United States District Court, M.D. North Carolina
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND RECOMMENDATION OF UNITED
STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE
L.
PATRICK AULD UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE.
This
case comes before the undersigned United States Magistrate
Judge for a recommendation on the Motion to Dismiss of
Defendant [Bikramjit] Grewal (Docket Entry 21). For the
reasons that follow, the Court should grant in part and
should deny in part the instant Motion, in that the Court
should conclude that Plaintiff's Complaint (Docket Entry
2) states a claim against Defendant Grewal under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 for deliberate indifference to a serious medical
need, but that any state-law claim for medical malpractice
fails as a matter of law.
Introduction
Via a
“Form To Be Used by Prisoners in Filing a Complaint
under [Section] 1983” (id. at 1 (all-cap font
omitted)), Plaintiff (a prisoner of the State of North
Carolina) commenced this action against various Scotland
Correctional Institution (“SCI”) officials and
Defendant Grewal, an alleged member of the “Medical
Staff” at Central Prison (id. at 2). According
to the Complaint:
“In
August of 2016 on the way to the yard at [SCI, Plaintiff]
slipped [and] hyperextend[ed his] right leg on a sidewalk
full of debris. Days later [Plaintiff] put in a sick-call
requesting to see a doctor . . . . Over the next 8
months[, Plaintiff did] not rec[eive] adequate medical
attention on several different occasions.”
(Id. at 3.) Plaintiff “finally recieved [sic]
an M.R.I. in the month of April 2017 and was taken to Central
Prison on 06/23/17 to recieve [sic] the results. [Plaintiff]
was then seen by [Defendant] Grewal who went over [the]
M.R.I.” (Id.) Defendant Grewal told Plaintiff
that “their [sic] was no damage shown and no further
medical attention pertaining to [his] leg was needed.”
(Id.) In August 2017:
[While] still dealing with the same pain[, Plaintiff] put in
a sick-call at Whiteville Correctional [Institution
(“WCI”)] where he was later seen by [a] doctor
who reviewed [Plaintiff's] M.R.I. and acknowledged [to
Plaintiff that his] M.R.I. showed abnormal swelling which
alone show[ed] signs of an injury and [the doctor further
stated that] he couldnt [sic] understand why [Plaintiff]
hadnt [sic] recieved [sic] further medical attention.
(Id.) Officials at WCI “did an investigation
pertaining to the situation and came to the conclusion to get
[Plaintiff] an orthapedic [sic] immediately [and he] ha[s]
sense [sic] then been recieving [sic] adequate medical
attention.” (Id. at 3-4.) Plaintiff
“seek[s] monetary damages against [Defendant] Grewal in
his individual capacity for telling [Plaintiff that his]
M.R.I. was negative, showed no damage, and no further medical
attention pertaining to [his] leg was needed which months
later [Plaintiff] found out not to be true.”
(Id. at 4.)
“[P]ursuant
to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and
Rule 9(j) of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure,
[Defendant Grewal has] move[d] that Plaintiff's Complaint
be dismissed . . . .” (Docket Entry 21 at 1;
see also Docket Entry 22 (Brief).) Plaintiff has
responded (Docket Entry 27) and Defendant Grewal has replied
(Docket Entry 28).
Discussion
In
reviewing the instant Motion, the Court must “accept
the facts alleged in [Plaintiff's C]omplaint as true and
construe them in the light most favorable to [him].”
Coleman v. Maryland Ct. of App., 626 F.3d 187, 189
(4th Cir. 2010), aff'd sub nom., Coleman v. Court of
App. of Md., 566 U.S. 30 (2012). The Court also must
“draw all reasonable inferences in favor of [
P]laintiff.” E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v.
