Jackson #222287 v. Havens et al

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
NORTHERN DIVISION
DWIGHT JACKSON #222287,
Plaintiff, 	Hon. Paul L. Maloney
v. 	Case No. 2:25-cv-69
MICHAEL HAVENS, et al.,
Defendants.
____________________________________/
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Plaintiff, a prisoner incarcerated with the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) at
the Central Michigan Correctional Facility, filed a complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on
January 6, 2025, against the MDOC and several MDOC employees and contractors alleging
violations of his constitutional rights based on events that occurred at several MDOC facilities,
including the Newberry Correctional Facility (NCF) and the Marquette Branch Prison (MBP).
Plaintiff filed an amended complaint (ECF No. 21), which the Court reviewed pursuant to 28
U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2), 1915A; 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(c), and issued an Opinion and Order on May 20,
2025 (ECF Nos. 22 and 23) dismissing certain claims and Defendants. Following that review,
Plaintiff’s remaining claims are his individual capacity Eighth Amendment deprivation of
adequate medical care claims against Defendants Havens, Kover, and Kocha. (ECF No. 22 at
PageID.33.)
Presently before me is Defendants Havens and Kocha’s Motion to Dismiss for Failure to
State a Claim Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). (ECF No. 36.) Plaintiff has
failed to respond to the motion within the time permitted by Western District of Michigan Local
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Civil Rule 7.2(c). 1 Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(B), I recommend that the motion be
DENIED.
I. 	Background
The events concerning Defendant Havens occurred at NCF and the events concerning
Defendant Kocha occurred at MBP. The Court previously summarized Plaintiff’s allegations
concerning Defendants Havens and Kocha as follows:
In his amended complaint, Plaintiff contends that Defendant Havens “ignored the
fact that [Plaintiff has] medical injur[ies] [from] befor[e] he was incarcerated.”
(Am. Compl., ECF No. 21, PageID.14.) Defendant Havens ignored the fact that
Plaintiff had been taking morphine for chronic pain. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges that he
was “cut off of [his] medication and left to go into withdrawals for weeks.” (Id.)
Plaintiff mentions that he saw Defendant Havens at NCF on August 30, 2024, and
November 18, 2024. (Id., PageID.15.)
. . . .
Defendant Kocha ignored Plaintiff’s need for pain medication. (Id., PageID.14.)
Plaintiff alleges that one of the medications that he was given by Defendant Kocha
caused stomach upset, and that another medication caused constipation. (Id.)
Defendant Kocha ignored Plaintiff’s “many other injur[ies]” and refused to give
Plaintiff a cane. (Id.) Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Kocha was aware that Plaintiff
had an injured foot, yet gave him nothing for pain and forced Plaintiff to walk
around on his injured foot for over seven months. (Id.)
Plaintiff indicates that he saw Defendant Kocha on January 15, 2025, and
Defendant Kocha “left [Plaintiff] in a state of pain with no meds.” (Id., PageID.15.)
Plaintiff had an X-ray of his right foot taken on January 23, 2025. (Id.) He did not
get the results until February 13, 2025, when he saw Defendant Kocha again. (Id.)
Plaintiff saw Defendant Kocha again on March 19, 2024, and Plaintiff learned he
had a scheduled MRI. (Id.) Plaintiff had the MRI on April 8, 2025, and received
the results when he saw Defendant Kocha again on April 17, 2025. (Id.) Plaintiff
mentions that during that visit, he learned that he has tenosynovitis. (Id.,
PageID.16.) Plaintiff states that he is waiting to see a specialist and has not received
1 Although Plaintiff is proceeding pro se, he is still expected to comply with the applicable court
rules. See Strohmeyer v. Chase Bank USA, N.A., No. 3:17-cv-443, 2018 WL 2669991, at *2 (E.D.
Tenn. June 4, 2018) (“It is correct that pro se parties are expected to comply with the rules of
procedure just as parties represented by counsel must do.”); Jones v. Graley, No. 2:05-cv-773,
2006 WL 1697637, at *1 (S.D. Ohio June 20, 2006) (although federal courts have treated pro se
litigants more leniently, they “are still expected to comply with the procedural rules of the court”).
