Opinion
23-CV-2907 (LTS)
07-05-2023
YESSUH SUHYES HUSSEY, Plaintiff, v. MS. BOYD, SOCIAL WORKER AT KIRBY FORENSIC PSYCHIATRIC CENTER; AND NURSE LUBOA K.F.P.C., Defendants.
ORDER OF DISMISSAL
LAURA TAYLOR SWAIN, CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Plaintiff, who is appearing pro se and in forma pauperis (“IFP”), bring this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Named as Defendants are Ms. Boyd, who is a social worker at the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center (“Kirby”) and Nurse Luboa, who is also employed at Kirby. Plaintiff originally filed this action in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. See Hussey v. Boyd, No. 23-CV-0534 (PKC) (LB) (E.D.N.Y. Mar. 13, 2023). This case is one of the 60 cases Plaintiff has filed in the Eastern District in recent months, including 43 cases filed on the same day. By order dated March 13, 2023, the Eastern District transferred this action to this court. (ECF 8.) For the reasons set forth below, the Court dismisses the complaint, but grants Plaintiff 60 days' leave to replead his claims in an amended complaint.
Plaintiff was detained in the Anna M. Kross Center on Rikers Island when he filed this action. In a notice dated April 10, 2023, Plaintiff confirmed that he was released from custody. (ECF 12.) According to records maintained by the New York City Department of Correction, however, as a result of a May 6, 2023, arrest, Plaintiff is currently detained in the Eric M. Taylor Center on Rikers Island.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
The Court must dismiss an IFP complaint, or any portion of the complaint, that is frivolous or malicious, fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted, or seeks monetary relief from a defendant who is immune from such relief. 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B); see Livingston v. Adirondack Beverage Co., 141 F.3d 434, 437 (2d Cir. 1998). The Court must also dismiss a complaint when the Court lacks subject matter jurisdiction of the claims raised. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3).
While the law mandates dismissal on any of these grounds, the Court is obliged to construe pro se pleadings liberally, Harris v. Mills, 572 F.3d 66, 72 (2d Cir. 2009), and interpret them to raise the “strongest [claims] that they suggest,” Triestman v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 470 F.3d 471, 474 (2d Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted) (emphasis in original). But the “special solicitude” in pro se cases, id. at 475 (citation omitted), has its limits -to state a claim, pro se pleadings still must comply with Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which requires a complaint to make a short and plain statement showing that the pleader is entitled to relief.
Rule 8 requires a complaint to include enough facts to state a claim for relief “that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). A claim is facially plausible if the plaintiff pleads enough factual detail to allow the Court to draw the inference that the defendant is liable for the alleged misconduct. In reviewing the complaint, the Court must accept all well-pleaded factual allegations as true. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678-79 (2009). But it does not have to accept as true “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action,” which are essentially just legal conclusions. Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555. After separating legal conclusions from well-pleaded factual allegations, the Court must determine whether those facts make it plausible - not merely possible - that the pleader is entitled to relief. Id.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff brings this action against Boyd and Luboa arising from two seemingly unrelated series of events. The following allegations are taken from the complaint. On October 6, 2022, when Plaintiff was being discharged from Kirby, Boyd “gave confidential medical records to [the] New York Correction Department” without Plaintiff's consent. (ECF 1, at 4.) Boyd thereby “expos[ed] personal information pertaining to [Plaintiff's] health.” (Id.)
Plaintiff writes using irregular capitalization. For readability, the Court uses standard capitalization when quoting from the complaint. All other grammar, spelling, and punctuation are as in the original unless otherwise indicated.
On September 10, 2022, Plaintiff wrote for Luboa “a departing poem that was very respectful in nature” and did not contain any “sexually harassing content or inappropriate statements.” (Id.) On September 12, 2022, however, Plaintiff was “harassed by staff physical and sexually on the floor of the dayroom” when he “tried to grab [his] poem from Dr. Schneider because she was painting the wrong image about it[.]” (Id.) During a state court hearing on December 15, 2022, the presiding judge told Plaintiff that his poem “offended the women at Kirby.” (Id.) Plaintiff maintains that he “kept [his] hands completely to [him]self & did not harass any woman or man verbally or physically or sexually” while at Kirby. (Id. at 5.) He alleges that the “false statements” have affected his “situation in criminal court.” (Id.)
Plaintiff attached a copy of the poem to the complaint. (See id. at 7.)
Plaintiff alleges that he has suffered “mental cruelty, defamation of character and exposure of confidential medical information to unauthorized persons.” (Id.)
