Prisoner's Civil Rights Action Survives Dismissal Motion

Skadden secured a decision denying the defendants' motion to dismiss pro bono client Dormouth C.'s claim that 10 Green Haven Correctional Facility officers and guards had coordinated to harass and intimidate him in retaliation for his filing an earlier lawsuit accusing certain Green Haven corrections officers of physically assaulting him. On July 24, Judge Lewis Kaplan of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York held that Mr. C.'s complaint stated a legally sufficient First Amendment retaliation claim, and the judge therefore sustained Mr. C.'s objection to Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox's recommendation that claims against six defendants be dismissed. The court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss in all respects, holding that Mr. C. "is entitled to discovery concerning exactly what, if anything, transpired among some or all of the defendants that allegedly led from his being an inmate with a clean disciplinary record to the target of the repeated adverse actions alleged."