ERICKSON v. PARDUS et al.

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89 OCTOBER TERM, 2006
Per Curiam
ERICKSON v. PARDUS et al.
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the tenth circuit
No. 06–7317. Decided June 4, 2007
Petitioner filed suit alleging that respondents, Colorado prison officials,
violated the Eighth Amendment when they terminated his hepatitis C
treatment program, with life-threatening consequences. The District
Court granted respondents’ motion to dismiss, and the Tenth Circuit
affirmed, holding that petitioner’s allegations were too conclusory to es
tablish for pleading purposes that he had suffered a cognizable inde
pendent harm from the termination.
Held: Petitioner’s case cannot be dismissed on the ground that his harm
allegations were too conclusory to put these matters in issue. The com
plaint—which contains allegations that the decision to remove petitioner
from his medication endangered his life, that the medication was with
held shortly after he had commenced a 1-year treatment program, that
he still needed the treatment, and that the prison officials were refusing
it—was enough to satisfy Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2), which
requires only “a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the
pleader is entitled to relief.” Petitioner, in addition, bolstered his claim
with more specific allegations in documents attached to the complaint
and in later filings. The Tenth Circuit’s departure from Rule 8(a)(2)’s
liberal pleading requirements is especially pronounced here, where peti
tioner has been proceeding, from the litigation’s outset, without counsel.
Whether the complaint is sufficient in all respects is yet to be deter
mined, for respondents have raised multiple arguments in their motion
to dismiss.
Certiorari granted; 198 Fed. Appx. 694, vacated and remanded.
Per Curiam.
Imprisoned by the State of Colorado and alleging viola
tions of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment protections
against cruel and unusual punishment, William Erickson, the
petitioner in this Court, filed suit against prison officials in
the United States District Court for the District of Colorado.
He alleged that a liver condition resulting from hepatitis C
required a treatment program that officials had commenced

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but then wrongfully terminated, with life-threatening conse
quences. Deeming these allegations, and others to be noted,
to be “conclusory,” the Court of Appeals for the Tenth Cir
cuit affirmed the District Court’s dismissal of petitioner’s
complaint. 198 Fed. Appx. 694, 698 (2006). The holding de
parts in so stark a manner from the pleading standard man
dated by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that we grant
review. We vacate the court’s judgment and remand the
case for further consideration.
Petitioner was incarcerated in the Limon Correctional Fa
cility in Limon, Colorado, where respondents Barry Pardus
and Dr. Anita Bloor were working as prison officials. After
Dr. Bloor removed petitioner from the hepatitis C treatment
he had been receiving, petitioner sued under Rev. Stat.
§ 1979, 42 U. S. C. § 1983, complaining, inter alia, that
Dr. Bloor had violated his Eighth Amendment rights by
demonstrating deliberate indifference to his serious medical
needs. See, e. g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U. S. 97, 104–105
(1976) (“[D]eliberate indifference to serious medical needs of
prisoners constitutes the unnecessary and wanton infliction
of pain . . . proscribed by the Eighth Amendment,” and this
includes “indifference . . . manifested by prison doctors in
their response to the prisoner’s needs or by prison guards
in intentionally denying or delaying access to medical care
or intentionally interfering with the treatment once pre
scribed” (footnotes and internal quotation marks omitted));
see also Helling v. McKinney, 509 U. S. 25, 35–37 (1993).
Petitioner based his claim on the following allegations,
which we assume to be true for purposes of review here:
Officials at Colorado’s Department of Corrections (De
partment) diagnosed petitioner as requiring treatment for
hepatitis C. After completing the necessary classes and
otherwise complying with the protocols set forth by the
Department, petitioner began treatment for the disease.
The treatment, which would take a year to complete, in
volved weekly self-injections of medication by use of a sy