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any pain medication. (Id.) He claims that his back and knee injuries are “very
painful” without medication. (Id.)
(ECF No. 22 at PageID.20–23.)
II. 	Motion Standard
A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on which relief may be
granted tests the legal sufficiency of a complaint by evaluating its assertions in a light most
favorable to the plaintiff to determine whether it states a valid claim for relief. See In re NM
Holdings Co., LLC, 622 F.3d 613, 618 (6th Cir. 2010).
Pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a claim must be dismissed for failure
to state a claim on which relief may be granted unless the “[f]actual allegations [are] enough to
raise a right for relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all of the complaint’s
allegations are true.” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 545 (2007). As the Supreme
Court has held, to survive a motion to dismiss, a 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, 677-78 (2009). This plausibility standard “is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it
asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully.” Id. If the complaint
simply pleads facts that are “merely consistent with” a defendant’s liability, it “stops short of the
line between possibility and plausibility of ‘entitlement to relief.’” Id. As the Court further
observed, “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory
statements, do not suffice.” Id. at 678-79.
III. 	Discussion
As noted, the Court conducted an initial screening of Plaintiff’s amended complaint and
concluded that Plaintiff’s allegations sufficed to state Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference
claims against Defendants. The Standard Case Management Order in a Prisoner Civil Rights Case
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entered in this case on October 29, 2025, advises that motions to dismiss are “discourage[d],” (ECF
No. 39), but they not prohibited. See Anderson v. Huss, No. 2:21-cv-123, 2023 WL 10682683, at
*6 (W.D. Mich. Oct. 26, 2023), report and recommendation affirmed, 2024 WL 1152270 (W.D.
Mich. Mar. 18, 2024) (“Nothing within the CMO stated that the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure
did not apply to this case or that a party could not file a motion to dismiss.”). Even so, as another
magistrate judge of this Court has observed, a motion to dismiss, following initial screening under
the Rule 12(b)(6) standard, is tantamount to a motion for reconsideration. See Jones v. Burt, No.
1:21-cv-41, 2022 WL 4244298, at *4 (W.D. Mich. July 15, 2022), report and recommendation
adopted, 2022 WL 3210073 (W.D. Mich. Aug. 9, 2022). However, Defendants’ motion will be
reviewed under the Rule 12(b)(6) standard.
The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment applies not
only to punishment imposed by the state, but also to deprivations that occur during imprisonment
and are not part of the sentence imposed. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994); Estelle
v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 101-02 (1976). Punishment that is without penological justification or
involves the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain also violates the Eighth Amendment’s
proscriptions. See Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 346 (1981). In other words, the Eighth
Amendment prohibits “the gratuitous infliction of suffering.” Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 183
(1976).
The unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain encompasses “deliberate indifference” to an
inmate’s “serious medical needs.” Estelle, 429 U.S. at 104-06; Napier v. Madison Cty., 238 F.3d
739, 742 (6th Cir. 2001). Determining whether denial of medical care amounts to an Eighth
Amendment violation involves two steps. First, the court must determine, objectively, whether the
alleged deprivation was sufficiently serious. A “serious medical need” sufficient to implicate the
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Eighth Amendment is “one that has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment or one
that is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor’s
attention.” Harrison v. Ash, 539 F.3d 510, 518 (6th Cir. 2008). Thus, the objective component is
satisfied where a prisoner receives no treatment for a serious medical need. See Rhinehart v. Scutt,
894 F.3d 721, 737 (6th Cir. 2018).
If the plaintiff satisfies the objective component, he must then demonstrate that the
defendant possessed a sufficiently culpable state of mind:
a prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying
an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and
disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be
aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of
serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.
Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837 (1994). In other words, the plaintiff “must present evidence from which
a trier of fact could conclude ‘that the official was subjectively aware of the risk’ and ‘disregard[ed]
that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it.’” Greene v. Bowles, 361 F.3d 290, 294
(6th Cir. 2004) (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. at 829, 847). To satisfy this part of the analysis, the
plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant acted with “deliberateness tantamount to intent to
punish.” Miller v. Calhoun Cty., 408 F.3d 803, 813 (6th Cir. 2005).
