# Evans v. Kaye

> District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania · November 27, 2020

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10409538

## Case

- **Court:** District Court, M.D. Pennsylvania
- **Decided:** November 27, 2020
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10409538

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- concluding that review of a grievance is insufficient to demonstrate the actual knowledge necessary to establish personal involvement
- affirming dismissal of denial of access claims where plaintiff failed to connect alleged deficiencies in library to harm in underlying action

## Opinion text

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

DONALD ALDRIGO EVANS, No. 4:19-CV-01112

Plaintiff, (Judge Brann)

v.

LAWRENCE P. MAHALLY, et al.,

Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION
NOVEMBER 27, 2020
Plaintiff Donald Aldrigo Evans, a state prisoner presently confined at the State
Correctional Institution at Dallas in Dallas, Pennsylvania, filed a complaint pursuant
to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging various claims arising from his incarceration at SCI
Dallas.1 Presently before the Court is Defendants’ motion to dismiss the complaint,2
which is ripe for adjudication. For the reasons that follow, the Court will grant in
part the motion to dismiss.
I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
On or about June 28, 2017, SCI Dallas was placed on lockdown, and
Defendants John Does 1 and 2 were assigned to search Plaintiff’s cell.3 Prior to

1 Doc. 1.
2 Doc. 13.
3 Doc. 1 at 18.
searching his cell, Plaintiff was subjected to an allegedly unlawful strip search in
front of male and female staff, and other inmates.4 In light of the allegedly unlawful

strip search, Plaintiff called for help to his unit manager, Defendant Michael Kaye,
who did not respond.5 During Plaintiff’s cell search, the Defendants Doe destroyed
some of Plaintiff’s personal property, including a back brace, bible, and legal
documents.6 Plaintiff filed grievances about this incident and also requested to speak

with Defendant Kaye about it.7 Defendant Kaye and Plaintiff discussed the cell
search, and Plaintiff was able to view the log book, where the officers who searched
Plaintiff’s cell could not be identified.8 Plaintiff alleges that this is in violation of

Department of Corrections procedures, and that those officers should have initialed
or signed the log book.9 During their conversation, Defendant Kaye apologized to
the plaintiff and stated that he would try to replace some of the items destroyed, but

that he would be denying the grievance because there was no way to discover which
officers searched Plaintiff’s cell.10
Next, Plaintiff complains of various mail issues at SCI Dallas that occurred in
or around July 20, 2018.11 Plaintiff alleges that his mail issues are retaliatory in

4 Id.
5 Id.
6 Id. at 19.
7 Id.
8 Id. at 20.
9 Id.
10 Id. at 21.
11 Id. at 24.
nature, and that he contacted the superintendent’s secretary, Defendant Roxanne
Florek, to file an inmate request about mail confiscation.12 Despite Plaintiff

explaining why he wanted the confiscated mail, the mail room apparently stated that
his reasons were not legitimate.13 Plaintiff then filed a grievance regarding this
incident, and Defendant Superintendent Mahally responded to it and said that
Plaintiff was allowed to receive his mail.14 The mail, however, was never delivered

to Plaintiff.15 Plaintiff filed an inmate request to staff regarding receive the mail, to
which Defendant Giselle Malat replied. She informed Plaintiff that due to a new
policy change, all mail would be processed through Defendant Smart

Communications/DOC and then be forwarded to the inmate.16 Plaintiff alleges that
the mail was never delivered to him and was never returned to sender.17 It is unclear
whether the mail was ever sent to Smart Communications/DOC.18

Plaintiff also complains about the confiscation of legal documents mailed to
him. Specifically, on or about December 5, 2018, Plaintiff alleges that his sibling
mailed him approximately thirty-two pages of legal documents needed for Plaintiff’s
PCRA appeal.19 Plaintiff alleges that SCI Dallas confiscated these documents and

12 Id.
13 Id. at 25.
14 Id. at 25-26.
15 Id. at 26.
16 Id.
17 Id. at 27-28.
18 Id. at 28.
19 Id.
Plaintiff has not been able to obtain them.20 Another incident occurred in or around
April 7, 2019, when legal mail sent by Plaintiff’s PCRA attorney was not received

by Plaintiff.21 According to Plaintiff, his attorney contacted DOC representatives
from Harrisburg and SCI Dallas, who told the attorney that Plaintiff should have
received the legal mail and it was unclear why he had not.22

