HEAGY v. TERRA

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA

TYLER T. HEAGY, :

Plaintiff, :

:

v. : CIVIL ACTION NO. 25-CV-2672

:

J. TERRA, et al., :

Defendants. :

MEMORANDUM

COSTELLO, J. AUGUST 7, 2025

In a prior Memorandum, the Court dismissed the Complaint filed by Tyler T. Heagy, a

prisoner incarcerated at SCI Phoenix (“SCIP”). See Heagy v. Terra, No. 25-2672, 2025 WL

1656775 (E.D. Pa. June 11, 2025). Heagy was granted leave to file an amended complaint

limited to claims the Court dismissed without prejudice: a First Amendment access-to-courts

claim based on the destruction of legal materials, and a retaliation claim based on the denial of

parole on June 24, 2024. Id. at *11. Heagy filed an Amended Complaint on July 15, 2025

reasserting only the retaliation claim. For the following reasons, the Amended Complaint, is

dismissed.

I. BACKGROUND AND FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS1

By way of background, in his original Complaint Heagy asserted claims regarding the

lack of toilet facilities in the main yard at SCIP that resulted in his having to use a urinal and a

trash bag as a makeshift toilet and defecate in view of other inmates on May 17, 2023. (ECF No.

1 The factual allegations are taken from Heagy’s Amended Complaint (“AC” (ECF No.

12)) and attached exhibits. The Court adopts the sequential pagination assigned by the CM/ECF

docketing system for all pro se submissions. Where the Court quotes from pro se submissions,

punctuation, spelling, and capitalization errors will be cleaned up as needed.

1 at 1, 3.) He asserted that this constituted a violation of the Prison Rape Elimination Act

(“PREA”).2 He informed a non-defendant named Mrs. Runge about the prison yard incident

who told him that a PREA report, including video footage, had been filed. (Id. at 5.) On May

19, 2023 Runge told him that the PREA department concluded no violation had occurred. (Id.)

On May 30, Heagy filed a grievance about the incident, including that staff failed to follow

proper procedures for disposing of the trash bag and violated PREA. (Id.) That grievance was

denied on initial review. (Id. at 6.) Heagy appealed the denial to the Facility Manager,

Defendant Superintendent J. Terra. (Id. at 7, 10.) While that appeal was pending, Heagy

received a decision of the Pennsylvania Parole Board dated June 20, 2023, denying his

application for parole. (Id. at 10.) Terra upheld the denial of the grievance, and all of Heagy’s

subsequent appeals were also denied. (Id. at 10-15.) As detailed in the prior Memorandum,

Heagy filed numerous other grievances about various topics, all of which were denied. Heagy,

2025 WL 1656775 at *2-3.

Heagy was again denied parole in June 2024. (Id. at 63.) He asserted in the Complaint

that on April 28, 2025 he found a piece of paper on the floor of his cell that stated, “YOU DID

NOT RECEIVE SUPPORT FOR PAROLE FROM S.C.I. PHOENIX.” (Id. (capitalization in

original).) He filed a grievance centered on finding this paper on May 4, 2025 (“the May 4

Grievance”), asserting that SCIP personnel were retaliating against him “by weaponizing the

institutional support for parole from [the prison] to influence [his] being denied parole and also

in the form of intimidation to scare [him] away from submitting a 1983 civil suit” based on the

makeshift toilet/PREA incident when Heagy was required to defecate in the yard. (Id. at 63-64.)

2 Heagy’s prior claim under PREA was dismissed with prejudice because the statute does

not create a private right of action. Heagy, 2025 WL 1656775 at *5 n.8 (citing cases).

The Court understood Heagy to assert a First Amendment retaliation claim in his original

Complaint based on the 2024 denial.3 The claim was dismissed without prejudice because it was

conclusory. Heagy, 2025 WL 1656775 at *10.

