Case Name: Brian Joel DeBARR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Stephen CLARK; et al., Defendants-Appellees; Chioke Gadsden and Nathan Peterson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Tara Carpenter; et al., Defendants-Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2016-03-02
Citations: 633 F. App'x 662
Docket Number: Nos. 14-15497, 14-16250
Parties: Brian Joel DeBARR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Stephen CLARK; et al., Defendants-Appellees. Chioke Gadsden and Nathan Peterson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Tara Carpenter; et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Judges: Before: SCHROEDER and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges and ADELMAN, District Judge.
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 633
Pages: 662–663

Head Matter:
Brian Joel DeBARR, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Stephen CLARK; et al., Defendants-Appellees. Chioke Gadsden and Nathan Peterson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Tara Carpenter; et al., Defendants-Appellees.
Nos. 14-15497, 14-16250.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.
Argued and Submitted Feb. 12, 2016.
Filed March 2, 2016.
Allison Whitt Meredith, Irell & Manella, LLP, Newport Beach, CA, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Brian Joel DeBarr, pro se.
Clark G. Leslie, Esquire, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Nevada Office of the Attorney General, Carson City, NV, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: SCHROEDER and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges and ADELMAN, District Judge.
The Honorable Lynn S. Adelman, District Judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, sitting by designation.

Opinion:
MEMORANDUM
Plaintiffs Brian DeBarr, Chioke Gadsden and Nathan Peterson, inmates at Lo-velock Correctional Center ("LCC") in Nevada, appeal the district court's grant of summary judgment for Defendants, LCC administrators. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We reverse and remand.
After construction at LLC destroyed an on-site pagan worship area, a group of inmates including Plaintiffs filed multiple grievances pursuant to Nevada Department of Corrections Administrative Regulation 740 ("AR 740"). Plaintiffs were subsequently charged with abusing the prison grievance process and sentenced to 15 days of disciplinary segregation. In addition, Plaintiff DeBarr was transferred to High Desert State Prison ("HDSP").
Plaintiffs claim that they were punished in retaliation for exercising their First Amendment rights after they properly uti lized AR 740 to express legitimate concerns. See Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567 (9th Cir.2005). Defendants counter that Plaintiffs' First Amendment rights were not implicated because the purpose of their filing grievances was simply to harass prison staff.
Summary judgment is properly granted only when the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, presents no genuine issue of material fact. Olsen v. Idaho State Bd. of Med., 363 F.3d 916, 922 (9th Cir.2004). Here, the district court erred by concluding that the evidence presented no genuine issue of material fact as to whether Plaintiffs abused the prison grievance process. Defendants argue, for example, that the timing and duplicative nature of the grievances, and Plaintiffs' failure to engage in other informal ways to resolve their concerns, show that the grievances were intended to harass rather than designed to lead to any practical result. But the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, shows that they had engaged in the prison's informal resolution procedure before filing their grievances, that their grievances were not frivolous, vexatious or duplicative, and that Defendants failed to follow their own mandated procedures in punishing Plaintiffs. Further, Defendants argue that AR 740 expressly forbids filing duplicative grievances, but AR 740 only limits the number of "unfounded frivolous or vexatious grievances," a disputed issue in this case. Because we conclude that the district court erred in granting Defendants summary judgment because genuine issues of material fact exist, we need not address Plaintiffs' remaining arguments relating to summary judgment.
Plaintiffs also claim that the district court abused its discretion by denying their request for a continuance of summary judgment pending further discovery. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(d). On remand, Plaintiffs should be allowed to pursue discovery. At the time the district court denied the continuance request, Plaintiffs had diligently pursued discovery of potentially favorable information, and Defendants had not fulfilled their discovery obligations at the time summary judgment was granted. Clark v. Capital Credit & Collection Servs., Inc., 460 F.3d 1162, 1178 (9th Cir.2006).
Finally, we conclude that the district court erred in dismissing certain defendants from the Gadsden lawsuit. 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. The court provided no reasoned basis for eliminating all but one defendant in the Gadsden action while allowing the same claims to go forward against multiple defendants in the DeBarr action.
We reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this disposition.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.