Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-02856/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-02856-1/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Victor Cadena
Plaintiff
J. Preston
Defendant

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

VICTOR CADENA,

Plaintiff,

v.

J. PRESTON,

Defendant.

Case No. 19-cv-02856-RS (PR) 

ORDER REOPENING ACTION;

ORDER OF DISMISSAL

INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff fails to state any claim for relief in his amended 42 U.S.C. § 1983 

complaint. Accordingly, this federal civil rights action is DISMISSED. 

This suit was dismissed because plaintiff failed to file an amended complaint by the 

deadline. He since has filed an amended complaint. Accordingly, the judgment and the 

order of dismissal are VACATED. (Dkt. Nos. 5 and 6.) The Clerk shall reopen this action

and modify the docket to reflect this fact. The Court now will review the amended 

complaint. 

DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

A “complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a 

claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) 

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(quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A claim has facial 

plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the 

reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Id. (quoting 

Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). Furthermore, a court “is not required to accept legal 

conclusions cast in the form of factual allegations if those conclusions cannot reasonably 

be drawn from the facts alleged.” Clegg v. Cult Awareness Network, 18 F.3d 752, 754-55 

(9th Cir. 1994). To state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must allege two 

essential elements: (1) that a right secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States 

was violated, and (2) that the alleged violation was committed by a person acting under the 

color of state law. See West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988). 

B. Legal Claims 

1. Original Complaint

The original complaint was dismissed (with leave to amend) because it raised 

conclusory contentions. Plaintiff alleged without elaboration that in 2018 J. Preston, a 

prison guard at Pelican Bay State Prison, refused to place him on suicide watch and made 

insulting comments. This was insufficient. First, while prison guards certainly must “take 

reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates,” Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 

517, 526-527 (1984), there is no constitutional right for an inmate to be placed on suicide 

watch. Second, plaintiff failed to articulate any reason Preston should have been 

concerned about plaintiff’s personal safety. Merely saying without any factual 

enhancement that he should have been placed on suicide watch is insufficient. 

Plaintiff was directed to provide specific reasons Preston should have been alerted 

to plaintiff’s condition, and the dates, times, and places on which plaintiff exhibited any 

alarming symptoms. He was told that federal pleading standards “demand[] more than an 

unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. He 

was also directed to pay attention to the following. A person deprives another “of a 

constitutional right, within the meaning of section 1983, if he does an affirmative act, 

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participates in another’s affirmative acts, or omits to perform an act which he is legally 

required to do that causes the deprivation of which [the plaintiff complains].” Leer v. 

Murphy, 844 F.2d 628, 633 (9th Cir. 1988) (quoting Johnson v. Duffy, 588 F.2d 740, 743 

(9th Cir. 1978)). The inquiry into causation must be individualized and focus on the duties 

and responsibilities of each individual defendant whose acts or omissions are alleged to 

have caused a constitutional deprivation. Id. 

Plaintiff’s allegations regarding Preston’s comments failed to state a claim for relief 

and were dismissed with prejudice. Neither disrespectful, insulting, and vulgar language, 

nor verbal harassment, are actionable under section 1983. See Freeman v. Arpaio, 125 

F.3d 732, 738 (9th Cir. 1997). 

2. First Amended Complaint

Plaintiff alleges without elaboration that in September 2018 he told Preston he “was 

having suicidal thoughts.” (Am. Compl., Dkt. No. 7 at 3.) There is no factual 

enhancement beyond this statement. According to plaintiff, Preston had to follow state 

protocols and alert mental health professionals for an evaluation. (Id.) Her actions, he 

contends, prevented him from receiving treatment. (Id.) The Court construes this as an 

Eighth Amendment claim. 

A prison official is deliberately indifferent, and thereby violates the Eighth 

Amendment, if he knows that a prisoner faces a substantial risk of serious harm and 

disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable steps to abate it. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 

U.S. 825, 837 (1994). The prison official must not only “be aware of facts from which the 

inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists,” but “must also 

draw the inference.” Id. Consequently, in order for deliberate indifference to be 

established, there must exist both a purposeful act or failure to act on the part of the 

defendant and harm resulting therefrom. See McGuckin v. Smith, 974 F.2d 1050, 1060 

(9th Cir. 1992). 

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Plaintiff’s allegations do not meet these standards. First, plaintiff has not shown 

that any harm resulted from Preston’s actions. Second, he has not shown that his plain 

statement made her “aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a

substantial risk of serious harm exists,” or that she did indeed “draw the inference.” Third, 

a failure to follow state protocols does not show that his federal constitutional rights were 

violated. In order to seek redress under § 1983, a plaintiff must assert the violation of a 

federal right, not merely the violation of federal law, see Golden State Transit Corp. v. Los 

Angeles, 493 U.S. 103, 106 (1989), nor simply the deprivation of statutorily provided 

benefits or interests, see Gonzaga University v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273, 283 (2002). 

Furthermore, Preston did not prevent plaintiff from seeking mental health treatment. He 

was free to file a grievance or to ask for medical help on his own. This suit will be 

dismissed. 

CONCLUSION

This federal civil rights suit is DISMISSED. The Clerk shall enter judgment in 

favor of defendant, and close the file. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: October ___, 2019

_________________________

 RICHARD SEEBORG

 United States District Judge

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