In the AC, Heagy raises two theories of retaliation concerning his parole. The first

asserts that unknown members of the Pennsylvania Parole Board who are employed by the DOC

denied him parole in June 2024, and again in June 2025, to retaliate against him for having filed

grievances and institutional complaints about the May 2023 yard incident. (AC at 17-22 & 24-

28; see id. at 17 (“To reasonably draw an inference of retaliation from the actions of the

defendants . . . who were employed as Pennsylvania Parole Board members . . . you must first

look at the totality of the circumstances surrounding the plaintiff during the time period between

May 17, 2023, and June 13, 2024.”); see also id. at 24 (same with regard to time period from

May 17, 2023 through June 30, 2025).) The second asserts that Defendant Terra denied Heagy

institutional support for parole in 2025 to discourage him from filing a civil rights lawsuit based

on the May 2023 yard incident. (Id. at 22 (“To reasonably draw an inference of retaliation from

the actions of defendant ‘J. Terra’, you must first look at the totality of the circumstances

surrounding the plaintiff during the time period between May 17, 2023, and April of 2025”); see

generally id. at 22-24.) According to Heagy, the Parole Board’s “Notice of Board Decision”

dated June 13, 2024 stated the following as factors for the denial of parole: the nature of his

crime, that he posed a risk to the community, he refused to accept responsibility for his offenses,

and he lacked remorse. (AC at 7.) For his next review, scheduled for June 2025, the Board

3 Heagy’s due process claim against Defendant Terra based on an alleged decision to

withhold institutional support for his parole application was dismissed with prejudice because

convicted prisoners in Pennsylvania have no statutory right to parole and, hence, no liberty

interest upon which a due process claim can proceed. Heagy, 2025 WL 1656775, at *10.

noted that it would consider, inter alia, “Whether you have maintained a favorable

recommendation for parole from the department of corrections. Whether you have maintained a

clear misconduct record.” (Id.) Heagy alleges that sometime in April 2025, his housing unit

team gave him their institutional support for his 2025 parole review, which he refers to as being

“staffed,” based on a “vote sheet [that] had been sent around the institution.” (Id.) But on April

28th, 2025, he picked up a piece of paper off the floor of his cell stating, “YOU DID NOT

RECIEVED SUPPORT FOR PAROLE FROM S.C.I. PHOENIX.” (Id. at 7, 32, 34 (misspelling

in original).4)

Heagy submitted the May 4 Grievance asserting that SCIP officials were “weaponizing

the institutional support for parole” by denying support in 2025 “when [he] had received

institutional support for parole . . . the previous two times” as “intimidation to scare [him] away

from submitting a 1983 civil suit regarding” the makeshift toilet/PREA incident. (Id. at 8-9.) He

claimed that the denial of institutional support for his parole “was an arbitrary action by staff.”

(Id.) The initial denial of the May 4 Grievance stated:

“Your grievance is that you were denied institutional support for parole by SCI

Phoenix when you were staffed in April 2025. You imply that this denial was

done in retaliation for a potential civil suit resulting from an incident that occurred

in 2023. You believe that this denial will result in being denied parole by the

Parole Board. You request a remedy that reverses the reported institutional denial

and $2 million.

The decision to support or not support you for parole would not be reversed on

the basis of past decisions or a grievance claiming the decision was done to

intimidate you from submitting a civil lawsuit. There is no evidence that the

4 Although in his Amended Complaint Heagy asserts he found one piece of paper, he

attached two versions of the paper to his pleading. One has handwritten and typed words (AC at

32) and the other has only typed words (id. at 34). The version with his name, inmate number

and cell number in handwriting is quoted above. The fully typed version appears to state the

opposite message, reading “YOUDID RECEIVE SUPPORT FRO PAROLE FROM SCI

PHOENIX.” (Id. at 34 (misspellings in original).) Both versions contain the typewritten name

“SUAREZ CC2.” (Id. at 32, 34.)

decision in your case was done in retaliation. Regardless, I pulled the vote sheet

and discovered that the institution did in fact support you for parole on April

18th, 2025. I believe that your counselor has advised you of this. Grievance and

requested relief are denied.”

