While he was incarcerated at Woodborne Correctional Facility, Antonio Mallet repeatedly sought medical care for urinary obstruction and painful urination, which are classic symptoms of prostate cancer. While Mallet was referred to a physician for a cystoscopy, the prison doctors failed to conduct any additional testing to investigate the worrisome cystoscopy results or to look further for prostate cancer. Instead, Mallet was prescribed medication to treat a benign enlarged prostate and led to believe that his urinary symptoms would resolve in due course. They did not.
Mallet was released on parole in January 2019. With the opportunity to consult outside medical providers, he was eventually diagnosed with late-stage prostate cancer in May 2021. On February 25, 2022, Mallet sued the State of New York, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (“DOCCS”), Anthony J. Annucci in his official capacity as the acting commissioner of DOCCS, and three medical providers Mallet saw while incarcerated, Dr. Mervat Makram, Dr. Thomas Stellato, and Professor Anthony Ritaccio. Mallet’s complaint alleged deliberate indifference to his medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment, as well as other Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment violations, retaliation, conspiracy, malpractice, and negligence.
Upon motion from 20 the defendants, the district court dismissed the constitutional claims as untimely, reasoning that the deliberate indifference claim must have accrued by the time Mallet was released from custody in January 2019 and, therefore, was not within the three-year statute of limitations for Section 1983 claims in New York State. Having dismissed the constitutional claims, the district court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the remaining state law claims pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1367(c)(3).
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit stated in its January 13, 2025 Opinion: “We find that, based on the facts alleged in the complaint, it is plausible that Mallet’s deliberate indifference claim had not accrued by February 25, 2019, and thus it is also plausible that his complaint was filed within the three-year limitations period. Furthermore, with respect to defendants Dr. Makram and Dr. Stellato, we reject Defendants-Appellees’ argument that the judgment can be affirmed on the alternative ground that the Eighth Amendment claims are implausible. We, however, find that Mallet has failed to state a plausible Eighth Amendment claim against Professor Ritaccio, and we also find that the constitutional claims against New York State, DOCCS, and Annucci acting in his official capacity are barred by sovereign immunity.”
The federal appellate court explained: “Mallet’s deliberate indifference claim could not have accrued until he either knew or had reason to know both (1) that he suffered from an objectively serious medical condition while he was incarcerated and (2) that Defendants-Appellees failed to provide adequate treatment because they consciously disregarded a substantial risk to his health and safety. Put differently, Mallet could not have brought his deliberate indifference claim before he knew or should have known these facts because he would not yet have had a complete and present cause of action.”
“Mallet’s complaint alleges that he neither knew nor should have known that he was suffering from the serious medical condition of prostate cancer until after he was released from custody. When all reasonable inferences are drawn in his favor, this claim is entirely plausible. Indeed, the gravamen of Mallet’s complaint is that none of the medical providers he saw while incarcerated told him that he was exhibiting classic symptoms of prostate cancer or conducted the appropriate screening tests. Thus, although Mallet surely knew that he had some kind of persistent medical problem which the Flomax was not addressing—which, we can only assume, is why he continued to speak with providers about his urinary issues—it is not reasonable to infer that he either knew or should have known that he was suffering from this particular serious medical condition—cancer—when none of the doctors he saw in prison gave him any indication that his condition was possibly cancer … Therefore, it is plausible that his deliberate indifference claim had not accrued by the time he was released from prison.”
“Nonetheless, Mallet’s further claim that he neither knew nor should have known that he had this particular serious medical condition until he was officially diagnosed with prostate cancer in May 2021 is not plausible, considering the other facts alleged in his complaint. For example, Mallet alleges that when he visited the urologist on August 10, 2020, he was found to have an elevated PSA level and was prescribed a new medication to shrink his prostate. And then on April 6, 2021, once that medication also proved ineffective, the urologist conducted a biopsy of his prostate. Thus, Mallet was presumably put on notice that he had this specific serious medical condition related to his prostate issues earlier in the treatment process, before he got the official cancer diagnosis. This means that, based on the facts alleged in the complaint, Mallet’s claim must have accrued at some point after his release in January 2019 but before his diagnosis in the late spring of 2021. Determining the exact accrual date in this context may ultimately be a task for the factfinder … It will depend, most of all, on what exactly Mallet’s post-release providers told him and when they told him. Nonetheless, based on the pleadings alone, we find it entirely plausible that Mallet neither knew nor should have known that his condition was not only serious but potentially cancer until, say, August 2020, when the first PSA test was administered. And if that is so, then it is also plausible that Mallet’s claim was timely, since Mallet’s complaint was filed less than three years after that. Therefore, the motion to dismiss the Eighth Amendment claim as time-barred was improperly granted.”
Source Mallet v. New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, Docket No. 22-2884.
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