The opinion
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8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
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11 JOAQUIN MURILLO, No. 1:15-cv-00266-DC-SCR (PC)
12 Plaintiff,
13 v. ORDER ADOPTING FINDINGS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS AND DENYING
14 K. HOLLAND, et al., DEFENDANTS’ MOTION FOR SUMMARY
JUDGMENT
15 Defendants.
(Doc. Nos. 147, 153)
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17 Plaintiff Joaquin Murillo is a state prisoner proceeding pro se and in forma pauperis in
18 this civil rights action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The matter was referred to a United States
19 Magistrate Judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and Local Rule 302.
20 On July 29, 2024, the assigned magistrate judge issued findings and recommendations
21 recommending that Defendants’ motion for summary judgment (Doc. No. 147) be denied because
22 there are genuine issues of material fact on the questions of whether Defendants Warden K.
23 Holland and Deputy Warden J. Gutierrez are entitled to qualified immunity and whether they
24 acted with deliberate indifference to a serious risk of harm to inmate safety when responding to
25 inmate complaints of sleep deprivation caused by noisy “Guard One” welfare checks, in which
26 prison guards strike a metal plate on each cell door with a metal pipe every 30 minutes. (Doc. No.
27 153.) The pending findings and recommendations were served on the parties and contained notice
28 that any objections thereto were to be filed within fourteen (14) days after service. (Id. at 30.) On
1 August 12, 2024, Defendants filed objections to the pending findings and recommendations.
2 (Doc. No. 155.) Plaintiff did not file a response thereto or objections of his own.
3 In their objections, Defendants primarily argue that “the magistrate judge erred in finding
4 that the rationale in Rico v. Duarte [980 F.3d 1292 (9th Cir. 2020)] does not apply to the facts in
5 this case,” and when properly applied to this case, the Ninth Circuit’s qualified immunity holding
6 in Rico “compels the conclusion that existing case law did not provide Defendants Holland and
7 Gutierrez with notice that creating noise while conducting court-ordered suicide-prevention
8 welfare checks was unlawful.” (Id. at 1, 3.) Having considered Defendants’ arguments, the
9 undersigned is not persuaded that the findings and recommendations improperly focused on the
10 specific facts and circumstances in Rico, namely the unique design of the Pelican Bay prison
11 where the plaintiff in Rico was incarcerated, (id. at 4–6), because the Ninth Circuit itself
12 emphasized these distinctions in the Rico decision. Specifically, the Ninth Circuit emphasized the
13 unique features in the Pelican Bay prison that contributed to the noise level of the welfare checks:
14 Compared to Guard One’s use in other [California Department of
Corrections and Rehabilitation (“CDCR”)] prisons, conducting the
15 checks creates more noise at Pelican Bay because of the building’s
circular design. While many other CDCR facilities are arranged
16 along a straight hall, Pelican Bay’s [Security Housing Unit (“SHU”)]
contains six pods arranged around a circular core. The door to each
17 pod is made of metal. Inside each pod, two floors of four cells line
one side of the pod. Metal stairs connect the two floors of cells on
18 the other side. The door to each cell is also made of metal.
19 Each time a pod door opens and closes, the door makes a loud noise
for approximately twelve seconds. When the door fully closes, it
20 makes a loud sound that resonates through the walls. Inmates can
hear the doors of all six pods opening and closing. As the officers
21 conduct their rounds, inmates can also hear the noise of the officers’
boots on the metal stairs and the metal-on-metal noise of the wands
22 hitting the discs on every cell in their own pod and the two
neighboring pods.
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24 Rico v. Ducart, 980 F.3d 1292, 1295–96 (9th Cir. 2020). In its qualified immunity analysis, the
25 Ninth Circuit relied on these structural features in reaching its conclusion that “on the specific
26 facts presented here, every reasonable official would not have understood that how they
27 performed the court-ordered Guard One checks violated the Constitution.” Id. at 1299 (emphasis
28 added). The Ninth Circuit further explained:
1 Our mandate to examine the particular facts, including what caused
Rico’s alleged sleep deprivation, reveals that the challenged noise
2 arose from activity that was inherently noisy in a facility the very
construction of which made difficult quietly conducting round-the-
3 clock welfare checks that defendants were ordered by the Coleman
court [Coleman v. Brown, No. 2:90-cv-0520-KJM-DAD, Doc. 5271
4 (E.D. Cal. Feb. 3, 2015)] to perform.
5 …
6 Existing caselaw did not provide insight into the lawfulness of
creating noise while conducting court-ordered suicide-prevention
7 welfare checks in a maximum security facility built of concrete,
metal, and steel.
