# Fleming

> District Court, N.D. Ohio · June 22, 2026

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11356956

## Case

- **Full name:** Billy James Fleming v. Trinity Food Services, et al.
- **Court:** District Court, N.D. Ohio
- **Decided:** June 22, 2026
- **Opinion:** 100trialcourt
- **Cited by:** 0 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

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## Opinion text

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF OHIO
EASTERN DIVISION

BILLY JAMES FLEMING, ) CASE NO. 1:26-cv-00160
)
Plaintiff, ) JUDGE BRIDGET MEEHAN BRENNAN
)
v. )
)
TRINITY FOOD SERVICES, et al., ) OPINION AND ORDER
)
Defendants. )

Before the Court is pro se Plaintiff Billy Fleming’s (“Plaintiff”) Consolidated Amended
Complaint (“Complaint”). (Doc. 14-1.) For the reasons stated herein, the Complaint is
DISMISSED.
I. BACKGROUND
A. Factual Allegations
In February 2024, Plaintiff was housed at the Cuyahoga County Jail. (Doc. 14-1 at
PageID #14.)1 While there, Plaintiff was assigned to work in the kitchen. (Id.) In his
Complaint, Plaintiff alleged that on February 21, 2024, while working in the kitchen, he slipped
on a wet spot and fell while holding a hot tray. (Id.) As a result, he allegedly suffered first,
second, and third degree burns on his legs and feet. (Id.) Correction officers allegedly forced
Plaintiff to walk to the medical unit. (Id.) He alleged the medical unit refused to transfer him to
an outside hospital for care. (Id.) Plaintiff alleged at the time of the incident, he did not have
proper protective gear, such as slip resistant shoes. (Id.) In contrast, workers from Trinity Food
Services, a contractor for the Cuyahoga County Jail, did have such protective gear. (Id.)
Plaintiff alleged his wounds were not treated by the medical unit, leading to ongoing injuries.

1 For ease and consistency, record citations are to the electronically stamped CM/ECF document
and PageID# rather than any internal pagination.
(Id.)
B. Procedural History
On December 17, 2025, Plaintiff filed a complaint. (Docs. 1-1, 2.) Initially, Plaintiff
filed his complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Ohio. (Doc. 1-
1 at 7.) The complaint named as defendants Trinity Food Services, Warden Michelle Henry,

“Warden Hill,” and “Metro Medical.” (Id.) The complaint appeared to assert claims under 42
U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of the Seventh and Fourteenth Amendments. (Doc. 1-2 at 13.)
Plaintiff sought $50 million in damages. (Id.) On December 23, 2025, Magistrate Judge
Chelsey Vascura screened Plaintiff’s complaint pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2) and 1915A
and issued a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”) recommending the matter be dismissed
because the complaint failed to state a claim on which relief may be granted. (Doc. 3 at 24.)
Magistrate Judge Vascura construed the complaint as asserting claims under the Eighth
Amendment for deliberate indifference. (Id. at 28.) After so construing, Magistrate Judge
Vascura found the complaint failed to state a violation of the Eighth Amendment and

recommended dismissing the action. (Id. at 31.)
Plaintiff filed an Objection to the R&R. (Doc. 7.) Relevant here, in his Objection,
Plaintiff clarified his injuries occurred while he was in custody at the Cuyahoga County Jail, and
not in the Correctional Reception Center. (Id. at 40-41.) Plaintiff then filed a motion to amend
his complaint. (Doc. 8.) Based on the new information in the Objection, Magistrate Judge
Vascura found venue improper in the Southern District of Ohio pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1391.
(Doc. 9 at 49.) As a result, this matter was transferred to the Northern District of Ohio which
encompasses the Cuyahoga County Jail. (Id. at 49-50.)
Once transferred, this Court granted Plaintiff’s motion to amend. (Doc. 12.) The Court
ordered Plaintiff to file one consolidated amended complaint. (Id.) On April 30, 2026, Plaintiff
filed a consolidated amended complaint (“Complaint”). (Doc. 14-1.) The Complaint alleged
similar facts as the original complaint. (Id. at 14-15.) Plaintiff named the same defendants as
before. (Id. at 13.) He asserted his claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of the Eighth
and Fourteenth Amendments for deliberate indifference to a pre-trial detainee. (Id. at 15.)

