Opinion
No. 13-17661
12-04-2014
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
D.C. No. 3:12-cv-01058-JST MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Jon S. Tigar, District Judge, Presiding
Before: LEAVY, FISHER, and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
California state prisoner Arthur Gaspard appeals pro se from the district court's summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights by failing to protect him from an inmate assault. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, Toguchi v. Chung, 391 F.3d 1051, 1056 (9th Cir. 2004), and we affirm.
The district court properly granted summary judgment because Gaspard failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm to Gaspard when they determined that he was eligible for a cellmate. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994) (holding that "a prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment . . . unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate . . . safety"); see also Estate of Ford v. Ramirez-Palmer, 301 F.3d 1043, 1051 (9th Cir. 2002) (while prison officials' decisions to double-cell the inmates "turned out [to] be quite unfortunate judgments," it could not be said that a reasonable officer would have clearly understood the "risk of serious harm was so high" that the inmates should not have been double-celled).
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Gaspard's discovery motions because Gaspard failed to show how the requested discovery was relevant to defeat summary judgment or that the denial caused substantial prejudice. See Preminger v. Peake, 552 F.3d 757, 768, n.10 (9th Cir. 2008) (setting forth standard of review).
We reject Gaspard's requests to void the judgment under Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(b), enter summary judgment in his favor, and grant him the relief he sought in his lodged Second Amended Complaint.
All pending motions are denied.
AFFIRMED.