Opinion
No. 13-16968
02-02-2015
DALE R. STEIN, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. G. WOODS, DDS; et al., Defendants - Appellees.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
D.C. No. 3:11-cv-01243-JSW MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Jeffrey S. White, District Judge, Presiding
Before: CANBY, GOULD, and N.R. SMITH, Circuit Judges.
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
Dale R. Stein, a California state prisoner, appeals pro se from the district court's summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging deliberate indifference to his serious dental 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), and we affirm.
The district court properly granted summary judgment because Stein failed to raise a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants were deliberately indifferent to his dental problems and associated pain. See id. at 1057-58 (a prison official acts with deliberate indifference only if he or she knows of and disregards an excessive risk to the prisoner's health and safety; negligence and a mere difference in medical opinion are insufficient); Jackson v. Mcintosh, 90 F.3d 330, 332 (9th Cir. 1996) (to establish that a difference of opinion amounted to deliberate indifference, a prisoner "must show that the course of treatment the doctors chose was medically unacceptable under the circumstances" and "that they chose this course in conscious disregard of an excessive risk to [the prisoner's] health"); see also Peralta v. Dillard, 744 F.3d 1076, 1086-88 (9th Cir. 2014) (en banc) (official whose only role was reviewing internal appeal does not act with deliberate indifference absent knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm).
AFFIRMED.