Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_22-cv-00804/USCOURTS-caed-2_22-cv-00804-10/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

----oo0oo----

ERNEST LEE COX, JR.,

Plaintiff,

v.

I. BAL, M. WILLIAMS, and T. 

PATTERSON,

Defendants.

No. 2:22-cv-00804 WBS EFB

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER RE: 

DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS

----oo0oo----

Plaintiff, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, filed 

this civil rights action seeking relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. 

Plaintiff alleges that defendants violated his rights under the 

Eighth Amendment in connection with inmate housing placements at 

Mule Creek State Prison (“M.C.S.P.”) during the COVID-19 

pandemic. (See Docket Nos. 19, 27.)

The Magistrate Judge’s findings and recommendations 

recommend denying defendants’ motion to dismiss. (See Docket No.

49.) Neither side has filed objections to the findings and 

recommendations. Nevertheless, because defendants are entitled 

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to qualified immunity, the court declines to follow the 

Magistrate Judge’s recommendation for the following reasons.

As the Supreme Court has instructed, qualified immunity 

is “an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to 

liability.” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 237 (2009)

(emphasis added). While addressing qualified immunity at the 

pleadings stage can “raise[] special problems for legal decision 

making,” Keates v. Koile, 883 F.3d 1228, 1234 (9th Cir. 2018), 

the court must do so here. “[F]orc[ing] the parties to endure 

additional burdens of suit -- such as the costs of litigating 

constitutional questions and delays attributable to resolving 

them -- when the suit otherwise could be disposed of more 

readily” would impair the objectives of the qualified immunity 

doctrine. See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 237. Indeed, if the court 

were to put off addressing qualified immunity until summary 

judgment, that immunity would be “effectively lost.” See id. at

231.

In determining whether a government official is 

entitled to qualified immunity at the pleadings stage, courts 

consider “(1) whether, taken in the light most favorable to the 

party asserting the injury, the facts alleged show the officer’s 

conduct violated a constitutional right; and (2) if so, whether 

the right was clearly established.” Keates, 883 F.3d at 1235

(cleaned up). The complaint here fails to satisfy either step of 

the analysis, and defendants are therefore entitled to qualified 

immunity.

I. No Constitutional Violation

Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment when they 

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are “deliberately indifferent” to a prisoner’s serious medical 

needs. Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1131 (9th Cir. 2000). The 

test for “deliberate indifference” is “that ‘the official knows 

of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety . 

. . .’” Richardson v. Runnels, 594 F.3d 666, 672 (9th Cir. 2010)

(quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994)). Under 

this standard, “prison officials who actually knew of a 

substantial risk to inmate health or safety may be found free 

from liability if they responded reasonably to the risk, even if 

the harm ultimately was not averted.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 844. 

“Mere negligence . . . without more, does not violate a 

prisoner’s Eighth Amendment rights.” Toguchi v. Chung, 391 F.3d 

1051, 1057 (9th Cir. 2004).

“[A] prison official’s duty under the Eighth Amendment 

is to ensure ‘reasonable safety,’” and therefore “prison 

officials who act reasonably cannot be found liable under the 

Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 844–

45 (cleaned up). Thus, “[i]n examining whether a prison official 

subjectively acted with deliberate indifference to the risk of 

COVID-19, the key inquiry is not whether the official responded 

perfectly, complied with every CDC guideline, or completely 

averted the risk; instead, the key inquiry is whether [he]

‘responded reasonably to the risk.’” Fuller v. Amis, No. 21-cv127-SSS-AS, 2023 WL 3822057, at *4 (C.D. Cal. Apr. 13, 2023), 

report and recommendation adopted, 2023 WL 3819181 (C.D. Cal. 

June 2, 2023) (quoting Benitez v. Sierra Conservation Ctr., No. 

1:21-cv-00370 BAM, 2021 WL 4077960, at *5 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 8, 

2021)).

