Bennett v. County of Lycoming

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

JAMAL EUGENE BENNETT, :

Plaintiff :

: No. 1:22-cv-0838

v. :

: (Judge Rambo)

COUNTY OF LYCOMING, et al., :

Defendants :

MEMORANDUM

Plaintiff Jamal Eugene Bennett, a pretrial detainee at Lycoming County

Prison, initiated the above-captioned pro se action under 42 U.S.C. § 19831 and

various other federal and state statutes. (Doc. No. 1.) Bennett asserts a host of

undeveloped claims against fifteen different defendants. Because Bennett does not

state a plausible claim against any defendant, the Court must dismiss his complaint

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1) for failure to state a claim upon which relief

may be granted.

I. BACKGROUND

The gravamen of Bennett’s complaint involves the commissary at Lycoming

County Prison. Bennett contends that “the items are changed without notice” and

“the weight amounts go down while the prices stay the same.” (Doc. No. 1 at 7.)

1 Section 1983 creates a private cause of action to redress constitutional wrongs committed by

state officials. The statute is not a source of substantive rights; it serves as a mechanism for

vindicating rights otherwise protected by federal law. See Gonzaga Univ. v. Doe, 536 U.S. 273,

284-85 (2002).

Bennett also complains that the commissary is selling individual items that are “not

supposed to be taken out of the box and sold separately.” (Id.)

With these scant allegations, Bennett attempts to assert the following claims:

unidentified First and Fourteenth Amendment infringements, an unspecified

violation of Pennsylvania’s Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law,

civil conspiracy,2 what appears to be a civil RICO claim, a violation of the

Pennsylvania Price Gouging Act, and a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. (See

id. at 9-10.) Bennett sues the County of Lycoming; Warden Brad Shoemaker;

Oasis—the commissary provider; Matthew McDermott, “administrator”; eight

members of the Prison Board; and three presumed prison officials—Tammy Toner,

Lepley, and Shuck. (Id. at 3-6.)

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Courts are statutorily obligated to review, “as soon as practicable,”

unrepresented prisoner complaints targeting governmental entities, officers, or

employees. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(a). One basis for dismissal at the screening

stage is if the complaint “fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted[.]”

Id. § 1915A(b)(1). This language closely tracks Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

12(b)(6). Accordingly, courts apply the same standard to screening a pro se

2 Bennett does not specify whether he is attempting to assert a state or federal civil conspiracy

claim.

prisoner complaint for sufficiency under Section 1915A(b)(1) as they utilize when

resolving a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). See Grayson v. Mayview State

Hosp., 293 F.3d 103, 109-10 & n.11 (3d Cir. 2002); O’Brien v. U.S. Fed. Gov’t,

763 F. App’x 157, 159 & n.5 (3d Cir. 2019) (per curiam) (nonprecedential); cf.

Allah v. Seiverling, 229 F.3d 220, 223 (3d Cir. 2000).

In deciding a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, courts should not inquire

“whether a plaintiff will ultimately prevail but whether the claimant is entitled to

offer evidence to support the claims.” Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 236

(1974); see Nami v. Fauver, 82 F.3d 63, 66 (3d Cir. 1996). The court must accept

as true the factual allegations in the complaint and draw all reasonable inferences

from them in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. See Phillips v. County of

Allegheny, 515 F.3d 224, 229 (3d Cir. 2008). In addition to the facts alleged on the

face of the complaint, the court may also consider “exhibits attached to the

complaint, matters of public record, as well as undisputedly authentic documents”

attached to a defendant’s motion to dismiss if the plaintiff’s claims are based upon

these documents. Mayer v. Belichick, 605 F.3d 223, 230 (3d Cir. 2010) (citing

Pension Benefit Guar. Corp. v. White Consol. Indus., 998 F.2d 1192, 1196 (3d Cir.

1993)).

When the sufficiency of a complaint is challenged, the court must conduct a

three-step inquiry. See Connelly v. Lane Const. Corp., 809 F.3d 780, 787 (3d Cir.

