DeAmaral v. Porter County Jail

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA

HAMMOND DIVISION

SETH JAMES DEAMARAL,

Plaintiff,

v. No. 2:23 CV 36

PORTER COUNTY JAIL,

Defendant.

OPINION and ORDER

Seth James DeAmaral, a prisoner without a lawyer, filed an amended complaint.

(DE # 4.) “A document filed pro se is to be liberally construed, and a pro se complaint,

however inartfully pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal

pleadings drafted by lawyers.” Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007) (quotation

marks and citations omitted). Nevertheless, under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, the court must

review the merits of a prisoner complaint and dismiss it if the action is frivolous or

malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, or seeks monetary

relief against a defendant who is immune from such relief.

DeAmaral is suing the Porter County Jail because he is a state inmate and was

housed with a federal inmate who attacked him. Following the attack, he was returned

to the same unit as the inmate who attacked him for five days. He filed a grievance and

was moved. He seeks monetary damages and an injunction against housing federal

inmates with state inmates.

As an initial matter, DeAmaral cannot sue the Porter County Jail. The Porter

County Jail is a building. It is not a suable entity. Smith v. Knox County Jail, 666 F.3d

1037, 1040 (7th Cir. 2012).

Furthermore, the factual allegations of the complaint do not amount to a

constitutional violation. “Incarcerated people have a clearly established right to be free

from physical harm inflicted by others in the institution.” Kemp v. Fulton Cnty., 27 F.4th

491, 494 (7th Cir. 2022) (citing Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 833 (1994) (“[P]rison

officials have a duty . . . to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other

prisoners.”)). A pretrial detainee states a failure to protect claim when he alleges:

(1) The defendant made an intentional decision with respect to the

conditions under which the plaintiff was confined;

(2) Those conditions put the plaintiff at substantial risk of suffering

serious harm;

(3) The defendant did not take reasonable available measures to abate that

risk, even though a reasonable officer in the circumstances would have

appreciated the high degree of risk involved—making the consequences

of the defendant’s conduct obvious; and

(4) By not taking such measures, the defendant caused the plaintiff’s

injuries.

Id. at 496 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Castro v. Cnty. of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060 (9th

Cir. 2016) (en banc)). As to the second element, the Seventh Circuit has equated

“substantial risk” to “risks so great that they are almost certain to materialize if nothing

is done.” Brown v. Budz, 398 F.3d 904, 911 (7th Cir. 2005). The third element “requires

only that the defendant’s conduct be objectively unreasonable.” Kemp, 27 F.4th at 497.

Overall, reasonableness “must be determined in light of the totality of the

circumstances.” Pulera v. Sarzant, 966 F.3d 540, 550 (7th Cir. 2020). It is not unreasonable

to house state and federal inmates together. It cannot be plausibly inferred that federal

inmates pose a substantial risk of harm to state inmates based on their status alone.

“The usual standard in civil cases is to allow defective pleadings to be corrected,

especially in early stages, at least where amendment would not be futile.” Abu-Shawish

v. United States, 898 F.3d 726, 738 (7th Cir. 2018). However, “courts have broad

discretion to deny leave to amend where . . . the amendment would be futile.” Hukic v.

Aurora Loan Servs., 588 F.3d 420, 432 (7th Cir. 2009). For the reasons previously

explained, such is the case here.

For these reasons, this case is DISMISSED under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A.

SO ORDERED.

Date: March 29, 2023

s/James T. Moody

JUDGE JAMES T. MOODY

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT