Summary
affirming summary judgment for defendants on prisoner's excessive force claim where video recording showed prisoner did not comply with prison officials' orders to exit his cell and submit to restraints
Summary of this case from Brown v. Cnty. of San BernardinoOpinion
No. 13-16981
12-12-2014
MICHAEL GADDY, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. E.B. SHERMAN, Lieutenant; et al., Defendants - Appellees.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION
D.C. No. 4:11-cv-05568-PJH MEMORANDUM Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Phyllis J. Hamilton, District Judge, Presiding
Before: Gould, Berzon, and Bea, Circuit Judges
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by 9th Cir. R. 36-3.
California state prisoner Michael Gaddy appeals pro se from the district court's summary judgment for prison officials in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging excessive force and retaliation. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo, Furnace v. Sullivan, 705 F.3d 1021, 1026 (9th Cir. 2013), and we affirm.
The district court properly granted summary judgment on Gaddy's excessive force claim because Gaddy failed to raise a triable dispute as to whether defendants applied force maliciously and sadistically for the purpose of causing harm. Whatever precipitated the decision to search Gaddy's cell, the video recording documents that Gaddy did not comply with the Defendants' orders to exit his cell and submit to restraints. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994); Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 320-21 (1986) (the core judicial inquiry is whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically to cause harm); see also Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 378-80 (2007) ("when opposing parties tell two different stories, one of which is blatantly contradicted by the record [a video recording of the incident], so that no reasonable jury could believe it, a court should not adopt that version of the facts for purposes of ruling on a motion for summary judgment.")
The district court properly granted summary judgment on Gaddy's retaliation claims because Gaddy failed to contradict by admissible evidence defendants' evidence that Gaddy and his cellmate had impermissibly covered the windows of their cell on the day of the extractions, obstructing guards' view of their cell. Gaddy also failed to contradict by admissible evidence that his television was confiscated because of his unpermitted modification of his television. See Brodheim v. Cry, 584 F.3d 1262, 1269 (9th Cir. 2009) (to prevail on a retaliation claim, a prisoner must show that the protected conduct was the substantial or motivating factor behind the defendant's conduct).
AFFIRMED.