2016) (internal citations and quotation marks omitted) (footnote omitted). At step

one, the court must “tak[e] note of the elements [the] plaintiff must plead to state a

claim.” Id. (quoting Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 675 (2009) (alterations in

original)). Second, the court should distinguish well-pleaded factual allegations—

which must be taken as true—from mere legal conclusions, which “are not entitled

to the assumption of truth” and may be disregarded. Id. (quoting Iqbal, 556 U.S. at

679). Finally, the court must review the presumed-truthful allegations “and then

determine whether they plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief.” Id. (quoting

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679). Deciding plausibility is a “context-specific task that

requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense.”

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 681.

Because Bennett proceeds pro se, his pleadings are to be liberally construed

and his 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) (citations omitted). This is particularly true when the pro se litigant,

like Bennett, is incarcerated. See Dooley v. Wetzel, 957 F.3d 366, 374 (3d Cir. 2020)

(citation omitted).

III. DISCUSSION

Bennett’s complaint is the exact type of pleading that has been repudiated by

the Supreme Court in Twombly and Iqbal. His conclusory claims lack personal

involvement, sufficient factual averments, and plausibility. He does not even

attempt to provide the bare elements of his numerous causes of action, let alone

factual allegations that would plausibly state claims for the various federal and state-

law violations he alleges. The Court will briefly identify the most serious material

deficiencies in Bennett’s pleading.

A. Personal Involvement

It is well established that, in Section 1983 actions, liability cannot be

“predicated solely on the operation of respondeat superior.” Rode v. Dellarciprete,

845 F.2d 1195, 1207 (3d Cir. 1988) (citations omitted); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal,

556. U.S. 662, 676 (2009) (affirming same principle in Bivens context). Rather, a

Section 1983 plaintiff must plausibly plead facts that demonstrate the defendant’s

“personal involvement in the alleged misconduct.” Dooley v. Wetzel, 957 F.3d 366,

374 (3d Cir. 2020). Personal involvement can include direct wrongful conduct by a

defendant, but it can also be demonstrated through evidence of “personal direction”

or “actual knowledge and acquiescence”; however, such averments must be made

with particularity. Id. (quoting Rode, 845 F.2d at 1207).

Bennett has sued thirteen individuals. Yet nowhere in his complaint does he

explain how these individuals purportedly violated his constitutional rights. In fact,

the only personal involvement Bennett has alleged deals with the prison grievance

process. Bennett states that he filed “a grievance” in November 2021 and “Sgt.

Beck, Tammy Toner, DW Barnes, Warden Shoemaker, the County Commissioners,

and the Prison Board members” were “notified” of the matter and refused to correct

it. (Doc. No. 1 at 7.) However, it is well settled that involvement in the post-incident

grievance process alone does not give rise to Section 1983 liability. See Dooley, 957

F.3d at 374 (affirming dismissal of claims against prison officials for lack of personal

involvement when officials’ “only involvement” was “their review and denial of

[plaintiff]’s grievance”); Lewis v. Wetzel, 153 F. Supp. 3d 678, 696-97 (M.D. Pa.

2015) (collecting cases); Brooks v. Beard, 167 F. App’x 923, 925 (3d Cir. 2006)

(nonprecedential); Alexander v. Gennarini, 144 F. App’x 924, 925 (3d Cir. 2005)

(nonprecedential) (explaining that prisoner’s claims against certain defendants were

“properly dismissed” because the allegations against them “merely assert their

involvement in the post-incident grievance process”).

Bennett’s complaint lacks sufficient personal involvement for any of the

individual Defendants because he does not allege how these Defendants violated his

constitutional rights (or any other federal or state law, for that matter). Accordingly,

any Section 1983 claim against these Defendants must be dismissed.

B. Various Federal and State-Law Claims

Bennett’s complaint suffers from a more fundamental deficiency: the plethora

of federal and state-law claims Bennett attempts to assert are entirely conclusory,

detached from the facts of the complaint, and devoid of plausibility.

