Page:United States Reports 546.pdf/366

 546US1

Unit: $U14

[08-22-08 15:39:40] PAGES PGT: OPIN

Cite as: 546 U. S. 151 (2006)

155

Opinion of the Court

visions not relevant here, seeking both injunctive relief and money damages against all defendants. Goodman’s pro se complaint and subsequent ﬁlings in the District Court included many allegations, both grave and trivial, regarding the conditions of his conﬁnement in the Reidsville prison. Among his more serious allegations, he claimed that he was conﬁned for 23-to-24 hours per day in a 12-by-3-foot cell in which he could not turn his wheelchair around. He alleged that the lack of accessible facilities ren­ dered him unable to use the toilet and shower without assist­ ance, which was often denied. On multiple occasions, he as­ serted, he had injured himself in attempting to transfer from his wheelchair to the shower or toilet on his own, and, on several other occasions, he had been forced to sit in his own feces and urine while prison ofﬁcials refused to assist him in cleaning up the waste. He also claimed that he had been denied physical therapy and medical treatment, and denied access to virtually all prison programs and services on ac­ count of his disability. The District Court adopted the Magistrate Judge’s recom­ mendation that the allegations in the complaint were vague and constituted insufﬁcient notice pleading as to Goodman’s § 1983 claims. It therefore dismissed the § 1983 claims against all defendants without providing Goodman an oppor­ tunity to amend his complaint. The District Court also dis­ missed his Title II claims against all individual defendants. Later, after our decision in Garrett, the District Court granted summary judgment to the state defendants on Good­ man’s Title II claims for money damages, holding that those claims were barred by state sovereign immunity. Goodman appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. The United States, petitioner in No. 04–1203, intervened to defend the constitutionality of Title II’s abrogation of state sovereign immunity. The Elev­ enth Circuit determined that the District Court had erred in dismissing all of Goodman’s § 1983 claims, because Goodman’s