Source: http://ca.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20191220_0003301.SCA.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2020-07-14 14:40:45
Document Index: 430901715

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1983', '§ 1914', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1915', '§ 1983']

FindACase™ | Dawes v. People
Dawes v. People
WILLIAM DAWES, Booking #19760125, Plaintiff,
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA, Defendants.
ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF'S MOTION TO PROCEED IN FORMA PAUPERIS; [DOC. NO. 2] GRANTING PLAINTIFF'S MOTIONS TO AMEND; [DOC. NOS. 6, 8] DISMISSING COMPLAINT FOR FAILING TO STATE A CLAIM PURSUANT TO 28 U.S.C. § 1915(E)(2)(B) AND 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(B)
Plaintiff William Dawes, currently incarcerated at the San Diego County Sheriff Department's Central Jail (“SDCJ”) in San Diego, California, and proceeding pro se, has filed a civil rights Complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Compl., Doc. No. 1. Plaintiff did not pay the fee required by 28 U.S.C. § 1914(a) when he filed his Complaint; instead he has filed a Motion to Proceed In Forma Pauperis (“IFP”) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a) (Doc. No. 2).
In support of his IFP Motion, Plaintiff has submitted a Prison Certificate signed by a Sheriff's Detentions Lieutenant, together with a certified copy of his San Diego Sheriff's Department Statement Report showing his trust account activity at the time of filing. See Doc. No. 2 at 5-6; see also 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(2); S.D. Cal. CivLR 3.2; Andrews, 398 F.3d at 1119. These statements show that Plaintiff carried an average monthly balance of $69.93, and had $115.00 in average monthly deposits to his account over the 6-month period immediately preceding the filing of his Complaint. He had an available balance of $459.93 at the time of filing. See Doc. No. 5 at 6.
Based on this accounting, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff's Motion to Proceed IFP and assesses his initial partial filing fee to be $23.00 pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(1). The remaining balance of the $350 total fee owed in this case must be collected by the agency having custody of the prisoner and forwarded to the Clerk of the Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(b)(2).
Because Plaintiff is a prisoner and is proceeding IFP, his Complaint requires a pre-answer screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) and § 1915A(b). Under these statutes, the Court must review and sua sponte dismiss an IFP complaint, and any complaint filed by a prisoner seeking redress from a governmental entity, or officer or employee of a governmental entity, which is frivolous, malicious, fails to state a claim, or seeks damages from defendants who are immune. See Lopez v. Smith, 203 F.3d 1122, 1126-27 (9th Cir. 2000) (en banc) (discussing 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)); Rhodes v. Robinson, 621 F.3d 1002, 1004 (9th Cir. 2010) (discussing 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)). “The purpose of [screening] is ‘to ensure that the targets of frivolous or malicious suits need not bear the expense of responding.'” Nordstrom v. Ryan, 762 F.3d 903, 920 n.1 (9th Cir. 2014) (quoting Wheeler v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., 689 F.3d 680, 681 (7th Cir. 2012)).
“When there are well-pleaded factual allegations, a court should assume their veracity, and then determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679; see also Resnick v. Hayes, 213 F.3d 443, 447 (9th Cir. 2000) (“[W]hen determining whether a complaint states a claim, a court must accept as true all allegations of material fact and must construe those facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff.”). However, while the court “ha[s] an obligation where the petitioner is pro se, particularly in civil rights cases, to construe the pleadings liberally and to afford the petitioner the benefit of any doubt, ” Hebbe v. Pliler, 627 F.3d 338, 342 & n.7 (9th Cir. 2010) (citing Bretz v. Kelman, 773 F.2d 1026, 1027 n.1 (9th Cir. 1985)), it may not “supply essential elements of claims that were not initially pled.” Ivey v. Board of Regents of the University of Alaska, 673 F.2d 266, 268 (9th Cir. 1982).
Finally, the “[c]ourt[] must consider the complaint in its entirety, ” including “documents incorporated into the complaint by reference” to be part of the pleading when determining whether the plaintiff has stated a claim upon which relief may be granted. Tellabs, Inc. v. Makor Issues & Rights, Ltd., 551 U.S. 308, 322 (2007); Fed.R.Civ.P. 10(c) (“A copy of a written instrument that is an exhibit to a pleading for all purposes.”); Schneider v. California Dept. of Corrections, 151 F.3d 1194, 1197 n.1 (9th Cir. 1998).
B. Plaintiff's Allegations and Rule 8
As an initial matter, the Court finds that Plaintiff's Complaint fails to comply with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8. Rule 8 provides that in order to state a claim for relief in a pleading it must contain “a short and plain statement of the grounds for the court's jurisdiction” and “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 8(a)(1) & (2); see McHenry v. Renne, 84 F.3d 1172, 1178-80 (9th Cir. 1996) (upholding Rule 8(a) dismissal of complaint that was “argumentative, prolix, replete with redundancy, and largely irrelevant”); Cafasso, United States ex rel. v. General Dynamics C4 Systems, Inc., 637 F.3d 1047, 1059 (9th Cir. 2011) (citing cases upholding Rule 8 dismissals where pleadings were “verbose, ” “confusing, ” “distracting, ambiguous, and unintelligible, ” “highly repetitious, ” and comprised of “incomprehensible rambling, ” while noting that “[o]ur district courts are busy enough without having to penetrate a tome approaching the magnitude of War and Peace to discern a plaintiff's claims and allegations.”).
Plaintiff is also admonished that he must comply with Local Rule 8.2 which requires, in part, that “[c]omplaints by prisoners under the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, must be legibly written or typewritten on forms supplied by the court” and “[a]dditional pages not to exceed fifteen (15) in number may be included with the court approved form complaint, provided the form is completely filled ion to the extent applicable.” S.D. CivLR 8.2(a). Here, Plaintiff has filed a forty three (43) page Complaint which well exceeds the number of pages permitted by the local rule.
Plaintiff also refers to a number of claims but does not allege any facts to form the basis of the claims and often does not actually name how any of the named Defendants were responsible for the alleged violations. To the extent that the Court is able to determine the nature of some of the claims, they will be addressed below.