Plaintiff seeks $1 million from each Defendant. (Id.)
II. ANALYSIS
A. Legal Standard
District courts are expressly required, under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e), to screen all in forma
pauperis complaints filed in federal court, and to dismiss before service any such complaint that
the court determines is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim upon which relief may be
granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. See Neitzke
v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 328, 109 S. Ct. 1827, 104 L. Ed. 2d 338 (1989); Hill v. Lappin, 630
F.3d 468, 471 (6th Cir. 2010).

Pro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than formal pleadings drafted by
lawyers. Boag v. MacDougall, 454 U.S. 364, 102 S. Ct. 700, 70 L. Ed. 2d 551 (1982) (per
curiam); El Bey v. Roop, 530 F.3d 407, 413 (6th Cir. 2008). However, the “lenient treatment
generally accorded to pro se litigants has limits.” Pilgrim v. Littlefield, 92 F.3d 413, 416 (6th
Cir. 1996). Liberal construction does not “abrogate basic pleading essentials in pro se suits.”
Wells v. Brown, 891 F.2d 591, 594 (6th Cir. 1989). A complaint must still contain “a short and
plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.” Fed. R. Civ. P.
8(a)(2); see also Hill, 630 F.3d at 471 (explaining the dismissal standard articulated in Iqbal and
Twombly for resolving dismissals pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) applies to reviews conducted
pursuant to Sections 1915 and 1915A). Thus, the complaint must make out a plausible legal
claim, meaning the complaint’s factual allegations must be sufficient for a court “to draw the
reasonable inference that the defendant is liable.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.
Ct. 1937, 173 L. Ed. 2d 868 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127
S. Ct. 1955, 167 L. Ed. 2d 929 (2007)). Plausibility does not require any specific probability of

success, but it does demand “more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted
unlawfully.” Id.
When courts evaluate whether a complaint makes out a plausible claim, they must accept
all factual allegations as true. Cates v. Crystal Clear Techs., LLC, 874 F.3d 530, 534 (6th Cir.
2017) (quoting Bickerstaff v. Lucarelli, 830 F.3d 388, 396 (6th Cir. 2016)). Courts must also
draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff, and they must generally construe the
complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Id. But courts do not accept legal
conclusions or other conclusory allegations as true. D’Ambrosio v. Marino, 747 F.3d 378, 383
(6th Cir. 2014) (quoting Terry v. Tyson Farms, Inc., 604 F.3d 272, 275-76 (6th Cir. 2010)). And

courts need not make unwarranted factual inferences. Kottmyer v. Maas, 436 F.3d 684, 688 (6th
Cir. 2006).
B. Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment Claims
Plaintiff asserts his deliberate indifference claim under the Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendments. (Doc. 14-1 at 15.) But Plaintiff avers he was a pre-trial detainee at the time of the
incident. (Id.) The Eighth Amendment applies to convicted prisoners, not pre-trial detainees.
See Brawner v. Scott Cnty., 14 F.4th 585, 596-97 (6th Cir. 2021). The Fourteenth Amendment
applies to pre-trial detainees, like Plaintiff. Stein v. Gunkel, 43 F.4th 633, 639 (6th Cir. 2022).
The Complaint appears to present two claims: one claim for failing to protect him from
injury, and one for deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs.
Failure to Protect. A defendant violates the Fourteenth Amendment when “(1) he acts
intentionally with respect to the conditions under which the plaintiff was confined, (2) those
conditions put the plaintiff at substantial risk of harm, (3) he does not take reasonable steps to
abate that risk, and (4) by failing to do so he actually causes the plaintiff’s injuries.”

Buetenmiller v. Macomb Cnty. Jail, 53 F.4th 939, 945 (6th Cir. 2022) (citing Westmoreland v.
Butler Cnty., 29 F.4th 721, 729 (6th Cir. 2022)).
Plaintiff did not allege any Defendant knew about the conditions in the kitchen.
Moreover, the Complaint fails to allege the conditions in the kitchen put Plaintiff at a substantial
risk of harm. “While a wet floor presents the possibility for an inmate to slip and fall, it does not
pose a substantial or excessive risk of serious harm and therefore fails to trigger Fourteenth
Amendment protections.” Robinson v. Well Path, No. 22-cv-102, 2022 WL 2070887, 2022 U.S.
Dist. LEXIS 102312, at *9 (M.D. Tenn. June 8, 2022) (citation omitted). This is consistent with
other cases from district courts that have routinely found a slip and fall on a wet floor is