Plaintiff seeks $10,000 from Luboa for defamation and making false claims. He also seeks $100,000 for the unauthorized sharing of his medical information and requests that Boyd be fired.
DISCUSSION
A. Confidential Medical Information
The Court construes Plaintiff's allegations that Boyd shared his confidential medical information as asserting a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violations of his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process. Because Plaintiff alleges that he was a pretrial detainee at the time he filed the complaint, (see ECF 1, at 2), the Court assumes he was involuntarily detained at Kirby at the time of the events giving rise to his claims. The Due Process Clause protects a “right to privacy [that] can be characterized as a right to ‘confidentiality,'” which “includes the right to protection regarding information about the state of one's health.” Doe v. City of New York, 15 F.3d 264, 267 (2d Cir. 1994); see also Hancock v. Cty. of Rensselaer, 882 F.3d 58, 66-67 (2d Cir. 2018) (“[S]ubstantive due process categorically protects privacy in certain types of personal information[, including] medical information.”); Powell v. Schriver, 175 F.3d 107, 111 (2d Cir. 1999) (“[T]he right to confidentiality includes the right to protection regarding information about the state of one's health.”).
Incarcerated people “retain[ ] those [constitutional] rights that are not inconsistent with [their] status as . . . prisoner[s] or with the legitimate penological objectives of the corrections system.” Powell, 175 F.3d at 112 (quoting Pell v. Procunier, 417 U.S. 817, 822 (1974)). “[A] prisoner's interest in keeping a medical condition private varies with the condition.” Rodriguez v. Ames, 287 F.Supp.2d 213, 220 (W.D.N.Y. 2003) (citing Powell, 175 F.3d at 111). A plaintiff has a stronger interest in the confidentiality of conditions that are “excruciatingly private and intimate in nature,” such as HIV status and transsexualism. See Matson v. Bd. of Educ. of City Sch. Dist. of New York, 631 F.3d 57, 69 (2d Cir. 2011) (holding, outside the prison context, that revealing a condition like fibromyalgia was not likely to “expose a person . . . to discrimination and intolerance”). Furthermore, courts within the Second Circuit have declined to recognize a claim for violation of medical privacy with regard to disclosure of mental health disorders because such disclosure was not likely to expose an inmate to discrimination or intolerance. See, e.g., Dash v. Mayers, No. 19-CV-0414 (GBD) (JLC), 2020 WL 1946303, at *5 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 23, 2020) (“Although bipolar disorder is a serious medical condition, it does not appear, in the prison context, to carry a social stigma equivalent to HIV/AIDS or transsexualism”) (citations omitted), R & R adopted, 2020 WL 3057133 (S.D.N.Y. June 9, 2020); Gibson v. Rosati, 2016 WL 11478234, at *5 (N.D.N.Y. May 19, 2016) (finding that the plaintiff's mental health history, recent mental health diagnosis, and compliance with psychiatric medications did not constitute protected information); Ruple v. Bausch, 2010 WL 3171783, at *4 (N.D.N.Y. July 21, 2010) (declining to extend Fourteenth Amendment protection where the plaintiff suffered from depression and possible liver damage).
Correction officials can permissibly impinge on the right of confidentiality in medical information of prisoners “only to the extent that their actions are ‘reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.'” Powell, 175 F.3d at 112 (quoting Turner v. Safley, 482 U.S. 78, 89 (1987)). Thus, for example, “the gratuitous disclosure of an inmate's confidential medical information as humor or gossip . . . is not reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest.” Id. (emphasis original). By contrast, disclosure of medical information did not violate a prisoner's right to privacy where it “was reasonably related to the legitimate penological interest of adjudicating [a] grievance.” Alsaifullah v. Furco, No. 12-CV-2907 (ER), 2013 WL 3972514, at *8 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 2, 2013); see also Webb v. Goldstein, 117 F.Supp.2d 289, 298-99 (E.D.N.Y. 2000) (prison officials' disclosure of a prisoner's medical information to law enforcement for purposes of an ongoing investigation did not give rise to liability). Courts apply the above-referenced framework to both convicted prisoners and pretrial detainees like Plaintiff. See, e.g., Williams v. Cnty. of Onondaga, No. 5:22-CV-1367, 2023 WL 2563181, at *14 (N.D.N.Y. Feb. 21, 2023) (applying Powell framework to pretrial detainee), report and recommendation adopted, 2023 WL 2563210 (N.D.N.Y. Mar. 16, 2023); Flores v. City of New York, No. 21-CV-1680 (PGG) (KHP), 2022 WL 4705949, at *22 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 8, 2022) (same), report and recommendation adopted, 2022 WL 4592892 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2022); Swinson v. City of New York, No. 19-CV-11919 (KPF), 2022 WL 142407, at *7 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 14, 2022) (same); see also Milner v. Mulligan, No. 3:16-CV-1857, 2016 WL 7246069, at *2-3 (D. Conn. Dec. 15, 2016) (discussing the right to medical privacy in pretrialdetainee context)
Plaintiff's complaint does not include facts about the nature of the medical information that he wished to keep confidential, and the strength of his privacy interest is thus unclear. Plaintiff also does not plead facts about the circumstances under which his medical information was disclosed, and it is therefore unclear if medical personnel had a legitimate purpose for disclosing such information. The Court therefore dismisses Plaintiff's Section 1983 claims arising from Boyd's alleged sharing of his medical information for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii).
