Brown v Dept of Health and Human Services

9-29-2015 Nebraska:

Brown v Dept of Health and Human Services [2015] (See also: 2014 Memorandum and Order)

This matter is before the court on a Motion to Dismiss (Filing No. 39) Plaintiff Cornelius Brown's Amended Complaint. When Brown filed his Amended Complaint, he was confined to inpatient treatment at the Norfolk Regional Center ("NRC") in Norfolk, Nebraska. The Motion to Dismiss was filed by Bob Gibson, the director of the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services ("NDHHS"), and the following staff of the NRC: TiLnne Bouer, a facility operating officer; Kristine Simmons, an associate facility operating officer; John Kroll, the director of nursing, and Lori Strong, Dianna Mastny and Nancy Wragge, nurses at the NRC (together, "State Defendants").

State Defendants argue Brown's claims for damages against them in their official capacities are barred by sovereign immunity. In addition, they argue Gibson, Bouer, Simmons, and Kroll are entitled to qualified immunity. Finally, they argue Brown failed to state cognizable constitutional claims against Wragge, Mastny, and Strong. (Filing No. 40.) For the reasons that follow, the court will dismiss all of Brown's claims except his retaliation claims against Strong and Mastny in their individual capacities.

BACKGROUND

Brown filed his original Complaint (Filing No. 1) on September 30, 2014. He filed two Supplements (Filing Nos. 14 and 15) to his Complaint on November 4 and December 2, 2014. Brown, a black male, alleged staff at the NRC failed to address patients' use of racially derogatory language. In addition, he alleged two NRC staff, Strong and Mastny, retaliated against him by taking steps to ensure he could not advance in his sex-offender treatment program when they learned Brown had filed a civil action in this court.

Inmate loses case against state prison workers

12-12-2014 Nebraska:

An inmate took a warden and two Tecumseh state prison staff members to trial in Lincoln this week, alleging they violated his rights by blocking him from getting mail from an out-of-state sex offender treatment center they mistook for a prison.

But in the end, the jurors who heard Christopher Payne's case against Fred Britten, Michelle Capps and Catherine Peters didn't decide it.

Lancaster County District Judge Jodi Nelson dismissed his case before closing arguments, saying that while Payne had offered evidence of a possible constitutional violation, he didn't offer "one shred of evidence" he suffered any damages as a result.

It would be improper, she said, for the jury to speculate.

In addition, Nelson found that Britten, Capps and Peters were entitled to qualified immunity, which shields government officials whose conduct doesn't violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights a reasonable person would have known.

The case stemmed from an August 2011 letter addressed to Payne that Peters, a mail specialist at the Tecumseh State Correctional Institution, blocked. The letter was from a man at a sex offender treatment center in Moose Lake, Minnesota, and a stamp on the envelope said it had been mailed from a "secure treatment facility."