(Id. at 9-10, 42.) Heagy’s subsequent appeals of the May 4 grievance were rejected. (Id. at 10-

17, 47.) He was subsequently denied parole in June 2025.

Recognizing that the Court has already held that he may not state a due process claim

because he was denied parole (id. at 20, 27; see also Heagy, 2025 WL 1656775, at *10), Heagy

alleges that retaliation may nonetheless be inferred from the parole denial by Defendants

Unknown Pennsylvania Parole Board Members and Unknown Pennsylvania Department of

Corrections Officials from the totality of the circumstances surrounding the time period between

the May 17, 2023, and the two parole denials in June 2024 and June 2025. (Id. at 17, 24.)

Specifically, after the incident, Mrs. Runge told him she filed a PREA complaint, and he

reported the incident to the Pennsylvania Prison Society, which filed a complaint with the DOC.

He then filed a grievance in regard to the incident. (Id. at 18.) The Board denied his 2023 parole

review on June 20, 2023 citing, inter alia, the nature of his crimes and past criminal history, and

noting his next review would consider whether he maintained a favorable recommendation for

parole from the DOC and maintained a clear misconduct record. (Id.)

During the next year, Heagy pursued his grievance over the incident, wrote to DOC’s

PREA auditor Brian Sutherland, wrote an inmate request to get the PREA Tracking System

Incident Number for the incident, and met with Sutherland who informed him that there was no

Tracking System Incident Number for the incident but he would be looking into it anyway. (Id.)

He received a response to his inmate request on November 16, 2023, stating that there was no

Tracking System Incident Number for the incident because it had been investigated and

determined that the complaint did not comport with PREA criteria. (Id.) He also filed several

other grievances, detailed in the Court’s prior Memorandum, regarding the makeshift

toilet/PREA incident or how his grievances were being handled, claiming “that there was a

continual effort to conceal the incident that occurred on May 17th, 2023, and that the staff

involved with these grievances were all conspiring together to conceal the incident . . . that

involved sexual abuse of the plaintiff.” (Id.; see also Heagy, 2025 WL 1656775, at *3.) Around

the time that his parole application was “staffed” in April 2024, and when he had a pre-parole

interview in May, SCIP allegedly began constructing toilets in the main yard due to the incident

that occurred on May 17, 2023. (Id. at 19.) Also, a PREA compliance officer was allegedly

transferred from SCIP to SCI Mahanoy for failing to comply with DOC policy in investigating

the May 17, 2023 incident. (Id.)

While not easily understood, to further support his inference of retaliation against the

Unknown Board Members, Heagy points to his prior parole denials, where the Board Members

cited factors such as the nature of his crimes and criminal history but did not list institutional

support, while the 2024 denial cited his risk to the community, refusal to accept responsibility,

lack of remorse, and the nature of his crimes. (Id. at 19-20.) From this variance, he assumes “So

the Pennsylvania Parole Board must have reasoned at the time they issued the ‘Notice of Board

Decision’ and dated June 20th, 2023, [that he] was not a risk to the community, that [he] was

accepting responsibility for the offense(s) he committed, and that [he] was remorseful.” (Id. at

20.) Because, Heagy continues, the “only thing[s] that had occurred” between the 2023 parole

denial and the 2024 parole denial were that he filed the various grievances over the May 17

incident, the Pennsylvania Prison Society filed a complaint about the incident, SCIP took the

remedial measure of constructing toilets, the PREA compliance officer was transferred, and the

Sutherland investigated his PREA claim, he asserts that the 2024 parole denial was retaliatory.

(Id. at 20-21.)

