Opinion
Civil Action No. 00-1468, Section "K" (2)
February 26, 2002
ORDER AND REASONS
Before the Court is defendants' motion for summary judgment (rec. doc 79) with respect to plaintiff's claims wherein he alleges violation of the Eighth amendment resulting from defendant's failure to protect him from fellow inmate, Jody Duplechain. Sargent Master Wilton Lebo, Sargent Donnie Seal, and Sargent Christine Moses are named as defendants in this case. For the reasons that follow, defendants' motion is GRANTED as to Sargent Master Lebo and Sargent Seal and DENIED as to Sargent Moses.
BACKGROUND
The plaintiff, Steven Gallagher, is an inmate at Washington Correctional Institute ("WCI") in Angie, Louisiana. Gallagher filed a pro se complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging his Eighth Amendment rights were violated when prison guards failed to protect him in two separate attacks by inmate Robert Odom in May 2000 and inmate Jody Duplechain in June 2000.
Sargent Master Lebo and Sargent Donnie Seal are being sued for the alleged "Robert Odom" incident (an incident outside the scope of this motion for summary judgment).
Defendants answered and asserted qualified immunity as one of their affirmative defenses. On May 30, 2001. defendants filed their first motion for summary judgment and claimed that plaintiff had failed to exhaust administrative remedies concerning his failure to protect claim involving inmate Robert Odom. That motion has since been denied without prejudice, to be reurged, if necessary. after further discovery. While the first motion was pending, defendants filed a second motion for summary judgment with respect to plaintiff's remaining failure to protect claim involving inmate Jody Duplechain. On October 31, 2001, this Court ordered plaintiff to file a Schultea Reply with respect to each defendant and denied defendants' motion without prejudice. Plaintiff filed his Shultea reply (rec. doc. 78) on November 16, 2001 and defendants re-urged their motion for summary judgment on January 10, 2002 (rec. doc. 79).
See this Court's order of July 12, 2001.
LAW AND APPLICATION I. Failure to Protect under the Eighth Amendment
Under the Eighth Amendment, prison officials have a duty to protect inmates from violence by other inmates and to take reasonable measures to protect their safety. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832-33, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 1976-77, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994); Hare v. City of Corinth, 74 F.3d 633, 650 (5th Cir. 1996). A prison official violates the Eighth Amendment when two requirements are met. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. at 1977, 128 L.Ed.2d 811. First, the failure to protect from harm must be sufficiently serious, which means that the inmate must show he was as incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm. Id. Second, the prison official must have acted with a deliberate indifference to inmate health or safety. Id. Deliberate indifference means that a prison official is liable only if he knows that the inmate faces a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 847, 114 S.Ct. at 1984, 128 L.Ed.2d 811. The official must be aware of facts from which the inference can be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists and he must also draw that inference. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837, 114 S.Ct. at 1979, 128 L.Ed.2d 811.
II. Qualified Immunity and the Schultea Reply
As prison guards, defendants are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. See Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 561, 98 S.Ct. 855, 859, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978); Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 32-33, 103 S.Ct. 1625, 1628, 75 L.Ed.2d 632 (1983). Qualified immunity shields government officials from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818. 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Qualified immunity analysis involves a two-step process. First, the court examines whether the plaintiff has alleged a violation of a clearly established constitutional right. Shipp v. McMahon, 234 F.3d 907, 911 (5th Cir. 2000). Next, the Court must determine whether the official's conduct was objectively reasonable at the time of the incident. Id. at 912. Objective reasonableness is a matter of law for the courts to decide. Mangieri v. Clifton, 29 F.3d 1012, 1016 (5th Cir. 1994).
The Fifth Circuit has held that when a defendant raises the defense of qualified immunity in his answer, a district court may order the plaintiff to file a Rule 7(a) "Schultea reply" tailored to the defense of qualified immunity. Schultea, 47 F.3d at 1433-34. Resolving the issue of qualified immunity will ordinarily require a Schultea reply, and a court's discretion not to order such a reply is very narrow when greater detail might assist. Schultea, 47 F.3d at 1434; Morin v. Caire, 77 F.3d 116, 121 (5th Cir. 1996). In the reply. plaintiff must articulate the specific conduct and action giving rise to a constitutional violation. Id. Furthermore, the reply must support the plaintiff's claim with sufficient precision and factual specificity to raise a genuine issue as to the illegality of the defendants' conduct at the time of the alleged acts. Schultea, 47 F.3d at 1434. The reply is evaluated under a heightened pleading standard. Baker v. Putnal, 75 F.3d 190, 195 (5th Cir. 1996).