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ringe. Soon after petitioner began this treatment, prison
officials were unable to account for one of the syringes made
available to petitioner (and other prisoners) for medical
purposes. Upon searching, they found it in a communal
trash can, modified in a manner suggestive of use for injec
tion of illegal drugs. Prisoner Complaint in Civ. Action
No. 05–CV–00405–LTB–MJW (D. Colo.), p. 3 (hereinafter
Petitioner’s Complaint).
Prison officials, disbelieving petitioner’s claim not to have
taken the syringe, found that his conduct constituted a vio
lation of the Colorado Code of Penal Discipline for possession
of drug paraphernalia. Letter from Anthony A. DeCesaro
to William Erickson (Sept. 30, 2004), attached to Petitioner’s
Complaint. This conduct, according to the officials, led to
the “reasonable inference” that petitioner had intended to
use drugs, so the officials removed petitioner from his hepati
tis C treatment. Ibid. “The successful treatment of Hepa
titis C is incumbent upon the individual remaining drug and
alcohol free to give the liver a better chance of recovery,”
they indicated, ibid., an explanation they later offered to de
fend against petitioner’s allegations of cruel and unusual
punishment, see Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss in Civ. Ac
tion No. 05–CV–00405–LTB–MJW, p. 10. Assuming that a
person in the course of this treatment takes illicit drugs,
the prison’s protocol mandates a waiting period of one year
followed by a mandatory drug education class lasting six
months. Brief in Opposition 4. Petitioner therefore could
face a delay of some 18 months before he would be able to
restart treatment.
In his complaint petitioner alleged Dr. Bloor had “removed
[him] from [his] hepatitis C treatment” in violation of Depart
ment protocol, “thus endangering [his] life.” Petitioner’s
Complaint 2. Petitioner attached to the complaint certain
grievance forms. In these he claimed, among other things,
he was suffering from “continued damage to [his] liver” as a
result of the nontreatment. Colorado Dept. of Corrections

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Offender Grievance Form (June 30, 2004). The complaint
requested relief including damages and an injunction requir
ing that the Department treat petitioner for hepatitis C
“under the standards of the treatment [protocol] established
by [the Department].” Petitioner’s Complaint 8.
Three months after filing his complaint, and well before
the District Court entered a judgment against him, peti
tioner filed a Motion for Expedited Review Due to Imminent
Danger in Civ. Action No. 05–B–405 (MJW) (D. Colo.). Indi
cating it was “undisputed” that he had hepatitis C, that he
met the Department’s standards for treatment of the disease,
and that “furtherance of this disease can cause irreversible
damage to [his] liver and possible death,” petitioner alleged
that “numerous inmates” in his prison community had died
of the disease and that he was “in imminent danger” himself
“due to [the Department’s] refusal to treat him.” Ibid. He
had identified similar allegations in an earlier filing, explain
ing that “his liver is suffering irreversible damage” due to
the decision to remove him from treatment and that he “will
suffer irreparable damage if his disease goes untreated.”
Plaintiff ’s Objections to the Magistrate’s Recommendations
in Civ. Action No. 05–CV–00405–LTB–MJW (Feb. 27, 2005),
p. 3.
Respondents answered these filings with a motion to dis
miss. The Magistrate Judge recommended, as relevant, that
the District Court dismiss the complaint on the ground it
failed to allege Dr. Bloor’s actions had caused petitioner
“substantial harm.” Recommendation on Defendants’ Mo
tion to Dismiss (Feb. 9, 2006), p. 12. The District Court
issued a short order indicating its agreement with the Mag
istrate Judge and dismissing the complaint.
The Court of Appeals affirmed. It quoted extensively
from the Magistrate Judge’s discussion of “substantial harm”
before holding that petitioner had made “only conclusory
allegations to the effect that he has suffered a cognizable
independent harm as a result of his removal from the [hep