Heagy also alleges that retaliation may be inferred on the part of Defendant Terra based

on the same chain of events. (Id. at 22-23.) He claims he found the piece of paper on the floor

of his cell on April 28, 2025. (Id. at 23.) Between April 18th, 2025, and April 28th, 2025, Terra

received the vote sheet that had been sent around SCIP regarding institutional support for

Heagy’s parole and allegedly denied the institutional support for parole in an action that “was

arbitrary and retaliatory against Heagy in being denied parole due to the fact that the plaintiff had

received institutional support for parole from S.C.I. Phoenix the previous two times the plaintiff

went up for parole, and that the plaintiff had done nothing consequential to lose the institutional

support from S.C.I. Phoenix.” (Id.) Terra’s action was allegedly “an intimidation tactic to scare

[him] away from submitting his civil lawsuit” over the makeshift toilet/PREA incident. (Id.)

For relief on his retaliation claims, Heagy seeks a declaration that the Parole Board

members’ actions in denying him parole in 2024 and 2025 were unjustified, and that Terra’s

actions were arbitrary and retaliatory. (Id. at 28-29.) He seeks an injunction directing Terra to

reverse his denial of institutional support for Heagy’s parole application and be made to answer

why he denied support. (Id. at 29.) He seeks an order directed to the Parole Board members that

they immediately grant him parole and answer his questions why he was denied parole. (Id.) He

also seeks money damages. (Id. at 29-30.)

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Because the Court has granted Heagy leave to proceed in forma pauperis, 28 U.S.C. §

1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) requires the Court to dismiss the AC if it fails to state a claim.5 Whether a

complaint fails to state a claim under § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii) is governed by the same standard

applicable to motions to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), see Tourscher

v. McCullough, 184 F.3d 236, 240 (3d Cir. 1999), which requires the Court to determine whether

the complaint contains “sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is

plausible on its face.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quotations omitted); Talley v.

Wetzel, 15 F.4th 275, 286 n.7 (3d Cir. 2021). At this early stage of the litigation, the Court will

accept the facts alleged in the AC as true, draw all reasonable inferences in the Heagy’s favor,

and ask only whether the AC contains facts sufficient to state a plausible claim. See Shorter v.

United States, 12 F.4th 366, 374 (3d Cir. 2021), abrogation on other grounds recognized by

Fisher v. Hollingsworth, 115 F.4th 197 (3d Cir. 2024). Conclusory allegations do not suffice.

Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.

Because Heagy is proceeding pro se, the Court construes his allegations liberally. Vogt v.

Wetzel, 8 F.4th 182, 185 (3d Cir. 2021) (citing Mala v. Crown Bay Marina, Inc., 704 F.3d 239,

244-45 (3d Cir. 2013)). The Court will “apply the relevant legal principle even when the

complaint has failed to name it.” Id. However, “pro se litigants still must allege sufficient facts

in their complaints to support a claim.” Id. (quoting Mala, 704 F. 3d at 245). An unrepresented

litigant “cannot flout procedural rules — they must abide by the same rules that apply to all other

5 After being granted leave to proceed in forma pauperis, Heagy paid the $350 filing fee

as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act in one payment. (ECF No. 13.) Even though

the fee required by prisoners is now paid, Heagy retains his in forma pauperis status and the

Court retains authority to screen the AC under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2) (providing the Court may

screen a complaint “[n]otwithstanding any filing fee, or any portion thereof that may have been

paid”).

litigants.” Id.; see also Doe v. Allegheny Cnty. Hous. Auth., No. 23-1105, 2024 WL 379959, at

*3 (3d Cir. Feb. 1, 2024) (“While a court must liberally construe the allegations and ‘apply the

applicable law, irrespective of whether the pro se litigant mentioned it be name,’ Higgins v.

