Marcus Ward v. Sherman Champen

MEMORANDUM

California state prisoner Marcus Benjamin Ward appeals pro se from the district court’s summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 . We review de novo. Toguchi v. Chung, 391 F.3d 1051, 1056 (9th Cir.2004). We affirm.

The district court properly granted summary judgment because Ward failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants were deliberately indifferent to his shoulder pain. See id. at 1057-58 (a prison official is deliberately indifferent only if he or she knows of and disregards an excessive risk to an inmate’s health and safety; neither negligence in diagnosing or treating a medical need, nor a prisoner’s difference of opinion concerning the course of treatment, amounts to deliberate indifference).

The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Ward’s motion for a continuance of summary judgment because Ward failed to identify particular facts he hoped to discover to raise a genuine dispute of material fact. See Hancock v. Montgomery Ward Long Term Disability Trust, 787 F.2d 1302 , 1306 & n. 1 (9th Cir.1986)…