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According to the First Amended Complaint, beginning in 

October 2020, “inmates infected with COVID-19 were housed in 

M.C.S.P. facility A, B, and C gyms . . . . As these gyms were 

filled to capacity, Facility D and E gyms were being used to 

house[] COVID-19 infected inmates; each gym [was] filled with 100 

inmates. Once facility D and E gyms were filled to capacity, 

Facility E building 20 became the COVID-19 overflow housing 

building.” (FAC (Docket No. 19) ¶ 14.) However, these 

gymnasiums were obviously not originally designed or intended to 

serve as hospital infirmaries, and in response to inmate 

complaints concerning poor conditions, a fire marshal inspected 

the D and E gyms and ordered that all the inmates be removed from 

those facilities. (See id. ¶ 17.) Thirteen of those inmates 

were moved into facility D building 16, where plaintiff resided, 

but were housed in the “multi-purpose rooms” and “mental health 

program rooms” rather than the regular cells. (Id. ¶ 19.) The 

COVID-infected inmates shared circulated breathing air, showers, 

and telephones with plaintiff and the other non-infected inmates. 

(Id. ¶ 23-24.) The movements of the COVID-infected inmates were 

not controlled and they were able to “move freely all day.” (Id.

¶ 24.)

The prison offered single cell housing to patients 

considered medically high risk, and required those inmates to 

sign waivers if they refused the single cell housing. (Id. ¶ 

26.) These cells were also obviously not originally intended or 

designed for this purpose, and while plaintiff was not offered a 

single cell, defendants represented that they did not have 

adequate space to house all of the high-risk inmates in single 

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cells. (Id. ¶¶ 25-26.) Non-infected inmates were tested for 

COVID twice weekly. (Id. ¶ 22.) On January 5, 2021, plaintiff 

tested positive for COVID-19. He was then required to move to 

Facility E building 20, the “COVID-19 overflow building.” (Id. ¶ 

27.)

As this court has previously explained, COVID-19 was a 

“quickly evolving area of science . . . about which scientific 

conclusions have been hotly contested.” See Høeg v. Newsom, 652 

F. Supp. 3d 1172, 1188 (E.D. Cal. 2023). This court has also 

previously noted “the various discrepancies and shifts in [public 

health] recommendations concerning COVID-19,” see Kory v. Bonta, 

No. 2:24-cv-00001 WBS AC, 2024 WL 1742037, at *9 (E.D. Cal. Apr. 

23, 2024), which may well have added to the uncertainty faced by 

prison officials trying to stem the spread of the disease. The 

novel nature of COVID-19 and the atmosphere of confusion

concerning the proper methods of addressing it are particularly 

salient here given that the events alleged in the complaint 

occurred in late 2020, less than a year into the pandemic.

With this context in mind, it is clear that the prison 

officials were trying to do the best they could in unprecedented 

circumstances. The allegations of the complaint acknowledge that 

officials were making real efforts to contain the spread of 

COVID-19. They had transformed gym facilities into makeshift 

quarantine housing for the infected inmates, but were forced to 

move those inmates back to the regular housing buildings. Even 

so, officials continued to try to keep the infected inmates 

separate from the rest of the population by housing infected 

inmates in the multi-purpose and mental health rooms and offering

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medically vulnerable inmates single cells to the extent possible. 

The prison also maintained a frequent testing protocol and moved 

inmates who tested positive -- including plaintiff -- out of the 

general housing areas where possible.

Moreover, the circumstances faced by the officials here 

underscore just how limited their options were. By the very 

nature of a prison, officials are extremely constrained by 

existing facilities. Add to that the decision of the fire 

marshal that officials were barred from using the gymnasium 

buildings, and a picture of officials stuck between a rock and a 

hard place emerges. Officials had to comply with the orders of 

the fire marshal to ensure that conditions were not unsafe in 

case of fire, while also trying to maintain adequate spacing and 

isolation of inmates to prevent the spread of COVID-19, with 

access only to the necessarily limited facilities and resources 

available in the prison context. The complaint provides no 

plausible suggestion of what else defendants could or should have 

done differently under these constraints. Even plaintiff 

acknowledges that it was “impossible to practice six-feet social 

distance” in the building where he was housed. (See FAC at p. 

