Kelvin Sims v. Sherry Lopez

MEMORANDUM

Kelvin Eugene Sims, a California state prisoner, appeals pro se from the district court’s summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging federal and state law claims. 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 on Sims’s Eighth Amendment claim because Sims failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants were deliberately indifferent to his back pain and hemorrhoids. See id, at 1057-58 (a prison official is deliberately indifferent only if he or she knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health; a difference of opinion concerning the course of treatment does not amount to deliberate indifference).

The district court properly granted summary judgment on Sims’s medical malpractice claim because Sims failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants breached the standard of care. See Hutchinson v. United States, 838 F.2d 390, 393 (9th Cir. 1988) (when applying California law in a medical malpractice action, where “the defendant supports his motion for…