In addition, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Snyder has retaliated against him
by constantly harassing him and mistreating him.23 The incidents occurred in or
around April 8 and 9, 2019. For example, Defendant Snyder almost slammed
Plaintiff’s cell door on his fingers, has interfered with Plaintiff’s attempts to make

phone calls, and has, at least on one occasion, prevented Plaintiff from going to the
commissary.24 According to Plaintiff, Defendant Snyder told Plaintiff that he could
misrepresent facts in reports or otherwise falsify them to send inmates to the
restricted housing unit.25

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a pleading must
set forth a claim for relief which contains a short and plain statement of the claim

showing that the pleader is entitled to relief; the complaint must provide the

20 Id. at 28-29.
21 Id. at 35.
22 Id. at 35-36.
23 Id. at 30.
24 Id. at 30-33.
25 Id. at 33.
defendant with fair notice of the claim.26 When considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion
to dismiss, the court must accept as true all factual allegations.27 The issue in a

motion to dismiss is whether the plaintiff should be entitled to offer evidence to
support the claim, not whether the plaintiff will ultimately prevail.28
The onus is on the plaintiff to provide a well-drafted complaint that alleges

factual support for its claims. “While a complaint attacked by a Rule 12(b)(6)
motion to dismiss does not need detailed factual allegations, a plaintiff's obligation
to provide the ‘grounds’ of his ‘entitle[ment] to relief requires more than labels and
conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action will not

do.”29 The court need not accept unsupported inferences,30 nor legal conclusions
cast as factual allegations.31 Legal conclusions without factual support are not
entitled to the assumption of truth.32

Once the court winnows the conclusory allegations from those allegations
supported by fact, which it accepts as true, the court must engage in a common sense

26 See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 (2007).
27 See Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (per curiam).
28 See Phillips v. County of Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 232 (3d Cir. 2008) (the Rule 8 pleading
standard “‘simply calls for enough facts to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will
reveal evidence of’ the necessary element.”); Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 65 (3d Cir. 1996).
29 Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (alteration in original and internal citations omitted).
30 Cal. Pub. Employees Ret. Sys. v. The Chubb Corp., 394 F.3d 126, 143 (3d Cir. 2004).
31 Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556.
32 See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (“Threadbare recitals of elements of a cause
of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not” satisfy the requirements of Rule
8).
review of the claim to determine whether it is plausible. This is a context-specific
task, for which the court should be guided by its judicial experience. The court must

dismiss the complaint if it fails to allege enough facts “to state a claim for relief that
is plausible on its face.”33 A “claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads
factual content that allows the court to draw a reasonable inference that the defendant
is liable for the misconduct alleged.”34 The complaint that shows that the pleader is

entitled to relief—or put another way, facially plausible—will survive a Rule
12(b)(6) motion.35
III. DISCUSSION

In the motion to dismiss, Defendants argue that certain Defendants lack
personal involvement in the claims alleged and must be dismissed; that Plaintiff has
failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted regarding his cell

search/destruction of property and access to the courts claims; that Plaintiff has
failed to exhaust his claims against Defendant Snyder; and that the claims in the
complaint are generally misjoined in violation of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
20. The Court will address each issue seriatim.

First, the Court will dismiss the claims alleged against Defendants Wetzel,
Mahally, Ransome, and Florek because they were not personally involved in the

33 Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678 (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).
34 Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
35 See Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2); Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223, 229 (3d Cir. 2010).
wrongful actions alleged by Plaintiff. “A defendant in a civil rights action ‘must
have personal involvement in the alleged wrongs to be liable,’ and ‘cannot be held

responsible for a constitutional violation which he or she neither participated in nor
approved.’”36 Further, supervisory liability cannot be imposed under § 1983 by
respondeat superior.37 “Absent vicarious liability, each Government official, his or
her title notwithstanding, is only liable for his or her own misconduct.”38 A plaintiff

must show that an official’s conduct caused the deprivation of a federally protected
right.39
In addition, a prisoner’s allegation that prison officials and administrators

responded inappropriately or failed to respond to a prisoner’s complaint or an official
grievance does not establish that the officials and administrators were involved in
the underlying allegedly unconstitutional conduct.40 Notably, a supervisory official