11.)

While the solutions implemented by prison officials may

not have been perfect, in that there was some contact between 

infected and uninfected inmates, their actions were plainly 

sufficient to “ensure reasonable safety” in the face of a novel 

public health crisis, see Farmer, 511 U.S. at 844–45, given that 

“proximity to other inmates is an unavoidable condition of 

confinement,” Richardson v. Allison, No. 1:21-cv-00070 BAK GSA, 

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2022 WL 1409835, at *6 (E.D. Cal. May 4, 2022), report and 

recommendation adopted, 2022 WL 2080054 (E.D. Cal. June 9, 2022). 

Accordingly, the conduct of the defendants does not rise to the 

high level of deliberate indifference. See Toguchi, 391 F.3d at

1060 (deliberate indifference is a “high legal standard”).

To the contrary, “[t]he very fact that [d]efendants . . 

. enacted such policies supports that they have not been 

subjectively indifferent to the risks poses by COVID-19.” See

Gonzalez v. Kline, 464 F. Supp. 3d 1078, 1090 (D. Ariz. 2020) 

(emphasis added); see also Fields v. Sec’y of CDCR, No. 2:21-cv00548 KJM EFB, 2022 WL 2181997, at *6 (E.D. Cal. June 16, 2022), 

report and recommendation adopted, No. 2:21-cv-0548 DAD EFB, 2022 

WL 4124865 (E.D. Cal. Sept. 9, 2022) (the plaintiff’s “wish for 

more rigorous [COVID-19] protocols, and/or his preference to be 

single-celled” were not sufficient to establish deliberate 

indifference); Lucero-Maney v. Brown, 464 F. Supp. 3d 1191, 1211 

(D. Or. 2020) (“The Court cannot fault [the prison], which has no 

control over the number of [inmates], for failing at the 

impossible task of maintaining six feet between all [inmates] at 

all times.”).

Accordingly, plaintiff has failed to plead that 

defendants’ conduct violated the Eighth Amendment. 

II. No Violation of a Clearly Established Right

Even if the facts alleged here constituted an Eighth 

Amendment violation, plaintiff has not pled that defendants 

violated clearly established law. “The relevant, dispositive 

inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is 

whether it would be clear to a reasonable officer that his 

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conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.” Saucier v. 

Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 202 (2001); see also Keates, 883 F.3d at 1235 

(quoting Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015)) (“At the 

pleadings stage, defendants are entitled to qualified immunity 

unless plaintiff sufficiently pleads violation of a “clearly 

established constitutional right[] of which a reasonable officer 

would be aware ‘in light of the specific context of the case.’”).

It is clearly established law that prison officials 

violate the Eighth Amendment when they are “deliberately 

indifferent to the exposure of inmates to a serious, communicable 

disease.” Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 33 (1993). However,

qualified immunity should not automatically be denied in every 

case involving contagious diseases, and to conclude otherwise 

would defy the Supreme Court’s admonition “not to define clearly 

established law at a high level of generality.” See Kisela v. 

Hughes, 584 U.S. 100, 104 (2018). “[D]etermining whether the law 

was clearly established ‘must be undertaken in light of the 

specific context of the case, not as a broad general 

proposition.’” Hampton v. California, 83 F.4th 754, 769 (9th 

Cir. 2023), cert. denied sub nom. Diaz v. Polanco, 144 S. Ct. 

2520 (2024) (quoting Saucier, 533 U.S. at 201).

