after the grievance 

was filed.

Compliance with prison grievance procedures is all that is required by the Prison Litigation 

Reform Act of 1995 (“PLRA”) to properly exhaust. Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 217-18 (2007). 

In California, the regulation requires the prisoner “to lodge his administrative complaint on CDC

form 602.” Morton v. Hall, 599 F.3d 942, 946 (9th Cir. 2010) (citing Cal. Code Regs. tit. 15 

§ 3084.2(a)). Where a prison's grievance procedures do not specify the requisite level of factual

specificity required in the grievance, “‘a grievance suffices if it alerts the prison to the nature of 

the wrong for which redress is sought.’” Griffin v. Arpaio, 557 F.3d 1117, 1120 (9th Cir. 2009) 

(quoting Strong v. David, 297 F.3d 646, 650 (7th Cir. 2002)). The grievance need not include legal 

terminology or legal theories unless they are needed to provide notice of the harm being grieved. 

Id. Nor must a grievance include every fact necessary to prove each element of an eventual legal 

claim. Id. The purpose of a grievance is to alert the prison to a problem and facilitate its 

resolution, not to lay groundwork for litigation. Id. The grievance should include sufficient 

information “to allow prison officials to take appropriate responsive measures.” Id. at 1121 

(citation and internal quotation omitted).

Regarding defendants’ argument that plaintiff’s grievance did not specifically address any 

confiscation of religious materials, the Court notes that in PBSP-A-14-2313, plaintiff broadly 

complained about his lack of religious rights, describing the subject of his appeal as the “denial of 

free exercise of religious belief in violation of First Amendment and Religious Land Use and 

Institutionalized Persons Act.” Dkt. No. 39-3 at 4. Although he focused on the need for 

accommodations to hold congregate services, he specifically pointed out that he was an ordained 

minister and asked broadly for the same rights afforded to prisoners of other religious beliefs. See 

id. at 4, 6. The relief granted to plaintiff at the second level was also broad, stating in part:

● Inmate Brown’s request to be able to practice his truly held religious belief is 

GRANTED at the Second Level Review. Inmates at PBSP are free to worship and believe 

in their truly held religious beliefs.

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Dkt. No. 39-3 at 3.

The grievance, liberally construed, was sufficient to alert prison officials that plaintiff was 

being denied the right to lead his religious community, which would reasonably include access to 

religious materials. A prisoner who wants relief would help himself greatly by making his 

grievance as clear as possible, but the administrative exhaustion requirement does not require the 

optimal presentation of a claim. Indeed, in this instance there was no reason for plaintiff to 

anticipate that his religious materials would be confiscated. In any event, no reasonable officer 

familiar with the second level relief granted to plaintiff would have believed it appropriate to 

confiscate his religious materials.3 The Court concludes that PBSP-A-14-2313 was sufficient to 

exhaust administrative remedies as to both the religious assembly claim and the confiscation of 

religious documents claim. See Griffin, 557 F.3d at 1120; Jones, 549 U.S. at 217-18. 

Regarding defendants’ argument that plaintiff failed to name Amis and Espinoza in his 

grievance, defendants point to California regulations requiring an inmate to list all staff members 

involved in the issue and describe their involvement. See Cal. Code Regs. tit. 15, § 3084.2(a)(3). 

Defendants are correct that since January 28, 2011, the operative regulation has required that 

prisoners using the CDCR’s inmate appeal system must list the name(s) of the wrongdoer(s) in 

their administrative appeals. Section 3084.2 was amended in 2010 (with the 2010 amendments 

becoming operative on January 28, 2011), and those amendments included the addition of 

subsection (a)(3). See Cal. Code Regs., tit. 15 § 3084.2 (history notes 11-12 providing operative 

date of amendment). 

Here, however, the 602 form provided to plaintiff has a revision date of 08/09, showing 

that it was outdated. See Dkt. No. 39-3 at 4. The form did not ask plaintiff to list the names of the 

people involved in denying his religious rights. Rather, it simply asked plaintiff to explain his 

issue and the action requested. See id. He did so. Where an inmate has provided the information 

requested on the form provided, he has availed himself of the administrative process the state 

 

3 As noted in the Court’s June 28, 2018 order, if there was a penological purpose for confiscating 

the religious materials, this is more appropriately raised in a motion for summary judgment on the 

merits. 