36 Baraka v. McGreevey, 481 F.3d 187, 210 (3d Cir. 2007). See Evancho v. Fisher, 423 F.3d
347, 353 (3d Cir. 2005); Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195, 1207 (3d Cir. 1988).
37 See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009); Monell v. Dep’t of Social Servs., 436 U.S. 658
(1978); Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362 (1976); Durmer v. O’Carroll, 991 F.2d 64, 69 n.14 (3d
Cir. 1993).
38 Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 677.
39 See Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 166 (1985); Gittlemacker v. Prasse, 428 F.2d 1, 3
(3d Cir. 1970) (A plaintiff “must portray specific conduct by state officials which violates
some constitutional right.”).
40 See Rode, 845 F.2d at 1207-08 (concluding that review of a grievance is insufficient to
demonstrate the actual knowledge necessary to establish personal involvement); Pressley v.
Beard, 266 F. App’x 216 (3d Cir. 2008) (prison officials cannot be held liable solely based
on their failure to take corrective action when grievances or investigations were referred to
them); Brooks v. Beard, 167 F. App’x 923, 925 (3d Cir. 2006); Croom v. Wagner, No. 06-
1431, 2006 WL 2619794, at *4 (E.D. Pa. Sept. 11, 2006) (holding that neither the filing of a
grievance nor an appeal of a grievance is sufficient to impose knowledge of any
wrongdoing); Ramos v. Pennsylvania Dep’t of Corrs., No. 06-cv-1444, 2006 WL 2129148, at
has no affirmative constitutional duty to supervise or discipline subordinates so as
to prevent the violation of constitutional rights.41

Here, these Defendants are either not mentioned in the factual allegations of
the complaint, or their involvement is limited to receiving or responding to
grievances, or in a supervisory capacity. Because such involvement is insufficient

to trigger § 1983 liability, Plaintiff has failed to state a claim upon which relief may
be granted as to Defendants Wetzel, Mahally, Ransome, and Florek.
Next, Plaintiff has brought his constitutional claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §
1983, which provides in pertinent part:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation,
custom, or usage, of any State or Territory, subjects, or causes to be
subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the
jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or
immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the
party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding
for redress.
“To establish a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, [a plaintiff] must demonstrate a
violation of a right secured by the Constitution and the laws of the United States
[and] that the alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of
state law.”42 “The first step in evaluating a section 1983 claim is to ‘identify the

*2 (M.D. Pa. July 27, 2006) (holding that the review and denial of the grievances and
subsequent administrative appeal does not establish personal involvement).
41 Brown v. Grabowski, 922 F.2d 1097, 1120 (3d Cir. 1990).
42 Moore v. Tartler, 986 F.2d 682, 685 (3d Cir. 1993).
exact contours of the underlying right said to have been violated’ and to determine
‘whether the plaintiff has alleged a deprivation of a constitutional right at all.’”43

The First Amendment protects a prisoner’s fundamental constitutional right
of access to the courts. That right, however, is not an independent right of access to
adequate law libraries or persons trained in the law.44 Rather, “[a] prisoner making

an access to the courts claim is required to show that the denial of access caused
actual injury.”45 This is because the right of access to the courts “rest[s] on the
recognition that the right is ancillary to the underlying claim, without which a
plaintiff cannot have suffered injury by being shut out of court.”46 In other words, a

prisoner claiming that he was denied access to the courts must allege an injury
traceable to the conditions of which he complains.47 An actual injury occurs when
a prisoner demonstrates that a “nonfrivolous” and “arguable” claim was lost because
of the denial of access to the courts.48 “[T]he underlying cause of action . . . is an

43 Nicini v. Morra, 212 F.3d 798, 806 (3d Cir. 2000) (quoting County of Sacramento v. Lewis,
523 U.S. 833, 841 n.5 (1998)).
44 Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 350-51 (1996).
45 Jackson v. Whalen, 568 F. App’x 85, 87 (3d Cir. 2014) (quoting Lewis, 518 U.S. at 350).
46 Christopher v. Harbury, 536 U.S. 403, 415 (2002).
47 Diaz v. Holder, 532 F. App’x 61, 63 (3d Cir. 2013) (affirming dismissal of denial of access
claims where plaintiff failed to connect alleged deficiencies in library to harm in underlying
action).
48 Christopher, 536 U.S. at 415.
element that must be described in the complaint.”49 Furthermore, the right to access
the courts may be satisfied if the plaintiff has an attorney.50