Kolon Indus., Inc., 637 F.3d 435, 440 (4th Cir. 2011)
(internal quotation marks omitted). Finally, because of
Plaintiff's pro se status, the Court must
“liberally construe[]” his Complaint,
Erickson v. Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 94 (2007)
(internal quotation marks omitted), although the United
States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has “not
read Erickson to undermine [the] requirement that a pleading
contain more than labels and conclusions, ”
Giarratano v. Johnson, 521 F.3d 298, 304 n.5 (4th
Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Accordingly,
to survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, a complaint (even a pro se
complaint) must “contain 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) (internal citations
omitted) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550
U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). This standard “demands more than
an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me
accusation.” Id. “Threadbare recitals of
the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere
conclusory statements, do not suffice.” Id.
Defendant
Grewal has argued that “Plaintiff's allegations
amount to claims of ‘negligence, medical malpractice,
and disagreement with medical treatment, which claims do not
support relief under [Section] 1983.'” (Docket
Entry 22 at 9 (quoting Gregory v. Prison Health Servs.,
Inc., 247 Fed.Appx. 433, 435 (4th Cir. 2007)). More
specifically, Defendant Grewal would have the Court rule that
“[t]he only thing . . . Plaintiff has plausibly alleged
. . . is that [Defendant] Grewal misinterpreted
Plaintiff's MRI results. This is not sufficient to
maintain a lawsuit based on deliberate indifference to a
serious medical need, and Plaintiff's Complaint against
[Defendant] Grewal should therefore be dismissed.”
(Id. at 10.) The Court should reject that argument,
because (as documented in the Introduction) the factual
allegations in the Complaint go farther than Defendant Grewal
has acknowledged and (when viewed in the light most favorable
to Plaintiff with the benefit of all reasonable inferences)
would permit a reasonable fact-finder to conclude that
Defendant Grewal exhibited deliberate indifference to
Plaintiff's serious medical need, by failing to treat his
obvious leg injury that required professional care.
In that
regard, “when the State by the affirmative exercise of
its power so restrains an individual's liberty that it
renders him unable to care for himself, and at the same time
fails to provide for his . . . medical care . . .[, ] it
transgresses the substantive limits on state action set by
the Eighth Amendment and the Due Process Clause.”
DeShaney v. Winnebago Cty. Dep't of Soc.
Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 200 (1989). To make out a
constitutional claim for deprivation of medical care,
Plaintiff must show that Defendant Grewal “acted with
‘deliberate indifference' (subjective) to
[Plaintiff's] ‘serious medical needs'
(objective).” Iko v. Shreve, 535 F.3d 225, 241
(4th Cir. 2008). A medical need qualifies as serious if it
“has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating
treatment . . . .” Id. (internal quotation
marks omitted). Coordinately, a defendant displays deliberate
indifference if he or she knows that an inmate faces a risk
of harm due to a serious medical need and that the
defendant's “actions were insufficient to mitigate
the risk of harm to the inmate arising from [that] medical
need[].” Id. (emphasis and internal quotation
marks omitted); see also Scinto v. Stansberry, 841
F.3d 219, 225 (4th Cir. 2016) (“To prove deliberate
indifference, plaintiffs must show that ‘the official
knew of and disregarded an excessive risk to inmate health or
safety.'” (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511
U.S. 825, 837 (1994)) (internal brackets omitted)).
“[D]eliberate
indifference entails something more than mere negligence, . .
. [but] is satisfied by something less than acts or omissions
for the very purpose of causing harm or with knowledge that
harm will result.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 835. “It
requires that a [defendant] actually know of and disregard an
objectively serious condition, medical need, or risk of
harm.” De'lonta v.Johnson, 708
F.3d 520, 525 (4th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks
omitted). A plaintiff can meet that standard by showing
“that a [defendant] knew of a substantial risk from the
very fact that the risk was obvious.” Scinto, 841 F.3d
at 226 (internal quotation marks omitted). Moreover,
“failure to respond to an inmate's known medical
needs raises an inference of deliberate indifference to those
needs.” Id. (internal brackets and quotation
marks omitted). Consistent with the foregoing statements from
De'lonta and Scinto, the Fourth Circuit recently reversed
a district court's dismissal of a deliberate indifference
claim where the plaintiff “alleged that his doctors
acknowledged some symptoms but ignored most, disregarded
abnormal test results, and failed to treat any of his
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