Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Andrew Lopez, an inmate who was housed at Pelican Bay State Prison’s Restricted Custody General Population unit, sued six correctional officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming they retaliated against him for filing grievances and complaint letters. Lopez, described in the record as a frequent grievance-filer and “jailhouse lawyer,” alleged that between May 2020 and May 2021 officers Cupp, Hamner, Cross, Lee, Brewer, and Davis repeatedly cut short or denied his phone calls, forced him to choose between yard time and phone time, rescheduled his showers to inconvenient times, and withheld dayroom and out-of-cell time — telling him and other inmates, on various occasions, to “keep filing” or that restrictions existed because he “602ed” (filed a grievance) about phone access.
After screening, the court allowed Lopez’s First Amendment retaliation claims (and a related California Bane Act claim) to proceed on a specific list of dated incidents tied to each defendant. Both sides then moved for summary judgment: Lopez argued the undisputed record already proved retaliation, while the defendant officers argued that any limits on his privileges were simply the product of neutral prison policy — pandemic-era scheduling, staffing shortages, security concerns, and rules barring phone use during work hours — not payback for his grievances. Defendants also argued several incidents were never properly grieved and therefore not exhausted under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, and that they were entitled to qualified immunity. Lopez separately asked the court to sanction defendants for failing to preserve other inmates’ phone, yard, and privilege records.
The Court’s Holding
U.S. District Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. denied every motion before him. On exhaustion, the court applied the Ninth Circuit’s “continuing-violations doctrine” (recently reaffirmed in Sheltra v. Jay Christensen) and held that Lopez’s string of grievances against defendant Lee describing an ongoing pattern of denied showers, phone calls, and out-of-cell time was enough to exhaust later incidents of the same type of conduct, even though no single grievance named every later date. The court rejected defendants’ argument that different policies governing phones, showers, and COVID-era scheduling broke the chain — the grievances, taken together, put the prison on notice of a single ongoing course of conduct.
On the merits, the court found genuine disputes of material fact on nearly every defendant and every incident. The parties agreed Lopez’s grievance activity was protected conduct and that losing phone, yard, shower, or dayroom access would chill an inmate’s speech — the fight was over causation (did officers act because of his grievances?) and penological justification (was it really just neutral policy?). Because Lopez presented specific, dated statements from officers linking the restrictions directly to his filing activity (e.g., being told to “keep filing” right before losing privileges, or officers announcing restrictions to other inmates “because” of Lopez’s grievances), a reasonable jury could credit his version over the defendants’ declarations that the same actions were neutral applications of policy. That fact dispute also defeated qualified immunity: the law that prison officials cannot use a facially valid procedure as a pretext to punish an inmate for grievance activity was already clearly established under Ninth Circuit precedent.
The spoliation request fared no better for Lopez. The court had already ruled in earlier discovery disputes that other inmates’ phone and privilege records had limited relevance, so Lopez could not show the destroyed or unlocated records were relevant to his claims or that defendants failed to preserve them with a culpable state of mind — two of the three elements required for sanctions under the Zubulake spoliation framework. With no motion resolving the case, the court referred the matter to a magistrate judge for mandatory settlement proceedings under the Pro Se Prisoner Mediation Program and stayed the case pending that referral.
Key Takeaways
- A prisoner’s series of grievances describing an ongoing pattern of mistreatment can exhaust later, related incidents under the Ninth Circuit’s continuing-violations doctrine, even without a separate grievance for each specific date.
- On summary judgment, a prison official’s own words — telling an inmate to “keep filing” or announcing a restriction is tied to someone’s grievance — can create a jury question on retaliatory motive even where the official also offers a neutral, policy-based explanation.
- Qualified immunity does not shield officials merely because the underlying privilege (a single missed shower, one lost phone call) is minor; the clearly-established question is whether a facially valid rule was used as a pretext to punish protected conduct.
- Spoliation sanctions require more than a missing or undestroyed record — the moving party must still show the record was relevant and that the opposing party acted with a culpable state of mind in failing to preserve it.
- Cross-motions for summary judgment in pro se prisoner civil rights cases frequently both fail where the record is built on competing declarations about intent; such cases are routinely pushed toward mandatory settlement conferences rather than immediate trial scheduling.
Why It Matters
This order is a useful illustration of how First Amendment retaliation claims by incarcerated plaintiffs actually get resolved at the summary judgment stage: courts do not decide whose story is true, they ask only whether a reasonable jury could believe the plaintiff’s version. Here, the officers’ own alleged statements linking restrictions to Lopez’s grievance activity — rather than any lack of a legitimate-sounding policy — were enough to send multiple claims to trial (or, more immediately, to a mandatory settlement conference). For correctional staff and institutions, the case underscores that neutral policies and security rationales will not insulate individual officers if there is evidence those rules were selectively invoked or verbally tied to an inmate’s protected grievance activity.
The decision also reinforces that the continuing-violations doctrine gives pro se prisoners meaningful running room on PLRA exhaustion: a pattern of grievances about the same type of ongoing conduct, by the same official, can carry forward to cover later incidents without a fresh grievance for each one. Combined with the court’s narrow approach to spoliation sanctions — relevance and culpability still matter, availability of a record is not enough — the opinion offers a fairly complete roadmap for how these fact-heavy prisoner retaliation disputes are litigated and why they so often end up in mediation rather than early dismissal.