Because Plaintiff may be able to allege additional facts to suggest a viable due process claim, the Court grants him 60 days to replead his claims in an amended complaint.
B. Claims Against Luboa
The basis for Plaintiff's federal claims against Luboa is unclear. He attempts to assert claims of defamation, but such claims arise under state law and Plaintiff has not alleged facts demonstrating that the Court has diversity of citizenship jurisdiction of such claims. In addition, Plaintiff may be attempting to assert constitutional claims for malicious prosecution arising from Luboa's use of allegedly false information to Plaintiff's detriment in his state court criminal proceedings.
To establish diversity of citizenship jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332, a plaintiff must first allege that the plaintiff and the defendant are citizens of different states. Wis. Dep't of Corr. v. Schacht, 524 U.S. 381, 388 (1998). In addition, the plaintiff must allege to a “reasonable probability” that the claim is in excess of the sum or value of $75,000.00, the statutory jurisdictional amount. See 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a); Colavito v. N.Y. Organ Donor Network, Inc., 438 F.3d 214, 221 (2d Cir. 2006) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). Here, although Plaintiff does not provide the state in which Luboa resides or in which she is a citizen, he does allege that she is employed in New York, which is the same state in which Plaintiff resides. Furthermore, Plaintiff seeks only $10,000 from Luboa, an amount well below the $75,000 statutory minimum.
The tort of malicious prosecution “remedies detention accompanied, not by absence of legal process, but by wrongful institution of legal process.” Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. 384, 38990 (2007). To state a claim for malicious prosecution, a plaintiff must allege facts showing that the: (1) defendant initiated or continued a prosecution against the plaintiff; (2) defendant lacked probable cause to commence the proceeding or believe the proceeding could succeed; (3) defendant acted with malice; and (4) prosecution was terminated in the plaintiff's favor. See Fulton v. Robinson, 289 F.3d 188, 195 (2d Cir. 2002). Plaintiff's bare allegation that Luboa made false statements that “affected [his] situation” in the criminal court is insufficient to state a plausible claim for malicious prosecution under Section 1983. Plaintiff does not allege that Luboa initiated or continued a prosecution against him, lacked probable cause to believe any proceeding would succeed, acted with malice, or that any prosecution arising from this incident was terminated in Plaintiff's favor. The Court therefore dismisses Plaintiff's Section 1983 claims against Luboa for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii).
Because it is unclear whether Plaintiff can allege additional facts to state a plausible federal claim against Luboa, the Court grants him 60 days' leave to replead his claims against this defendant in an amended complaint.
The Court takes notice that on May 16, 2023, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York transferred to this court another action filed by Plaintiff in which he alleges the same set of facts he alleges in this action, but also names Dr. Schneider as a defendant. See Hussey v. Luboa, ECF 1:23-CV-4371, 1 (S.D.N.Y.). If Plaintiff believes he can allege facts stating a plausible Section 1983 claim against Dr. Schneider arising from these events, he should name Dr. Schneider as a defendant and include those allegations in his amended complaint under this docket number.