That an inmate was exposed to a serious, communicable 

disease such as COVID-19 does not itself alone make out a 

violation of clearly established law. See Hines v. Youseff, 914 

F.3d 1218, 1230–31 (9th Cir. 2019) (granting qualified immunity 

to prison officials accused of violating Eighth Amendment by 

exposing inmates to heightened risk of Valley Fever). As the 

preceding section indicates, far more than that is required. And 

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under the particular circumstances facing the prison officials 

here, it would not have been “clear” to “every reasonable 

official . . . that what he is doing is unlawful.” See Dist. of 

Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 63 (2018) (quotation marks 

omitted).

In Hampton, the Ninth Circuit considered whether prison 

officials were entitled to qualified immunity from Eighth 

Amendment claims premised on their transfer of inmates from one 

prison, the California Institution for Men (“CIM”), to another, 

San Quentin. 83 F.4th at 759. As of May 2020, CIM had already 

faced a severe outbreak with nine inmates dead and over six 

hundred infected. The officials were aware that, in contrast,

San Quentin had no known cases of COVID-19 at the time, as well 

as that containing an outbreak at San Quentin would be especially 

difficult due to its unique design and facilities. Id. 

Nonetheless, the officials decided to transfer over a hundred CIM 

inmates to San Quentin, most of whom had not been tested for 

COVID-19 for over three weeks and none of whom were adequately 

screened for symptoms prior to transfer. Id. Although some 

inmates started experiencing COVID-19 symptoms while en route to 

San Quentin, the buses did not turn back, and none of the inmates 

were quarantined upon arrival, but rather were placed into a 

housing unit with other inmates. Id.

The transfer occurred following a conference call 

during which the Marin County Public Health Officer warned

defendants of the high risk posed by the transfer and advised

defendants to take measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, 

which they ignored. Id. at 759-60. After the transfer, 

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defendants were further warned that the transfer could lead to a 

health care crisis and were advised to, among other things, 

provide personal protective equipment and institute a COVID-19 

testing protocol. Defendants did not implement those 

recommendations, even refusing an offer from a lab to provide 

free testing. Id. at 760. By August, more than 2,000 

individuals -- more than two-thirds of the inmate population --

at San Quentin had been infected. Id.

The Ninth Circuit concluded that the prison officials 

were not entitled to qualified immunity, reasoning that the 

outbreak at San Quentin could have been avoided or at least 

mitigated had officials chosen to transfer the inmates to a less 

high-risk prison or implemented the recommended available safety 

measures. “In other words, as alleged, a good option did exist . 

. . . [H]ad Defendants tried, they could have moved the CIM 

inmates without exposing other inmates to an unreasonable risk.” 

Id. at 771.

In stark contrast to the facts alleged in Hampton, 

there is no indication that officials here were presented with 

recommendations from public health experts that they chose not to 

comply with, nor does it appear that there was some alternative 

“good option” by which officials could have mitigated the spread. 

To the contrary, the First Amended Complaint indicates that

prison officials tried to implement the options available to them 

using the limited resources at their disposal. Under these 

facts, it would not have been clear to a reasonable officer that 

the actions taken by defendants leading to plaintiff’s COVID-19 

exposure were “unlawful in the situation he confronted.” See

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Saucier, 533 U.S. at 202. Plaintiff has thus failed to plausibly 

plead that defendants violated a clearly established right.

As the Supreme Court has taught us, qualified immunity 

protects “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly 

violate the law.” Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986). 

There is nothing in the record to permit an inference that 

defendants here were either plainly incompetent or knowingly 

violated the law. Accordingly, even if the court were to 

conclude that defendants’ conduct violated the Eighth Amendment, 

at the very least they would be entitled to qualified immunity

because plaintiff has not alleged a violation of a clearly 

established right.

IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that defendants’ motion to 

dismiss (Docket No. 43) be, and the same hereby is, GRANTED.1 

The Clerk of Court is directed to close this case.

Dated: December 3, 2024

1 The court declines to grant leave to amend as 

“allegation of other facts consistent with the challenged 

pleading could not possibly cure the deficiency.” Telesaurus 

VPC, LLC v. Power, 623 F.3d 998, 1003 (9th Cir. 2010).

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