Inmate excessive force case provides guidance on how to resolve a motion to dismiss

You'd be surprised how often inmates win their appeals on constitutional claims against their jailers. The cases get dismissed in the district court, and then the Court of Appeals revives them and finds the plaintiff's allegations are enough to proceed to discovery or even trial. Here is another one. What makes this case notable is that the Court of Appeals clarifies when defendants can rely on outside records in support of a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's complaint. This ruling is good for plaintiffs.

The case is Pearson v. Gesner, issued on January 13, almost a year after oral argument. Plaintiff was locked up at the Orange County Jail on a parole violation. His complaint asserts that CO's beat him up in his cell, played with his food, sprayed chemicals in his eye (causing pain and impaired vision), and denied him medical care. The district court dismissed the Amended Complaint on a motion to dismiss, in part because the misbehavior report drafted by one of the CO defendants said that plaintiff had disobeyed orders, thus justifying the use of force. 

Here's the problem. It was not proper for the trial court to consider the misbehavior report in reviewing whether the Amended Complaint stated a claim. Sometimes, the district court can rely on outside documents on a motion to dismiss if they are integral to the complaint, such as if plaintiff is bringing a breach of contract claim, and the complaint makes reference to that contract but the contract itself is not attached to the complaint. The leading case on this issue is Chambers v. Time Warner, Inc., 282 F.3d 147 (2d Cir. 2001). But this rule has a number of quirks. The plaintiff might rely on parts of a document drafted by defendant but not all of the document's contents. "Rather than accepting as true every word in a unilateral writing by as defendant and attached by a plaintiff to a complaint, the court must consider why a plaintiff attached the documents." The Second Circuit (Kearse, Robinson and Park) cites a Seventh Circuit ruling for this proposition (along with a Fourth Circuit ruling) which means this is the first time the Second Circuit is saying this.

Put another way, "[t]reating the contents of such a document as true simply because it was attached to or relied upon in the complaint, even though the plaintiff relied on it for purposes other than truthfulness, would . . . enable parties to hide behind untested, self-serving assertions." Again, this is from the Fourth Circuit case, so the Second Circuit is really driving this home for the first time.

What it means in this case is that the district court improperly adopted as true many of the allegations in the misbehavior report in dismissing the case and finding that the CO's had reason to use force against plaintiff. The case returns to the district court for further review.