For example, Bennett states that “defendants conspired against” him and other

inmates by “setting up a custom contract in relation to commissary in the county

prison.” (Doc. No. 1 at 7.) This type of pleading does not come close to stating a

claim for civil conspiracy under state or federal law.3 Most notably, it does not

identify an unlawful act. Pennsylvania law requires a plaintiff asserting a claim for

civil conspiracy to aver “material facts which will either directly or inferentially

establish [the] elements of conspiracy.” Brown v. Blaine, 833 A.2d 1166, 1173 (Pa.

Commw. Ct. 2003) (citation omitted). Mere conclusory allegations stating that there

was a “conspiracy” or “an agreement to act unlawfully” will not suffice. See id.; see

also Brown v. Everett Cash Mut. Ins. Co., 157 A.3d 958, 967-68 (Pa. Super. Ct.

2017) (explaining that “bald assertions of conspiracy are insufficient to properly

plead civil conspiracy; [a] plaintiff must set forth facts supporting [the] existence of

a conspiracy that would suggest [a] common plan or scheme” to act unlawfully

(citation omitted)).

Bennett does not even attempt to plead the bare elements of his other claims.

Even if he did provide such threadbare element recitations, that too would be

insufficient to state a claim for relief. See Oakwood Labs. LLC v. Thanoo, 999 F.3d

3 Under Pennsylvania law, to state a claim for civil conspiracy, a plaintiff must plausibly allege

“that two or more persons combined or agreed with intent to do an unlawful act or to do an

otherwise lawful act by unlawful means. Proof of malice, i.e., an intent to injure, is essential in

proof of a conspiracy.” Skipworth ex rel. Williams v. Lead Indus. Ass’n, 690 A.2d 169, 174 (Pa.

1997) (citation omitted).

892, 904 (3d Cir. 2021) (explaining that courts must “disregard threadbare recitals

of the elements of a cause of action” (quoting James v. City of Wilkes-Barre, 700

F.3d 675, 681 (3d Cir. 2012))). Bennett, moreover, fails to connect his commissary-

based allegations to any of his stated causes of action. He also fails to connect them

to any specific defendant. Instead, he simply asserts, in conclusory fashion, that

“defendants” violated various federal and state laws.

Finally, as to the County of Lycoming, it appears that Bennett is attempting

to assert a Section 1983 claim under Monell v. Department of Social Services of City

of New York, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), for implementation of an unconstitutional policy.

(See Doc. No. 1 at 10.) Even assuming Bennett’s commissary-related allegations

constitute a “policy” or “custom,” Bennett does not plead with sufficient specificity

how the policy violated his constitutional rights or was the “moving force” behind a

constitutional violation. See Thomas v. Cumberland County, 749 F.3d 217, 222 (3d

Cir. 2014) (citation omitted). Bennett likewise fails to allege that a policymaker with

decisionmaking authority created the policy or acquiesced in a well-settled custom

such that municipal liability could obtain. See Watson v. Abington Township, 478

F.3d 144, 156-57 (3d Cir. 2007).

In sum, Bennett’s complaint suffers from multiple material pleading

deficiencies. There is a distinct lack of personal involvement, and his claims are

conclusory, undeveloped, and implausible. They cannot survive scrutiny under

Twombly and Iqbal and therefore must be dismissed.

C. Leave to Amend

Generally, “plaintiffs who file complaints subject to dismissal under [the

Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995] should receive leave to amend unless

amendment would be inequitable or futile.” Grayson, 293 F.3d at 114. Because it

is conceivable that Bennett could cure some of his pleading deficiencies, the Court

will permit him to file an amended complaint in accordance with this Memorandum.

IV. CONCLUSION

Based on the foregoing, the Court will dismiss without prejudice Bennett’s

complaint (Doc. No. 1) pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(1). Leave to amend will

be granted. An appropriate Order follows.

s/ Sylvia H. Rambo

United States District Judge

Dated: September 6, 2022