Beyer, 293 F.3d 683, 688 (3d Cir. 2002), this does not require the court to act as an advocate to

identify any possible claim that the facts alleged could potentially support.”).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Declaratory and Injunctive Relief

Heagy’s claims for declaratory and injunctive relief must be dismissed. He seeks a

declaration that the Defendants violated his rights by denying him parole in 2024 and 2025, and

institutional support for parole in 2025. But declaratory relief is unavailable to adjudicate past

conduct, so Heagy’s request is improper. See Corliss v. O’Brien, 200 F. App’x 80, 84 (3d Cir.

2006) (per curiam) (“Declaratory judgment is inappropriate solely to adjudicate past conduct”

and is also not “meant simply to proclaim that one party is liable to another.”); see also Andela v.

Admin. Office of U.S. Courts, 569 F. App’x 80, 83 (3d Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (“Declaratory

judgments are meant to define the legal rights and obligations of the parties in the anticipation of

some future conduct.”). A declaratory judgment is also not “meant simply to proclaim that one

party is liable to another.” Corliss, 200 F. App’x at 84 (per curiam); see also Taggart v. Saltz,

No. 20-3574, 2021 WL 1191628, at *2 (3d Cir. Mar. 30, 2021) (per curiam) (“A declaratory

judgment is available to define the legal rights of the parties, not to adjudicate past conduct

where there is no threat of continuing harm.”).

The request for an injunction ordering the Unknown Parole Board Members to

immediately grant Heagy parole is not relief the Court can grant in a § 1983 action. The United

States Supreme Court has held that a prisoner in state custody cannot use a § 1983 action to

challenge “the fact or duration of his confinement.” Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 489

(1973); see also Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 554 (1974) (stating Preiser distinguished

suits “challenging the conditions of confinement [from those challenging] the fact or length of

custody”); Edwards v. Balisok, 520 U.S. 641, 648 (1997) (“[R]espondent’s claim for declaratory

relief and money damages, based on allegations of deceit and bias on the part of the

decisionmaker that necessarily imply the invalidity of the punishment imposed, is not cognizable

under § 1983”). Instead, he must seek federal habeas corpus relief after exhausting available

state court remedies. See Wilkinson v. Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 78 (2005). These Supreme Court

decisions stand for the proposition that prisoners may “use only habeas corpus (or similar state)

remedies when they seek to invalidate the duration of their confinement – either directly through

an injunction compelling speedier release or indirectly through a judicial determination that

necessarily implies the unlawfulness of the State’s custody.” Wilkinson, 544 U.S. at 81. As

explained by the Court in Wilkinson,

a state prisoner’s § 1983 action is barred (absent prior invalidation) — no matter

the relief sought (damages or equitable relief), no matter the target of the

prisoner’s suit (state conduct leading to conviction or internal prison proceedings)

— if success in that action would necessarily demonstrate the invalidity of

confinement or its duration.

Id. at 81-82. Thus, a prisoner’s challenge to a conviction, sentence, or parole proceeding that

necessarily demonstrates the invalidity of the prisoner’s confinement is barred.

Wilkinson does recognize an exception allowing parole challenges to be brought in a civil

rights action where the plaintiff seeks “to render invalid the state procedures used to deny parole

eligibility . . . or parole suitability” and does not seek an injunction ordering his immediate or

speedier release into the community. Id. at 82 (citations omitted). Such a suit under § 1983

would not necessarily invalidate the fact or duration of confinement, and at best, would afford a

new eligibility review and speed consideration of a new parole application. See id. Heagy’s

request for an injunction ordering the Board members to grant him parole clearly falls into the

category of § 1983 claims barred by Wilkinson, and not the exception. He is not challenging

parole procedures; he seeks an order overturning the result reached by the Board members. His

sole federal remedy is, accordingly, to file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 2254. See Preiser, 411 U.S. at 487-88.

