Court Opinion

ID: 9385887
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-10 17:00:22.712626+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:17:54.928867
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

                       UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                            FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 ___________

                                       No. 19-3776
                                       __________

                                  QUINTEZ TALLEY,
                                             Appellant

                                             v.

  ROBERT D. GILMORE; ZAKEN, Deputy Superintendent of Internal Security; W.
 LEGGETT, Major of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections; MCCOMBIE; M.
   DIALESANDRO; CARO, Major of the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections;
SHELLY MANKEY, Unite Manager; JOHN E. WETZEL, Secretary of the Pennsylvania
 Department of Corrections; J. BURT; ANKRAM; CONNEY, Nurse; DEPARTMENT
                                OF CORRECTIONS
                    ____________________________________

                   On Appeal from the United States District Court
                        for the Western District of Pennsylvania
                         (D.C. Civil Action No. 2:16-cv-01318)
             Magistrate Judge: Honorable Cynthia Reed Eddy (by consent)
                     ____________________________________

                    Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
                                    April 3, 2023
               Before: KRAUSE, SCIRICA, and AMBRO, Circuit Judges

                              (Opinion filed: April 10, 2023)
                                      ___________

                                       OPINION *
                                      ___________

PER CURIAM

*
 This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not
constitute binding precedent.
         Quintez Talley, a Pennsylvania prisoner who is proceeding pro se, appeals from

orders of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania

denying his motion to amend his complaint, ruling on various motions for summary

judgment, addressing pre-trial evidentiary issues, and entering judgment in favor of the

defendants following a jury trial. For the following reasons, we will affirm.

                                             I.

         Talley filed a complaint, which he later amended, raising claims that stemmed

from a change in his mental health classification that occurred in May 2015. 1 As a basis

for his claims, Talley cited 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the Americans with Disabilities Act

(ADA), and the Rehabilitation Act. (ECF 17.) He named as defendants the Department

of Corrections (DOC), ten DOC employees, and Certified Registered Nurse Practitioner

(CRNP) Amy Ankrom, who was employed by a private company that was contracted to

provide health services to the DOC.

         CRNP Ankrom filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that Talley failed to exhaust

administrative remedies because he did not specifically name her in his grievance. (ECF

20 & 21.) The District Court 2 denied that motion, holding that the grievance’s

identification of the psychiatric review team (PRT), of which CRNP Ankrom was a

1
  Talley’s stability code was changed from a “D” classification, which is used when an
inmate is suffering from a serious mental illness, to a “C” classification, which is used
when an inmate is not suffering from a serious mental illness but nevertheless
has a history of, and is currently receiving, mental health treatment. (ECF 53, at 1-2;
ECF No. 65-1 at 3.)
2
    The parties agreed to proceed before a Magistrate Judge. (ECF 13, 14, & 15.)

                                             2
member, rendered dismissal on exhaustion grounds inappropriate at that time. (ECF 28,

at 4.) Talley next moved to file an “amended/supplemental” complaint, seeking to add

new claims and defendants. (ECF 42.) The District Court denied that motion. (ECF 48.)

         Thereafter, the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. (ECF 51 & 52;

63 & 66; 75 & 76.) The District Court granted those motions in part and denied them in

part. (ECF 114 & 115.) In particular, the District Court denied both Talley’s and the

defendants’ motions for summary judgment on the retaliation claim and allowed it to

proceed against Psychological Services Specialist Burt, Psychiatric Nurse Wettgen, and

CRNP Ankrom, all of whom were members of the PRT. But the District Court otherwise

granted the defendants’ motions, holding that Talley failed to satisfy the Prison Litigation

Reform Act’s (PLRA) exhaustion requirement because his prison grievances did not

identify his remaining claims or name the remaining defendants. Following the District

Court’s resolution of numerous evidentiary issues (ECF 220), the case proceeded to trial

on the retaliation claim; the jury found in favor of the defendants. (ECF 237.) Talley

timely appealed pro se. 3 (ECF 244.)

                                             II.

         Talley challenges the denial of his motion to file an “amended/supplemental”

complaint. Appellant’s Br., 3-4; Appellant’s Suppl. Br., 5-6. We review that denial for

abuse of discretion. See Winer Fam. Tr. v. Queen, 503 F.3d 319, 325 (3d Cir. 2007). In

his motion, Talley sought to add new parties, reintroduce two defendants who he had

3
    We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

                                             3
omitted from his first amended complaint, and assert claims based on events that had

occurred after he had filed his original complaint. As the District Court accurately noted,

the motion was filed over a year after Talley commenced the action, it sought to add

issues unrelated to those set forth in the operative amended complaint, and granting it

would have prejudiced the defendants. Under these circumstances, we conclude that the

District Court did not abuse its discretion. See Lake v. Arnold, 232 F.3d 360, 373 (3d

Cir. 2000) (explaining that a district court may deny leave to amend if the moving party

has demonstrated undue delay, bad faith, or dilatory motives; amendment would be futile;

or amendment would prejudice the other party).

                                            III.

