Brian Dent v. D. Silbaugh
Opinion
Opinion
MEMORANDUM
Brian Keith Dent, a prisoner at the California Medical Facility, appeals pro se from the district court’s summary judgment and order denying Dent’s motion to alter or amend judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that defendant Mur-thy filed a rules violation report against him in retaliation for Dent’s efforts to avoid a transfer to a different level of psychiatric care and for a grievance Dent helped file against Murthy. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We review de novo a grant of summary judgment, Beene v. Terhune, 380 F.3d 1149, 1150 (9th Cir.2004), and review for an abuse of discretion the denial of a motion to alter or amend a judgment, Duarte v. Bardales, 526 F.3d 563, 567 (9th Cir.2008). We affirm.
The district court properly granted summary judgment because the undisputed facts establish that the rules violation report filed by Murthy was related to a legitimate correctional goal and not retaliatory. See Pratt v. Rowland, 65 F.3d 802, 806 (9th Cir.1995) (“The plaintiff [in a prisoner retaliation case] bears the burden of pleading and proving the absence of legitimate correctional goals for the conduct of which he complains.”).