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9 Id. Moreover, the Ninth Circuit emphasized that the plaintiff’s allegations in Rico also focused on
10 the structural design of Pelican Bay prison and the impact of that design on the noise level of the
11 welfare checks:
12 According to Rico’s allegations, much of the noise that kept him
awake resulted from the design of the Pelican Bay SHU and use of
13 the Guard One system in and of itself—not the allegedly haphazard
implementation of that system by the floor officers. Rico blames
14 much of the noise on the metal doors of the pods, the metal-on-metal
contact of the Guard One wands with the metal discs, the metal
15 staircases, and the circular design of Pelican Bay’s SHU. He alleges
that the layouts of SHUs in other facilities are quieter, so inmates do
16 not hear as many pod doors opening and closing, the metal pipes
hitting the metal discs on as many cells, officers who must use metal
17 staircases within the pods, and the same degree of reverberation with
the cell walls. While the officers may have made extra noise by
18 rushing to complete the checks, the officers were undoubtedly and
unavoidably going to make noise simply by complying with the
19 court-mandated use of the Guard One system within the SHU at
Pelican Bay. Pelican Bay’s circular layout required the floor officers
20 to travel up and down the metal stairs to check the inmates confined
on the lower and upper levels of the pods. Assuming perfect
21 implementation of the system, inmates were still susceptible to being
awoken every hour each night when heavy entry doors to the pods
22 opened and closed.
23 Id. at 1301–02. Thus, the findings and recommendations appropriately considered the specific
24 facts of Rico in assessing whether the holding that the defendants were entitled to qualified
25 immunity in that case applies to this case, such that Defendants Holland and Gutierrez are
26 similarly entitled to qualified immunity. Notably, the findings and recommendations discuss the
27 lack of evidence regarding California Correctional Institution (“CCI”)’s design, including no
28 evidence that CCI’s SHU (where Plaintiff was housed) “is designed in a way that would result in
1 excessive noise if officers were not using Guard One by banging on the cell doors.” (Doc. No.
2 153 at 21.) In addition, Plaintiff does not allege that noise inherent in the design of CCI
3 contributed to his sleep deprivation. (Id.) Rather, according to Plaintiff, the excessive noise was
4 caused by guards banging the metal pipe extra hard on their cell doors, especially if inmates
5 complained about the noise, and guards used these noisy checks as “a torture weapon to get the
6 inmates to complain so as to get the checks to stop” because the guards did not want to use the
7 Guard One system. (Id.) These factual differences serve to distinguish this case from Rico, and
8 the undersigned agrees with the magistrate judge’s analysis of the applicability of that decision.
9 Defendants also argue that the magistrate judge erred in finding genuine disputes of
10 material fact exist regarding whether Defendants acted with deliberate indifference because “there
11 are no facts in dispute that the inmate grievances at CCI were investigated and conducted
12 according to policy and that the Guard One complaints were not substantiated.” (Doc. No. 155 at
13 10.) The undersigned is not persuaded by Defendants’ argument, however, because as the
14 magistrate judge correctly noted, the evidence before the court on summary judgment does not
15 support Defendants’ broad proposition that the Guard One complaints were investigated and not
16 substantiated. (Doc. No. 153 at 29.) In particular, the undisputed facts merely showed that
17 Defendants “had visited the SHU on some occasions when Guard One was being used, and that
18 Defendants were told, possibly only once, by a supervisor that floor officers were using Guard
19 One appropriately.” (Id.) Contrary to Defendants’ assertion, this evidence is not sufficient to
20 show that the Guard One complaints were investigated and were not substantiated, especially
21 when considering that at least 100 individual inmates complained about sleep deprivation due to
22 the use of the Guard One welfare check system at CCI. (Id. at 13, n.8.) Thus, the magistrate judge
23 did not err in concluding that disputes of material fact exist regarding the severity of the sounds
24 generated by the use of Guard One at CCI and whether Defendants’ response to inmate
25 complaints about that noise demonstrated deliberate indifference to a serious risk of harm to
26 inmate safety.
27 In sum, Defendants’ objections do not provide a basis upon which to reject the findings
28 and recommendations.
1 In accordance with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B) and Local Rule 304, the
2 | court has conducted a de novo review of this case. Having carefully reviewed the entire file,
3 | including Defendants’ objections, the court concludes that the findings and recommendations are
4 | supported by the record and proper analysis.
5 Accordingly:
6 1. The findings and recommendations issued on July 29, 2024 (Doc. No. 153) are
7 adopted in full;
8 2. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment (Doc. No. 147) is denied; and
9 3. This matter is referred back to the assigned magistrate judge for further
10 proceedings.
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b IT IS SO ORDERED. □
13 | Dated: _December 4, 2024 _ RUC
Dena Coggins
14 United States District Judge
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