C. State Law Claims
A district court may decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims when it “has dismissed all claims over which it has original jurisdiction.” 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3). Generally, “when the federal-law claims have dropped out of the lawsuit in its early stages and only state-law claims remain, the federal court should decline the exercise of jurisdiction.” Carnegie-Mellon Univ. v. Cohill, 484 U.S. 343, 350 n.7 (1988)). Having dismissed the federal claims of which the Court has original jurisdiction, the Court declines to exercise its supplemental jurisdiction of any state law claims Plaintiff may be asserting. See Kolari v. New York-Presbyterian Hosp., 455 F.3d 118, 122 (2d Cir. 2006) (“Subsection (c) of § 1367 ‘confirms the discretionary nature of supplemental jurisdiction by enumerating the circumstances in which district courts can refuse its exercise.'”) (quoting City of Chicago v. Int'l Coll. of Surgeons, 522 U.S. 156, 173 (1997)).
D. Leave to Replead
Plaintiff proceeds in this matter without the benefit of an attorney. District courts generally should grant a self-represented plaintiff an opportunity to amend a complaint to cure its defects, unless amendment would be futile. See Hill v. Curcione, 657 F.3d 116, 123-24 (2d Cir. 2011); Salahuddin v. Cuomo, 861 F.2d 40, 42 (2d Cir. 1988). Indeed, the Second Circuit has cautioned that district courts “should not dismiss [a pro se complaint] without granting leave to amend at least once when a liberal reading of the complaint gives any indication that a valid claim might be stated.” Cuoco v. Moritsugu, 222 F.3d 99, 112 (2d Cir. 2000) (quoting Gomez v. USAA Fed. Sav. Bank, 171 F.3d 794, 795 (2d Cir. 1999)). Because Plaintiff may be able to allege additional facts to state a valid claim under Section 1983 for unlawful disclosure of his medical information or malicious prosecution, the Court grants Plaintiff 60 days' leave to amend his complaint to detail his claims.
Plaintiff's amended complaint must comply with Rule 20 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Under Rule 20, a plaintiff may not pursue unrelated claims against multiple defendants. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 20(a)(2) (“Persons . . . may be joined in one action as defendants if: (A) 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 (B) any question of law or fact common to all defendants will arise in the action.”) (emphasis added)); e.g., Peterson v. Regina, 935 F.Supp.2d 628, 638 (S.D.N.Y. 2013) (“Case law makes clear that ‘[i]n the absence of a connection between Defendants' alleged misconduct, the mere allegation that Plaintiff was injured by all Defendants is not sufficient [by itself] to join unrelated parties as defendants in the same lawsuit pursuant to Rule 20(a).'”) (alterations in original) (quoting Deskovic v. City of Peekskill, 673 F.Supp.2d 154, 167 (S.D.N.Y. 2009)). If Plaintiff's amended complaint asserts unrelated claims against different defendants, the Court may dismiss Plaintiff's claims under Rule 20 as improperly joined.
In the “Statement of Claim” section of the amended complaint form, Plaintiff must provide a short and plain statement of the relevant facts supporting each claim against each defendant. If Plaintiff has an address for any named defendant, Plaintiff must provide it. Plaintiff should include all of the information in the amended complaint that Plaintiff wants the Court to consider in deciding whether the amended complaint states a claim for relief. That information should include:
a) the names and titles of all relevant people;
b) a description of all relevant events, including what each defendant did or failed to do, the approximate date and time of each event, and the general location where each event occurred;
c) a description of the injuries Plaintiff suffered; and d) the relief Plaintiff seeks, such as money damages, injunctive relief, or declaratory relief.
Essentially, Plaintiff's amended complaint should tell the Court: who violated his federally protected rights and how; when and where such violations occurred; and why Plaintiff is entitled to relief.
Because Plaintiff's amended complaint will completely replace, not supplement, the original complaint, any facts or claims that Plaintiff wants to include from the original complaint must be repeated in the amended complaint.
CONCLUSION
The Court dismisses this action for failure to state a claim on which relief may be granted. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii).
The Court grants Plaintiff 60 days' leave to replead his claims under Section 1983 in an amended complaint. Plaintiff must submit the amended complaint to this Court's Pro Se Intake Unit within 60 days of the date of this order, caption the document as an “Amended Complaint,” and label the document with docket number 23-CV-2907 (LTS). An Amended Civil Rights Complaint form is attached to this order.
If Plaintiff fails to file an amended complaint within the prescribed time and he cannot show good cause for such failure, the Court will enter judgment dismissing the action for failure to state a claim on which relief many be granted, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), and declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction of any state law claims Plaintiff may be asserting, 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3).
The Court certifies under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(a)(3) that any appeal from this order would not be taken in good faith, and therefore IFP status is denied for the purpose of an appeal. See Coppedge v. United States, 369 U.S. 438, 444-45 (1962).
SO ORDERED.