B. Official Capacity Claims

Heagy has named the Defendants, all of whom are employees of the Commonwealth, in

both their official and individual capacities. (AC at 2.) The Eleventh Amendment bars suits

against a state and its agencies in federal court that seek monetary damages. See Pennhurst State

Sch. And Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 99-100 (1984); A.W. v. Jersey City Public Schs., 341

F.3d 234, 238 (3d Cir. 2003). Suits against state officials acting in their official capacities are

really suits against the employing government agency, and as such, are also barred by the

Eleventh Amendment. A.W., 341 F.3d at 238; see also Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 25 (1991);

Will v. Mich. Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 70-71 (1989). The Commonwealth of

Pennsylvania has not waived that immunity. See 42 Pa. Cons. Stat. § 8521(b). Accordingly, all

official capacity claims for money damages are dismissed with prejudice.

C. Individual Capacity Retaliation Claims

Recognizing he has no right to be granted parole (see AC at 20, 27), Heagy appears to

frame his retaliation claim on the allegations that the Unknown Parole Board/DOC Defendants

denied him parole in June 2024 and June 2025 to retaliate against him for filing grievances and

institutional complaints about the May 17, 2023 yard incident. He also claims that Terra’s action

to deny institutional support in April 2025 was retaliatory “to influence him being denied parole

and also as an intimidation tactic to scare [him] away from submitting his civil lawsuit” over the

May 17, 2023 yard incident. (Id. at 23.)

As noted earlier, the Court has already informed Heagy that, in order to state a plausible

retaliation claim for money damages under the First Amendment, a prisoner must allege that: (1)

he engaged in constitutionally protected conduct; (2) he suffered an adverse action sufficient to

deter a person of ordinary firmness from exercising his constitutional rights; and (3) the

constitutionally protected conduct was “a substantial or motivating factor” for the adverse action.

Heagy, 2025 WL 1656775 at *9 (citing Rauser, 241 F.3d 330, 333 (3d Cir. 2001). “An adverse

consequence ‘need not be great in order to be actionable[;]’ rather, it need only be ‘more than de

minimis.’” Watson v. Rosum, 834 F.3d 423, 423 (3d Cir. 2016) (quoting McKee v. Hart, 436

F.3d 165, 170 (3d Cir. 2006)) (alterations in original). The timing of the allegedly retaliatory

behavior relative to the constitutionally protected conduct may establish a causal link between

the two for purposes of establishing motivation. See Watson, 834 F.3d at 422. A prisoner’s

filing of a lawsuit is constitutionally protected conduct that can satisfy the first prong of a

retaliation claim. Allah v. Al-Hafeez, 208 F. Supp. 2d 520, 535 (E.D.Pa.2002) (citing Anderson

v. Davila, 125 F.3d 148, 161 (3d Cir. 1997)). So too can the filing of a grievance. Robinson v.

Taylor, 204 F. App’x 155, 157 (3d Cir. 2006) (holding that a prisoner’s filing of a grievance is

constitutionally protected conduct). Being denied parole can also constitute a more than a de

minimis adverse action sufficient to allege the second prong of a retaliation claim. Dunbar v.

Barone, 487 F. App’x 721, 723 (3d Cir. 2012) (per curiam) (“In the prison context, we have held

that the following actions were sufficient to establish adversity: several months in disciplinary

confinement; denial of parole, financial penalties, and transfer to an institution whose distance

made regular family visits impossible; and placement in administrative segregation that severely

limited access to the commissary, library, recreation, and rehabilitative programs.”).

Heagy’s allegations of retaliation in the institutional parole recommendation decisions

based on his filing this lawsuit are not plausible. There are no allegations that the unknown

Board Members knew of the yard incident, Heagy’s grievances, and the events leading to his

filing this lawsuit when they voted on his parole. There is no allegation that Terra knew about a

lawsuit possibly being filed when he made a parole recommendation. Heagy mentions his parole

denials and that the institutional support for his parole was “weaponized” as an intimidation

tactic to scare him away from filing a lawsuit about the makeshift toilet/PREA incident. (AC at

