EAST ST. LOUIS - District judge Nancy Rosenstengel rejected a woman’s request for indigent status in a lawsuit against doctors and the hospital where she had hip surgery.
Doris Hughes filed a pro se complaint in September naming Jose Raymon, Ryan Hunley, Jeffrey Whiting, Touchette Regional Hospital and Barnes-Jewish Hospital as defendants.
Hughes also filed a request to proceed with her case in forma pauperis and a third motion seeking counsel for her case.
However, in her Nov. 29 order, Rosenstengel wrote that the court found that Hughes didn’t offer a compelling case and denied her motion to proceed in forrma pauperis.
As a result the case was dismissed without prejudice and other pending motions were denied as moot, the order states.
According to Hughes’ complaint, she endured unnecessary pain and suffering when the defendants implanted a defective Stryker artificial hip implant in her during a surgery at Barnes Jewish Hospital in 2009.
Moreover, Hughes also claimed the defendants didn’t try to contact her when Stryker recalled the implants. She alleged that Hunley conducted a second operation at Touchette Regional Hospital and didn’t remove the recalled implant.
Hughes also alleged that the defendants were “acting under the color of state law.”
Hughes does not state a plausible claim for violations of her constitutional rights by persons acting under the color of state law,” Rosenstengel wrote. “None of the facts alleged in her complaint support that conclusion or suggest that these defendants, which are private individuals and entities, might be considered state actors for purposes of Section 1983.”
Citing West v. Atkins, Rosenstengel noted that unless a person’s conduct ”includes some assertion of actual or apparent authority granted by the state, he or she cannot be said to have acted under the color of state law.”
Rosenstengel also wrote that Hughes didn’t make a case for a violation of her constitutional rights.
“None of the facts alleged in her complaint support that conclusion or suggest that these defendants, which are private individuals and entities, might be considered state actors for purposes of Section 1983,” she wrote.
Rosenstengel also noted that Hughes can ask the Seventh Circuit Appellate Court to review the order or she can request the order be reconsidered before appealing to the Seventh Circuit.