Ossie Giles v. Ron Davis

NOT FOR PUBLICATION
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
OSSIE GILES,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
RON DAVIS; G. FORNCROOK, A.W.; J.
ARNOLD, Cpt.; R. SHELTON, Lt.; J.
SANGMASTER, Sgt.; A. MAXFIELD,
CC2; Y. SAMARA, CDO; R.
BLOOMFIELD, A.W.,
Defendants-Appellees,
F. JAUGAN, C.O.; J. CARTWRIGHT, C.O.;
M. VOONG, C.O.A.; R. PEARL,
Psychologist,
Defendants-Appellees,
and
M. NELSON,
Defendant.
No. 21-15466
D.C. No. 4:18-cv-07466-YGR
MEMORANDUM*
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of California
Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, District Judge, Presiding
* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
FILED
JAN 9 2023
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

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Submitted January 5, 2023**
San Francisco, California
Before: HAWKINS, S.R. THOMAS, and McKEOWN, Circuit Judges.
Ossie Giles, a California state prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the district
court’s order granting summary judgment for the defendants in his 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 action alleging that prison officials violated his First, Eighth, and
Fourteenth Amendment rights. We review the district court’s determination that
Giles failed to exhaust administrative remedies and the district court’s grant of
summary judgment de novo, Nunez v. Duncan, 591 F.3d 1217, 1222 (9th Cir.
2010), and we may affirm on any ground supported by the record, Simmons v. G.
Arnett, 47 F.4th 927, 932 (9th Cir. 2022). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1291, and we affirm.
The district court properly dismissed Giles’s claim that prison officials
denied his grievance appeals in violation of his First Amendment rights. The
Prison Litigation Reform Act requires prisoners to “exhaust such administrative
remedies as are available” before filing a complaint in federal court. Merchant v.
Corizon Health, Inc., 993 F.3d 733, 742 (9th Cir. 2021) (internal quotation marks
omitted). By Giles’s own admission, he did not exhaust administrative remedies
** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

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on this claim.
The district court properly granted summary judgment on Giles’s First
Amendment claim based on allegations that prison officials retaliated against him
for filing a grievance against a correctional officer. A prisoner asserting a
retaliation claim must show that prison officials took an adverse action against him
because of his protected conduct, that the adverse action chilled his “exercise of his
First Amendment rights,” and that “the action did not reasonably advance a
legitimate correctional goal.” Shepard v. Quillen, 840 F.3d 686, 688 (9th Cir.
2016) (quoting Rhodes v. Robinson, 408 F.3d 559, 567–68 (9th Cir. 2005)). Giles
did not submit evidence indicating that the prison officials knew about his
grievance or evidence linking the prison officials’ conduct to the grievance. He
therefore cannot show that the prison officials took adverse action against him
because he filed the grievance.
The district court also properly granted summary judgment on Giles’s
Eighth Amendment claims related to his placement in administrative segregation
and the alleged failure of prison officials to correct falsities in the rules violation
report that resulted in his placement in administrative segregation. Giles asserts
that he suffered from anxiety and sleep deprivation because of his time in
administrative segregation. But Giles cannot establish an Eighth Amendment
claim based on his conditions of confinement because he provided no evidence that

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his time in administrative segregation “involve[d] the wanton and unnecessary
infliction of pain” or was “devoid of legitimate penological purpose.” Morgan v.
Morgensen, 465 F.3d 1041, 1045 (9th Cir. 2006). Further, Giles cannot show that
prison officials acted with deliberate indifference by failing to correct the rules
violation report because he provided no evidence that prison officials knew of his
anxiety and sleep deprivation or that they knew placing him in administrative
segregation posed “an excessive risk to [his] health and safety.” See Colwell v.
Bannister, 763 F.3d 1060, 1066 (9th Cir. 2014) (quoting Toguchi v. Chung, 391
F.3d 1051, 1057 (9th Cir. 2004)).
Finally, the district court properly granted summary judgment on Giles’s due
process claims related to his placement in administrative segregation and the
alleged failure of prison officials to correct falsities in the rules violation report that
resulted in his placement in administrative segregation. “[T]o analyze a procedural
due process claim, we engage in a two-step analysis: First, we determine whether
the inmate was deprived of a constitutionally protected liberty or property interest.
Second, we examine whether that deprivation was accompanied by sufficient
procedural protections.” Johnson v. Ryan, No. 20-15293, _ F. 4th _, 2022 WL
17686048, at *7 (9th Cir. 2022). Here, Giles cannot show that he was deprived of
a protected liberty interest by being placed in administrative segregation because
he did not provide evidence that administrative segregation “impose[d] atypical

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and significant hardship on [him] in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison
life.” See id. Similarly, as to his claim related to the allegedly falsified rules
violation report, Giles presented no evidence that prison officials deprived him of
any constitutionally required process. He provided only conclusory assertions that
prison officials knew the information in the rules report violation was false, which
is insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact. See Hansen v. United
States, 7 F.3d 137, 138 (9th Cir. 1993) (per curiam).
AFFIRMED.

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