2011 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

6-1-2011

Rogers v. Essex County

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential

Docket No. 11-1737

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Recommended Citation

"Rogers v. Essex County" (2011). 2011 Decisions. Paper 1160.

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ALD-186 NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 11-1737

___________

KEVIN ROGERS,

Appellant

v.

ESSEX COUNTY; ESSEX COUNTY PROSECUTOR OFFICE; ESSEX COURT 

SHERIFF DEPARTMENT; NEWARK, THE CITY; NEWARK POLICE 

DEPARTMENT

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of New Jersey

(D.C. Civil No. 2-10-cv-03979)

District Judge: Honorable William J. Martini

____________________________________

Submitted for Possible Summary Action

Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6

May 12, 2011

Before: SCIRICA, HARDIMAN AND VANASKIE, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed: June 1, 2011)

_________

OPINION

_________

PER CURIAM

Appellant Kevin Rogers, appeals pro se from the order of the United States 

District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissing his civil rights complaint
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pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B), for failure to state a claim upon which relief may 

be granted. We will affirm.

Rogers filed his complaint, which he amended, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In 

his amended complaint, Rogers claimed that his constitutional rights were violated on 

August 4, 2008, when the police falsely arrested him for domestic disorder and assault 

after his dog, “Rage,” attacked his daughter. (Am. Compl. ¶¶ 2, 9, 25(a)(6).) He averred 

that the judge’s signature on the warrant was forged; he also claimed that the judge who 

signed the warrant “was not active.” (Id. at ¶¶ 11, 25(a)(10).) Rogers averred that the 

defendants used excessive force by referring to him with racial slurs and by placing him 

“in a jail cell without a crime being committed or any incitement by the plaintiff.” (Id. at 

¶ 16.) He alleged that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his medical needs, 

claiming that “paranormal phenomena caused the plaintiff to have brain cancer, tumor, 

anemia, and exo-plasmic disorder,” and stating that the Social Security Administration 

designated him “to psychiatry categories.” (Id. at ¶ 16(b).) Rogers alleged that a medical 

scan of his brain “is a radiological scan” taken in 2002, a “[y]ear after the plaintiff was 

released from the in person jurisdiction of [the] New Jersey Department of Corrections.” 

(Id. at ¶ 16(b)(2).) He asserted that the scan showed that he has “rats, leaches, worms and 

larvae, upon plaintiff’s brain with an exo-organism covering and infecting the plaintiff’s 

entire brain,” which he said was “cause[d] over in (sic) 14 year period of unlawful 

confinement.” (Id. at ¶¶ 16(b)(2) 16(c).) He claimed that he was denied medical 

treatment, alleging that he was treated as delusional and given psychotropic drugs like 
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respidol and cemedine while he was held in the Essex County Correctional Facility 

pending his release on bail. (Id. at ¶¶ 16(c), 25.) He sought damages.

The District Court liberally construed Rogers’s amended complaint as claiming 

false arrest, malicious prosecution, and denial of medical treatment, in violation of the 

Fourth and Eighth Amendments, and dismissed it sua sponte pursuant to § 1915(e)(2)(B). 

Applying the standard set forth in Ashcroft v. Iqbal, — U.S. —, 129 S. Ct. 1937 (2009), 

and Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007), for determining whether a pro 

se complaint states a claim upon which relief can be granted, the District Court held that 

Rogers failed to plead facts sufficient to state a claim for relief that is plausible on its 

face. This appeal followed.

We have jurisdiction to review the District Court order pursuant 28 U.S.C. § 

1291. Upon de novo review of the record, we conclude that there is no substantial 

question on appeal and that summary action is warranted. See LAR 27.4 and I.O.P. 10.6. 

We find no error in the District Court’s dismissal of Rogers’s amended complaint. In 

order to survive dismissal, “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, — U.S. 

—, 129 S. Ct. 1937, 1949 (2009) (internal quotations omitted); see also Bell Atl. Corp. v. 

Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007) (complainant must “provide the grounds of his 

entitlement to relief [with] more than labels and conclusions. . . .”). Although Rule 8 of 

the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure “does not require ‘detailed factual allegations,’ . . . it 

demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation.” 
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Ashcroft v. Iqbal, — U.S. —, 129 S. Ct. at 1949 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555). 

The District Court properly determined that Rogers failed to plausibly state a 

claim of false arrest or for malicious prosecution under the Fourth Amendment based on

Rogers’s admission that his dog attacked his daughter, the factual basis for probable 

cause, and the lack of any factual support for his unadorned accusation that the arrest 

warrant was forged. (D. Ct. Op. at 6-7.) As for Rogers’s excessive force and denial of 

medical care claims under the Eighth Amendment, we agree with the District Court’s 

dismissal of these claims. We cannot reasonably infer that excessive force was used from 

Rogers’s allegation that the defendants verbally abused him and placed him in jail. See

Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9-10 (1992) (holding that “[t]he Eighth Amendment’s 

prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments necessarily excludes from constitutional 

recognition de minimis uses of physical force”). Hence, the District Court correctly 

dismissed the excessive force claim. We agree with the District Court’s dismissal of 

Rogers’s denial of medical care claim under § 1915(e)(2)(B), but for different reasons. 

We conclude that Roger’s “paranormal phenomena” allegations that he has insects and 

vermin in his brain and an “eco-plasmic disorder,” among other similar allegations, are 

fantastic, delusional, and simply unbelievable, and thus, Rogers’s Eighth Amendment 

denial of medical care claim was properly dismissed as frivolous. See Denton v. 

Hernandez, 504 U.S. 25, 33 (1992) (“[A] finding of factual frivolousness is appropriate 

when the facts alleged rise to the level of the irrational or wholly incredible, whether or 

not there are judicially noticeable facts available to contradict them”).
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Accordingly, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment. See LAR 27.4 and 

I.O.P. 10.6.