Opinion ID: 809908
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: pleading history

Text: Mr. Lymon commenced this action in state court in August 2005. His pro se complaint alleged that while a prisoner at the Los Lunas, New Mexico Correctional Facility, he was assigned by Officer John Sanchez to work in the prison kitchen, run by Aramark Corporation, where he was later injured due to a preexisting condition (surgically repaired rotator cuff). He alleged that Officer Sanchez violated prison policy by assigning him to the work without a medical clearance, and that Aramark employees required him to do kitchen tasks that were contrary to a medical prescription prohibiting him from lifting objects with his left arm. On July 3, 2005, when lifting trays in the kitchen, his shoulder gave out and he fell, prompting him to pursue negligence and breach-of-contract claims against Aramark and its employees, 1 The claims against the remaining defendants were dismissed as a result of settlement. -2- and a negligence claim against Officer Sanchez. He also complained that Captain Abner Hernandez foreclosed his use of the prison’s formal grievance process for the incident (by deeming the matter resolved informally through an acknowledgment of the lack of Mr. Lymon’s required medical clearance), though he did not assert a legal claim against Captain Hernandez at that time. After Mr. Lymon obtained counsel and sought to amend his pleadings to add, inter alia, claims under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981 and 1983, the case was removed to federal court. In February 2009, Mr. Lymon filed a First Amended Complaint. This added little in the way of factual allegations, but expanded the number and complexity of his legal claims. His claims against prison officials and the department of corrections were multiplied through respondeat superior theories. His state tort claims now incorporated allegations referring to the state governmental immunity/tort claims act. Captain Hernandez became a defendant, and constitutional permutations of the tort claims against him and Officer Sanchez were added. Mr. Lymon further alleged that defendants had interfered with his right to contract and imposed on him a condition of involuntary servitude in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Finally, in December 2009, Mr. Lymon amended his pleadings once more. For the first time he asserted a claim against Wexford Corporation, alleging that it did not provide him with adequate care following his injury in the kitchen. He also alleged more generally that it failed to conduct inmate-intake and infections-disease examinations and ran a below-standard hepatitis C Clinic. -3-