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made available to him; that is all that the PLRA requires of him. See Butler v. Rianda, 397 F.3d 

1181, 1183 (9th Cir. 2005) (California prisoner exhausted administrative remedies by filling out 

ADA accommodation form even though he did not identify the wrongdoers on the form because 

the form asked him to “describe the problem” and declare “what specific modification or

accommodation is requested” but did not require him to identify any specific persons); Jones, 549 

U.S. at 218 (holding that because the Michigan Department of Corrections’ procedures make no 

mention of naming particular officials, the Sixth Circuit’s rule imposing such a prerequisite to 

proper exhaustion is unwarranted).

Defendants are correct that the acts allegedly committed by Amis and Espinoza occurred in 

2015, i.e., after plaintiff had filed his 2014 grievance. However, defendants point to no authority, 

and the Court is aware of none, holding that a prisoner must restart the appeals process once he 

has already received a grant of relief simply because the same wrong is committed by a new 

person. See Harvey, 605 F.3d at 685 (It is not “the prisoner’s responsibility to ensure that prison 

officials actually provide the relief that they have promised.”); Abney v. McGinnis, 380 F.3d 663, 

669 (2d Cir. 2004) (“A prisoner who has not received promised relief is not required to file a new 

grievance where doing so may result in a never-ending cycle of exhaustion.”). 

CONCLUSION

1. For the foregoing reasons, defendants’ motion for reconsideration is DENIED.

2. In order to expedite the resolution of this case, the Court orders as follows:

a. No later than 91 days from the date this order is filed, defendants shall file a 

motion for summary judgment addressing the merits of the remaining claims. A motion for 

summary judgment also must be accompanied by a Rand notice so that plaintiff will have fair, 

timely and adequate notice of what is required of him in order to oppose the motion. Woods v. 

Carey, 684 F.3d 934, 939 (9th Cir. 2012) (notice requirement set out in Rand v. Rowland, 154 

F.3d 952 (9th Cir. 1998), must be served concurrently with motion for summary judgment). 

If defendants are of the opinion that this case cannot be resolved by summary 

judgment, defendants must so inform the Court prior to the date the motion is due. 

b. Plaintiff’s opposition to the summary judgment or other dispositive motion must 

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be filed with the Court and served upon defendants no later than 28 days from the date the motion 

is filed. Plaintiff must bear in mind the notice and warning regarding summary judgment provided 

below as he prepares his opposition to any motion for summary judgment. 

c. Defendants shall file a reply brief no later than 14 days after the date the 

opposition is filed. The motion shall be deemed submitted as of the date the reply brief is due. No 

hearing will be held on the motion. 

3. Plaintiff is advised that a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56 of the 

Federal Rules of Civil Procedure will, if granted, end your case. Rule 56 tells you what you must 

do in order to oppose a motion for summary judgment. Generally, summary judgment must be 

granted when there is no genuine issue of material fact—that is, if there is no real dispute about 

any fact that would affect the result of your case, the party who asked for summary judgment is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law, which will end your case. When a party you are suing 

makes a motion for summary judgment that is properly supported by declarations (or other sworn 

testimony), you cannot simply rely on what your complaint says. Instead, you must set out 

specific facts in declarations, depositions, answers to interrogatories, or authenticated documents, 

as provided in [current Rule 56(c)], that contradict the facts shown in the defendants’ declarations 

and documents and show that there is a genuine issue of material fact for trial. If you do not 

submit your own evidence in opposition, summary judgment, if appropriate, may be entered 

against you. If summary judgment is granted, your case will be dismissed and there will be no 

trial. Rand v. Rowland, 154 F.3d 952, 962-63 (9th Cir. 1998) (en banc) (App. A).

(The Rand notice above does not excuse defendants’ obligation to serve said notice again 

concurrently with a motion for summary judgment. Woods, 684 F.3d at 939).

This order terminates Dkt. No. 66.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated:

HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.

United States District Judge

 11/28/2018

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