       Talley also complains about various evidentiary rulings made in response to the

parties’ motions in limine. Appellant’s Suppl. Br., 12-21. For example, he argues that

the District Court should not have excluded evidence pertaining to his mental health or

admitted disciplinary records that related to his attempts to maintain a “D” stability

code. 4 Id. at 13-15. We are unable to evaluate those evidentiary rulings without

reviewing a transcript of the trial, and Talley has not provided one, as required by Federal

Rule of Appellate Procedure10(b). Even if we determined that Talley preserved those

evidentiary issues for appellate review, see Bruno v. W.B. Saunders. Co., 882 F.2d 760,

767-68 (3d Cir. 1989) (stating that “[w]hile normally an objection to the admission of

4
 Talley also challenged the District Court’s determination that he could not introduce
evidence relating to compensatory damages. Appellant’s Suppl. Br., 12-13. But any
error by the District Court was “rendered irrelevant by the jury’s verdict in the
defendants’ favor on liability.” Csiszer v. Wren, 614 F.3d 866, 871 (8th Cir. 2010).
                                             4
evidence must be raised at trial to be preserved, this court will sometimes permit

evidentiary questions to be preserved by a motion in limine”), the transcript is required to

assess the merits of the issues. Indeed, without the transcript, we cannot determine

whether the evidentiary rulings were harmless. See Becker v. ARCO Chem. Co., 207

F.3d 176, 179 (3d Cir. 2000) (stating that erroneous evidentiary rulings will be

considered harmless if “it is highly probable that the District Court’s [evidentiary

decision] did not affect [the party’s] substantial rights”); see also Bogan v. City of Bos.,

489 F.3d 417, 425 (1st Cir. 2007) (“Because the review of evidentiary rulings are

typically fact-intensive and an erroneous evidentiary ruling does not require a new trial if

harmless, … the relevant transcripts are essential to meaningful appellate review.”).

                                             IV.

       Also, Talley challenges the District Court’s summary judgment decisions.

Appellant’s Br., 1-3, Appellant’s Suppl. Br., 6-11. We cannot review Talley’s argument

that the District Court erred in denying his motion for summary judgment on his First

Amendment retaliation claims. This is because the denial of a motion for summary

judgment is non-appealable when, as is the case here, a final judgment is entered after

trial. 5 See Ortiz v. Jordan, 562 U.S. 180, 184 (2011) (an order denying summary

judgment is not appealable after the case has proceeded to a full trial on the merits, as

5
  There is an exception to this rule when “dispositive legal question[s]” are presented in
the summary judgment motion. Tuohey v. Chicago Park Dist., 148 F.3d 735, 739 n.5
(7th Cir. 1998). That is not the case here, however. The District Court denied Talley’s
motion for summary judgment on the retaliation claims because there existed genuine
issues of material fact. (ECF 114 at 9-15.)

                                              5
“the full record developed in court supersedes the record existing at the time of the

summary-judgment motion”). We can, however, examine Talley’s challenges to the

District Court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the

basis that he failed to exhaust his administrative remedies under the PLRA.

       Talley argues that he did not need to exhaust his claims against CRNP Ankrom

because she did not work for the DOC. Appellant’s Br., 1-2. But he cites no persuasive

authority for the proposition that the PLRA’s exhaustion requirements do not apply to

claims against private employees providing services in Pennsylvania prisons. Of course,

“it is the prison’s requirements … that define the boundaries of proper exhaustion[,]”

Jones v. Bock, 549 U.S. 199, 218 (2007) (quotation marks and citation omitted), and, in

Pennsylvania’s prisons, the grievance system policy is applicable to “all facilities

operated under the jurisdiction of, or conducting business with the Department of

Corrections, Department employees, volunteers, contract personnel, visitors and

inmates.” DC-ADM 804, § II (emphasis added).

       There is also no merit to Talley’s argument that the law of the case doctrine

precluded the District Court from granting CRPN Ankrom’s motion for summary

judgment for lack of exhaustion after it previously denied her motion to dismiss, which

also raised an exhaustion defense. 6 See Maraschiello v. City of Buffalo Police Dep’t, 709

6
  In her motion to dismiss, CRPN Ankrom argued that Talley failed to exhaust his
administrative remedies because he did not specifically name her in his grievances. (ECF
21, at 4-6.) The District Court rejected this argument, noting that the grievance identified
the PRT, of which CRPN Ankrom was a member. (ECF 28, at 4.) Later, in granting
CRPN Ankrom’s motion for summary judgment in part, the District Court held that
Talley failed to exhaust because he did not raise his non-retaliation claims in his
                                             6
F.3d 87, 97 (2d Cir. 2013) (stating that the law of the case “doctrine would not preclude a

district court from granting summary judgment based on evidence after denying a motion

to dismiss based only on the plaintiff’s allegations”). Finally, we agree with the District

Court that exhaustion was not satisfied by a statement, made by the Chief Grievance

Officer in the final appeal decision, that “[n]o evidence of neglect or deliberate

indifference has been found.”

       For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

grievances. (ECF 114, at 4-9.) Given these differing justifications for denying Ankrom’s
motion to dismiss and granting in part her motion for summary judgment, we reject
Talley’s contention that the District Court acted inconsistently. Appellant’s Br., 2.
                                              7