Defendant Havens
Defendant Havens contends that the complaint fails to plead facts to plausibly establish
that both the objective and the subjective components of his claim are satisfied. Regarding the
objective component, Defendant asserts that Plaintiff fails to provide factual enhancement of his
allegations regarding his pre-incarceration “medical injuries” or his “other injuries” plausibly to
establish that he had a serious medical need requiring medical attention. Defendant Havens notes
that while Plaintiff mentions his right foot, back, and knee pain, he provides no facts describing
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the nature of the injury, including the cause or diagnosis of his pain. Moreover, citing Murphy v.
Grenier, No. 07-CV-15248, 2009 WL 1044832 (E.D. Mich. Apr. 20, 2009), Defendant Havens
asserts that a common backache is not an objectively serious medical need. 2 (ECF No. 36 at
PageID.85–87.) As for the subjective component, Defendant Havens argues that Plaintiff alleges
insufficient factual matter to plausibly demonstrate that he consciously ignored a serious risk of
harm. He notes, for example, that because morphine is a schedule II narcotic which poses a
significant risk of diversion by inmates, he very well may have had legitimate medical or
institutional security reason to discontinue Plaintiff’s morphine. (Id. at PageID.88–89.)
Construing Plaintiff’s pro se complaint liberally, as a court is bound to do, Haines v.
Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, 520 (1972), I conclude that Plaintiff’s allegations suffice to state a deliberate
indifference claim against Defendant Havens. While Defendants are correct that Plaintiff fails to
expound on the nature of his physical injuries, he alleges that Defendant Havens’s discontinuance
of morphine caused him to go into withdrawals for several weeks, which can amount to a serious
medical condition. See Harp v. Hallett, No. 5:19-cv-13789, 2023 WL 8720194, at *3 (E.D. Mich.
Aug. 1, 2023), report and recommendation adopted, 2024 WL 1217391 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 21,
2024) (noting that “[w]ithdrawal is a serious condition that requires medical attention”) (citing
Stojcevski v. County of Macomb, No. 15-11019, 2019 WL 4744432, at *10–11 (E.D. Mich. Sept.
30, 2019)). Further, Plaintiff indicates that Defendant Havens ignored his “plea for pain relief.”
See Santiago v. Ringle, 734 F.3d 585, 590–91 (6th Cir. 2013) (noting that “pain can be a
sufficiently serious medical need”); Scott v. Antonini, No. 07-10459, 2011 WL 533869, at *2 (E.D.
2 Murphy was decided at the summary judgment stage. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit observed that
that “extreme pain due to [a] back condition” can constitute “an objectively serious medical
condition.” Murphy v. Grenier, 406 F. App’x 972, 975 (6th Cir. 2011).
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Mich. Feb. 15, 2011) (“It is well established that pain can be a ‘sufficiently serious’ medical need
for purposes of a deliberate indifference claim.”).
Defendant Kocha
Defendant Kocha notes, as did the Court in its screening opinion, that Plaintiff alleges that
Kocha treated him over several months in 2025 to determine the cause of his right foot pain and
also prescribed two different pain medications that were ineffective. While these allegations tend
to undermine a deliberate indifference claim, I find that Plaintiff’s allegations that he is still not
receiving pain medication and that Defendant Kocha refused to provide him a cane are sufficient
to allow Plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claim to proceed. Defendant Kocha’s reliance on Crump
v. Coleman No. 20-2084, 2022 WL 1421968 (6th Cir. Jan. 6, 2022), as instructive is misplaced, at
least this juncture, as Crump was decided on summary judgment based on an evidentiary record.
IV. 	Conclusion
For the reasons set forth above, I recommend that the Court adhere to its prior
determination and deny Defendants’ motion to dismiss. (ECF No. 36).
Dated: January 16, 2026 	/s/ Sally J. Berens
SALLY J. BERENS
U.S. Magistrate Judge
NOTICE
OBJECTIONS to this Report and Recommendation must be filed with the Clerk of Court
within 14 days of the date of service of this notice. 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). Failure to file
objections within the specified time waives the right to appeal the District Court’s order. See
Thomas v. Arn, 474 U.S. 140 (1985); United States v. Walters, 638 F.2d 947 (6th Cir. 1981).
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