insufficient to bring constitutional claims. Jackson v. Malloy, No. 25-cv-12307, 2025 WL
2965985, 206132, at *6 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 20, 2025) (holding that “[s]lip-and-fall accidents, while
unfortunate, do not give rise to constitutional claims”); Miller v. Rutherford Cnty. Adult
Detention Ctr., No. 24-cv-904, 2025 WL 899950, 2025 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 53716, at *10 (M.D.
Tenn. Mar. 24, 2025) (explaining that “[c]ourts have regularly held that slip and fall accidents do
not give rise to federal causes of action”); Smith v. Winn, No. 21-11263, 2021 WL 2413316,
2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 110651, at *5-6 (E.D. Mich. June 14, 2021) (slip and fall in kitchen
sounded purely in negligence and failed to state a claim under Section 1983); Chamberlain v.
Nielsen, No. 10-cv-10676, 2010 WL 1002666, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 25455, at *5-6 (E.D.
Mich. Mar. 18, 2010) (collecting cases where slip and falls in prisons did not amount to
constitutional claims).
At best, Plaintiff alleged a claim of negligence. But that is insufficient to state a claim
under Section 1983. Brawner, 14 F.4th at 596.
Deliberate Indifference. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, pretrial detainees have an

established right to medical care. Hodges v. Abram, 138 F.4th 980, 987 (6th Cir. 2025). “An
officer violates that right if they show ‘deliberate indifference to a pretrial detainee’s serious
medical needs.’” Id. (quoting Hyman v. Lewis, 27 F.4th 1233, 1237 (6th Cir. 2022)). Deliberate
indifference has two prongs, “one objective and the other subjective, and essentially requires that
an officer ‘knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm to [the pretrial detainee’s]
health and safety.’” Id. (quoting Spears v. Ruth, 589 F.3d 249, 254 (6th Cir. 2009)). The
objective prong requires a plaintiff to show his medical need was “sufficiently serious.”
Brawner, 14 F.4th at 591 (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S. Ct. 1970, 128
L. Ed. 2d 811 (1994)). The subjective prong requires a plaintiff to show the defendant acted with

“more than negligence but less than subjective intention—something akin to reckless disregard.”
Id. at 596.
Even assuming Plaintiff alleged a sufficiently serious medical need, Plaintiff failed to
allege any facts relating to the subjective prong for deliberate indifference claims against any
particular Defendant. That is, Plaintiff did not allege any named Defendant acted with reckless
disregard to a sufficiently serious injury. In short, he did not allege any deliberate indifference to
his alleged serious medical need. Instead, his Complaint alleged the opposite—that he was
immediately taken to medical and medical placed in line for wound care. (Doc. 14-1 at 14.)
Dismissal is proper where “the allegations in the complaint affirmatively show that the claim is
[deficient or disallowed as a matter of law].” Cataldo v. U.S. Steel Corp., 676 F.3d 542, 547 (6th
Cir. 2012).
Further, Plaintiff alleged no facts relating to his treatment by prison medical staff. Courts
“distinguish between cases where the complaint alleges a complete denial of medical care and
those cases where the claim is that a prisoner received inadequate medical treatment.” Al/spaugh
v. McConnell, 643 F.3d 162, 169 (6th Cir. 2011) (quoting Westlake v. Lucas, 537 F.2d 857, 860
n.5 (6th Cir. 1976)). “Where a prisoner alleges only that the medical care he received was
inadequate, federal courts are generally reluctant to second guess medical judgments.” /d.
“However, it is possible for medical treatment to be “so woefully inadequate as to amount to no
treatment at all.” /d. Here, Plaintiff merely alleged a disagreement about his medical care.
Those allegations are insufficient to present a plausible Fourteenth Amendment constitutional
claim.
I. CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated herein, pro se Plaintiff Billy Fleming’s Complaint (Doc. 14-1) is
DISMISSED pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e). The Court certifies, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §
1915(a)(3), that an appeal from this decision could not be taken in good faith.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Date: June 22, 2026 Lay —
BRIDGET MEEHAN-BRENNAN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/11356956. Public record. Not legal advice.