9, 12, 21.) But Heagy fails to allege that any Unknown DOC Defendant knew he was

threatening to file a lawsuit based on the makeshift toilet/PREA incident or that Terra, in

particular, had reason to know a lawsuit was coming when the parole recommendations were

allegedly made. In other words, the possibility of a threat of a future lawsuit that was unknown

to a defendant when that defendant acted, cannot support a retaliation claim since it cannot be “a

substantial or motivating factor” for the adverse action. Daniels v. Sch. Dist. of Phila., 776 F.3d

181, 197 (3d Cir. 2015) (holding that the plaintiff could not establish a causal connection

between her protected activities and the adverse action because the decision makers “lacked

knowledge of her protected conduct”); Brown v. Smith, No. 23-780, 2024 WL 4094279, at *7 n.7

(E.D. Pa. Sept. 5, 2024) (stating that the “requirement that the defendant have knowledge of the

protected conduct arises instead from the requirement that the protected conduct be a substantial

or motivating factor for the adverse action” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Heagy’s

attempts to allege causation for his claim against the Defendants is based on inferences he

perceives from the rationale for the 2023 denial decision – his entirely speculative supposition

that the Board Members concluded at that point that he no longer posed a risk to the community,

he was accepting responsibility for the offenses he committed, and that he was remorseful – and

he thus concludes that lack of institutional support because he was threatening a lawsuit was the

only factor causing the denial of his parole in 2024 or 2025. But he does not allege that any

Defendant had knowledge of this threatened lawsuit and acted based on that knowledge. His

attempt to allege causation based on the past reasons for his parole denials does not plausibly

allege knowledge of the threatened lawsuit as a cause for the alleged lack of support for his later

parole applications and cannot cure the failure to allege causation. Ambrose v. Twp. of Robinson,

303 F.3d 488, 493 (3d Cir. 2002) (“It is only intuitive that for protected conduct to be a

substantial or motiving factor in a decision, the decisionmakers must be aware of the protected

conduct.”).

Heagy also asserts the Unknown Board Members were arbitrary and retaliatory by

denying him parole in June 2024 in “weaponizing the parole process” because the “only thing[s]

that had occurred” between the 2023 parole denial and the 2024 parole denial were that Heagy

filed the various grievances over the May 17, 2023 makeshift toilet/PREA incident, the

Pennsylvania Prison Society filed a complaint about the incident, SCIP took the remedial

measure of constructing toilets, the PREA compliance officer was transferred, and that

Sutherland investigated his PREA claim. (Id. at 20-21.) This claim is also not plausible since

Heagy fails to allege that any Unknown Board Member had knowledge of the incident, his

having filed grievances, or any of the other events when they denied his parole. His focus on the

allegedly varying reasons stated in the yearly parole decisions, and his speculative assumptions

about the Board’s decision making are not plausible allegations of knowledge, meaning that his

retaliation claim is merely an attempt to refashion an impermissible due process claim against the

Unknown Board Members into something else.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated, Heagy’s Amended Complaint will be dismissed with prejudice.

See Jones v. Unknown D.O.C. Bus Driver & Transp. Crew, 944 F.3d 478, 483 (3d Cir. 2019)

(amendment by pro se litigant would be futile when litigant “already had two chances to tell his

story”); Robinson v. Delbalso, No. 22-2378, slip op. at 5 (3d. Cir. Nov. 28, 2022) (per curiam)

(“because Robinson has had two opportunities to amend his complaint, declining to grant further

leave to amend was proper.”); Posey v. Klinefelter, No. 25-1428, 2025 WL 1937084, at *2 (3d

Cir. July 15, 2025) (affirming dismissal where the “District Court’s orders and the Magistrate

Judge’s reports and recommendations all informed Posey as to the ways in which the complaints

were deficient and provided multiple opportunities to amend, and yet Posey repeatedly failed to

do so”).

An appropriate Order will be entered separately. See Federal Rule of Civil Procedure

58(a).

BY THE COURT:

Mon ka Be

TARY RAY COSTELLO

15