In the matter at hand, Plaintiff has failed to allege any actual injury that
resulted from the confiscation or destruction on his legal materials. Further, the
Court notes that Plaintiff has specifically pled that he had an attorney for his PCRA

proceedings. Because Plaintiff has failed to allege an actual injury and because he
had an attorney representing him during his PCRA proceedings, Plaintiff has failed
to state an access to the courts claim upon which relief may be granted.
Next, to the extent that Plaintiff seeks to bring a Fourth Amendment claim

regarding the search of his cell and seizure of materials therein, Plaintiff cannot state
such a claim as a matter of law. The Supreme Court of the United States has
explicitly held that prisoners lack a reasonable expectation of privacy in their cells,

and thus the Fourth Amendment’s protections against unlawful searches and seizures
do not extend to prison cell searches.51
Considering Plaintiff’s allegations from a due process perspective under the
Fourteenth Amendment, which prevents state officials from depriving individuals

from their property without due process of law, the Supreme Court has also held that

49 Id.
50 Diaz, 532 F. App’x at 63 (citing Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 831 (1977); Peterkin v.
Jeffes, 855 F.2d 1021, 1042 (3d Cir. 1988)). See also Prater v. City of Phila., 542 F. App’x
135, 137 n.4 (3d Cir. 2013).
51 See Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 530 (1984).
the seizure or destruction of property does not violate the Due Process Clause if the
state provides a meaningful post-deprivation remedy.52 Here, as Defendants point

out, a meaningful post-deprivation remedy was provided by the Department of
Corrections in the nature of the prison grievance procedure.53 As such, Plaintiff has
failed to allege either a Fourth or Fourteenth Amendment claim regarding the search

of his cell and seizure of materials located therein.
Defendants also argue that Plaintiff’s claims related to the incidents with
Defendant Snyder from April 8 and 9, 2019, were not exhausted prior to filing this
lawsuit or have not been exhausted. The Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”)

prohibits an inmate from bringing a civil rights suit alleging specific acts of
unconstitutional conduct by prison officials “until such administrative remedies as
are available are exhausted.”54 To satisfy this requirement, a prisoner must exhaust
all available administrative remedies prior to filing a civil rights action.55

Defendants assert that although Plaintiff filed grievances regarding these
issues in April 2019, they were not exhausted before Plaintiff initiated this lawsuit
in or around June 28, 2019. The allegations made by Plaintiff and the grievances

52 See id. (citing Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527 (1981)).
53 See also Hernandez v. Corrs. Emergency Response Team, 771 F. App’x 143 (144-45) (3d
Cir. 2019) (affirming district court’s grant of motion to dismiss regarding dismissal of due
process claim regarding loss and damage to prisoner’s property because Pennsylvania
provided an inmate grievance procedure).
54 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).
55 See Ahmed v. Dragovich, 297 F.3d 201, 209 & n. 9 (3d Cir. 2002).
attached to the complaint establish that he filed the grievances in April 2019, but the
documents do not establish that Plaintiff failed to exhaust them before filing this

lawsuit.56 It is unclear when or whether Plaintiff exhausted the grievances. Because
the Court would need to rely on documents outside the complaint in order to
determine whether Plaintiff exhausted these claims, the Court will deny without

prejudice this argument. Defendants are permitted to file an appropriate motion
raising this issue in the future.
Finally, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20,
Persons . . . may be joined in one action as defendants if any right to
relief is asserted against them jointly, severally, or in the alternative
with respect to or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or
series of transactions or occurrences; and, any question of law or fact
common to all defendants will arise in the action.
The remaining claims involve the strip search of Plaintiff by the John Doe defendants
as well as various issues of alleged retaliation, allegedly resulting from the
grievances and complaints filed by Plaintiff. Construing these allegations liberally
and in the light most favorable to Plaintiff, the Court cannot conclude at this time
that they have been misjoined. As such, Defendants’ arguments regarding

misjoinder will be denied without prejudice.

56 See, e.g., Doc. 1-1 at 37.
IV. CONCLUSION
Based on the foregoing, the motion to dismiss will be granted in part, and

certain claims and parties as described herein will be dismissed without prejudice.
An appropriate Order follows.

BY THE COURT:

s/ Matthew W. Brann
Matthew W. Brann
United States District Judge

---

Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/10409538. Public record. Not legal advice.