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atitis C] treatment program.” 198 Fed. Appx., at 698. Ac
knowledging decisions by courts that have found Eighth
Amendment violations when delays in medical treatment
have involved “life-threatening situations and instances in
which it is apparent that delay would exacerbate the prison
er’s medical problems” (and that have, moreover, indicated
the Eighth Amendment “protects against future harm to an
inmate”), id., at 697 (internal quotation marks omitted), the
court nevertheless found petitioner’s complaint deficient:
Petitioner had, according to the court, failed to “allege that
as a result of the discontinuance of the treatment itself
shortly after it began or the interruption of treatment for
approximately eighteen months he suffered any harm, let
alone substantial harm, [other] than what he already faced
from the Hepatitis C itself,” id., at 698 (internal quotation
marks omitted). Having reached this conclusion, the court
saw no need to address whether the complaint alleged facts
sufficient to support a finding that Dr. Bloor had made her
decisions with a “sufficiently culpable state of mind.” Id.,
at 697, 698 (internal quotation marks omitted).
It may in the final analysis be shown that the District
Court was correct to grant respondents’ motion to dismiss.
That is not the issue here, however. It was error for the
Court of Appeals to conclude that the allegations in question,
concerning harm caused petitioner by the termination of his
medication, were too conclusory to establish for pleading
purposes that petitioner had suffered “a cognizable inde
pendent harm” as a result of his removal from the hepatitis
C treatment program. Id., at 698.
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2) requires only “a
short and plain statement of the claim showing that the
pleader is entitled to relief.” Specific facts are not neces
sary; the statement need only “ ‘give the defendant fair no
tice of what the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it
rests.’ ” Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U. S. 544, 555
(2007) (quoting Conley v. Gibson, 355 U. S. 41, 47 (1957)). In

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addition, when ruling on a defendant’s motion to dismiss, a
judge must accept as true all of the factual allegations con
tained in the complaint. Bell Atlantic Corp., supra, at 555–
556 (citing Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N. A., 534 U. S. 506, 508,
n. 1 (2002); Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U. S. 319, 327 (1989);
Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U. S. 232, 236 (1974)).
The complaint stated that Dr. Bloor’s decision to remove
petitioner from his prescribed hepatitis C medication was
“endangering [his] life.” Petitioner’s Complaint 2. It al
leged this medication was withheld “shortly after” petitioner
had commenced a treatment program that would take one
year, that he was “still in need of treatment for this disease,”
and that the prison officials were in the meantime refusing
to provide treatment. Id., at 3, 4. This alone was enough
to satisfy Rule 8(a)(2). Petitioner, in addition, bolstered his
claim by making more specific allegations in documents
attached to the complaint and in later filings.
The Court of Appeals’ departure from the liberal pleading
standards set forth by Rule 8(a)(2) is even more pronounced
in this particular case because petitioner has been proceed
ing, from the litigation’s outset, without counsel. A docu
ment filed pro se is “to be liberally construed,” Estelle, 429
U. S., at 106, and “a pro se complaint, however inartfully
pleaded, must be held to less stringent standards than formal
pleadings drafted by lawyers,” ibid. (internal quotation
marks omitted). Cf. Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 8(f) (“All pleadings
shall be so construed as to do substantial justice”).
Whether petitioner’s complaint is sufficient in all respects
is a matter yet to be determined, for respondents raised mul
tiple arguments in their motion to dismiss. In particular,
the proper application of the controlling legal principles to
the facts is yet to be determined. The case cannot, however,
be dismissed on the ground that petitioner’s allegations of
harm were too conclusory to put these matters in issue.
Certiorari and leave to proceed in forma pauperis are
granted, the judgment of the Court of Appeals is vacated,

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Thomas, J., dissenting
and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Justice Scalia would deny the petition for a writ of
certiorari.
Justice Thomas, dissenting.
I have repeatedly stated that the Eighth Amendment’s
prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment historically
concerned only injuries relating to a criminal sentence.
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U. S. 825, 861 (1994) (opinion concur
ring in judgment); Helling v. McKinney, 509 U. S. 25, 42
(1993) (dissenting opinion); Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U. S.
1, 18–20 (1992) (same). But even applying the Court’s
flawed Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, “I would draw the
line at actual, serious injuries and reject the claim that expo
sure to the risk of injury can violate the Eighth Amend
ment.” Helling, supra, at 42 (Thomas, J., dissenting).
Consistent with these views, I would affirm the judgment of
the Court of Appeals. I respectfully dissent.