NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

___________

No. 16-3861

___________

LAWRENCE PETERSON,

Appellant

v.

SUPERINTENDENT GLUNT; MS. BARBER; MS. HOOVER; 

IRWIN, SECURITY LIEUTENANT; K. SHEA, SECURITY LIETENANT; 

BYRON E. BRUMBAUGH, JR.; D. MOWREY; 

CORRECTIONAL OFFICER MCGARVEY

____________________________________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Pennsylvania

(W.D. Pa. Civil Action No. 3:16-cv-00187)

District Judge: Honorable Kim R. Gibson

____________________________________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

December 1, 2017

Before: GREENAWAY, JR., GREENBERG, and ROTH, Circuit Judges

(Opinion filed February 12, 2019)

_________

OPINION*

_________

PER CURIAM

Pro se appellant Lawrence Peterson appeals the District Court’s dismissal of his 

 * This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not 

constitute binding precedent.
2

amended complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). 

For the reasons that follow, we will vacate the District Court’s judgment and remand the 

case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I.

Because we write primarily for the benefit of the parties, we will recite only the 

facts necessary for our discussion; these facts are recounted as alleged by Peterson in his 

amended complaint. During the time relevant to Peterson’s claims, he was incarcerated 

at the State Correctional Institution in Houtzdale, Pennsylvania.

1

 Peterson was involved 

in a verbal altercation with a corrections officer in April 2013. The officer told Peterson 

that he wanted to see if Peterson could prove how tough he was. Two days later, the 

officer assigned Peterson a new cellmate, William Keitel, and as Keitel entered the cell, 

the officer told Peterson that he would see how tough Peterson was. Keitel had a history 

of bias toward black men and people with sexual assault convictions; Peterson is black 

and has a sexual assault conviction. Peterson met with a different officer in early May 

2013 to report that Keitel had repeatedly threatened his life and had been assaulting him, 

but the officer said that Keitel was a good man and that Peterson had nothing to fear from 

him.

On May 10, 2013, Keitel punched Peterson in the face. Peterson met with various 

correctional staff in the following days about the incident but did not receive assistance. 

From May through August 2013, Keitel continued assaulting Peterson. Peterson and 

 1

 Peterson is presently incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Smithfield in 

Huntingdon, Pennsylvania.
3

Keitel were involved in a fight on August 2, 2013; Keitel later died of injuries he 

sustained during the incident. In 2015, Peterson pleaded guilty to the murder of Keitel.

Peterson claims that he attempted to resolve his issues with Keitel and prison staff 

using internal prison procedures by filing several grievances, but never received a 

response. Peterson maintains that Keitel’s assignment to his cell was part of a practice of

corrections officers placing adversaries together to discipline prisoners they did not like.

In August 2016, Peterson filed a complaint against numerous correctional staff 

seeking damages for several claims. A Magistrate Judge recommended dismissing 

Peterson’s complaint for failure to state a claim pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B).

Peterson filed timely objections to the Magistrate Judge’s report and sought leave 

to amend his complaint. Peterson’s amended complaint narrowed his claims: he alleged

that his placement in a cell with Keitel constituted cruel and unusual punishment and that 

correctional staff failed to protect him from Keitel. The District Court ultimately adopted 

the Magistrate Judge’s report and recommendation to dismiss Peterson’s original 

complaint, granted Peterson’s motion to amend his complaint, and dismissed Peterson’s 

amended complaint without further leave to amend. The District Court did not provide 

any reasoning to explain its dismissal of Peterson’s amended complaint. Peterson timely 

appealed and seeks an opportunity to pursue the claims in his amended complaint.

II.

We have jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We exercise 

plenary review over the District Court’s sua sponte dismissal of Peterson’s claims

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B). See Allah v. Seiverling, 229 F.3d 220, 223 (3d 
4

Cir. 2000). Dismissal is appropriate “only if, accepting all well-pleaded allegations in the 

complaint as true and viewing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, a court 

finds that [the] plaintiff’s claims lack facial plausibility.” Warren Gen. Hosp. v. Amgen 

Inc., 643 F.3d 77, 84 (3d Cir. 2011) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 

555-56 (2007)).

III.

The District Court, while granting Peterson leave to file an amended complaint, 

did not analyze any of Peterson’s allegations before dismissing his amended complaint 

without further leave to amend. The Magistrate Judge’s report concluded that most of 

Peterson’s original claims, including the two claims that Peterson repeated in his 

amended complaint, were barred by the favorable termination rule in Heck v. Humphrey, 

512 U.S. 477 (1994). However, the Magistrate Judge did not address all of the 

allegations in Peterson’s original complaint when he recommended dismissal, and 

regardless, Peterson clarified his allegations in his amended complaint. The Magistrate 

Judge also concluded that granting Peterson leave to amend would be futile because his 

claims were filed outside of the applicable limitations period.

The District Court did not discuss either of these issues in its order dismissing 

Peterson’s amended complaint. Accordingly, this matter must be remanded for the 

District Court to address these questions in the first instance. See Farnese v. Bagnasco, 

687 F.2d 761, 766 (3d Cir. 1982) (noting that “[i]n the absence of a sufficient articulation 

of the reasons for [a district court’s] decision, our review of the . . . decision is almost 

speculative”); see also Forbes v. Twp. of Lower Merion, 313 F.3d 144, 150 (3d Cir. 
5

2002); Vadino v. A. Valey Eng’rs, 903 F.2d 253, 258 (3d Cir. 1990). On remand, the

District Court should consider whether Peterson’s amended complaint includes viable 

claims that are not barred by the favorable termination rule in Heck.

2

 Further, the District 

Court has not addressed whether the timeliness issue raised in the Magistrate Judge’s 

report applies to the claims in Peterson’s amended complaint.3

 2

 In Heck, the Supreme Court held that if the success of a previously convicted plaintiff’s 

damages claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 “would necessarily imply the invalidity of his 

conviction or sentence,” the plaintiff may bring his claim only if he “can demonstrate that 

the conviction or sentence has already been invalidated.” 512 U.S. at 487. The District 

Court has not explained how Peterson’s allegations about defendants’ actions months 

before the incident underlying Peterson’s murder conviction “would necessarily imply 

the invalidity of his conviction or sentence.” See id.

3

 Such analysis may be necessary given this Court’s holding that the limitations period 

for § 1983 claims is tolled “while a prisoner exhausts administrative remedies,” see

Pearson v. Sec’y Dep’t of Corr., 775 F.3d 598, 603 (3d Cir. 2015), as Peterson has 

alleged that he has done. See Fogle v. Pierson, 435 F.3d 1252, 1258 (10th Cir. 2006) 

(explaining that a district court may dismiss claims sua sponte as time-barred only where 

the untimeliness “is obvious from the face of the complaint and no further factual record 

is required to be developed”).