III. Application to Defendants Lebo and Seal
In this Court's October 31, 2001 order, the Court explained that plaintiff's allegations against Lebo and Seal concerning the Duplechain incident were vague. While plaintiff had contended that both defendants (1) ordered his alleged assault and told Duplechain, "if you get a chance, hit him in the head" and (2) stood "in front of [his] cell and [said] different things . . .," presumably negative remarks, the Court needed more detail to make a competent determination as to whether plaintiff had asserted a cause of action against them. Therefore, the Court ordered the plaintiff to file a Schultea Reply pleading with sufficient particularity facts indicating: (1) a substantial risk of serious harm existed, (2) that defendants Lebo and Seal were individually aware of that risk, (3) that they failed to abate the risk, and (4) that they were unreasonable in their conduct. However, plaintiff's Shultea reply barely mentioned Lebo and Seal and did not contain any meaningful expansion as to their conduct such that the defense of qualified immunity would not apply. Without additional specific to implicate defendants Lebo and Seal, plaintiff's claims against them pertaining to the Duplechain incident are DISMISSED.
Exactly who made that comment is hard to decipher based on the plaintiff's Spears testimony.
IV. Application to Defendant Moses
During the second Spears hearing, plaintiff recited his version of events as it related to Sgt. Moses' involvement in the alleged assault by Jody Duplechain. Plaintiff testified that Sgt. Moses escorted the prisoners during transfers from the medical department to "Sleet Lockdown," and asserted that she left the view of the inmates while she unlocked a gate. It is plaintiff's contention that while she was away, Jody Duplechain hit the him on the head with something like a rock.
Plaintiff further testified that (1) he reported to Sargent Moses on the way to the infirmary that, "I was having problems with [Duplechain] and that I wanted someone else to push me [in the wheelchair], and she just told me to shut up, and told Sgt. Moses that "these problems have been persisting and I do not trust Jody Duplechain," (2) Duplechain began making threats when they first arrived at the infirmary, and that he believed Sgt. Moses heard these threats "because she was right there, but she was acting like she didn't hear anything. . . . That's what made it look suspicious," (3) Duplechain had threatened him stating that "if I ever got out of the wheelchair, he was going to put me back in it, that he was going to cripple me for life [and that] I better not write no more A.R.Ps, no more complaints" and he responded to Duplechain saying "I'm not just going to let them do anything they want to me just because I'm crippled and in a cell," and (4) the incident looked "even more suspicious" because Sgt. Moses "turned around and wrote up a disciplinary report on me. . . . Even though my head was bleeding, she said that I lied about everything" and that action was an indication to plaintiff that she "knew more than she wanted to know, [and] she was just trying to protect herself because she didn't protect me and my head got split open."
ARP stands for Administrative Remedy Procedure.
Although plaintiff's Spears testimony provided much detail with-respect to Sargent Moses, given the Court's narrow discretion to settle the qualified immunity issue without ordering a Schultea Reply. the Court ordered the plaintiff to file a Schultea Reply, disclosing any additional facts that may be helpful. After considering the plaintiff's prior statements together with his Schultea Reply. the Court finds with respect to Sargent Moses, genuine issues of material fact that must be resolved at trial. The motion for summary judgment as to defendant Moses therefore is DENIED.
First, given evidence of a bleeding abrasion on plaintiff s head shortly after the time of the alleged assault. a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Duplechain assaulted plaintiff, causing the abrasion. Although the doctor examining plaintiff could not determine, from a medical standpoint, what the source of the abrasion was, a jury could reasonably conclude that the injury occurred as explained in plaintiff's narrative of events. Also, two witnesses state they saw Duplechain hit plaintiff; and although an issue exists as to the witnesses credibility, this Court will not make such credibility determinations at the summary judgment level.
Second, given the fact that Sgt. Moses was escorting plaintiff and his alleged attacker, Jodi Duplechain, at about the time of the alleged assault, a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether she overheard any exchange between the plaintiff and Duplechain prior to the alleged attack that would have made him aware that a substantial risk of serious harm existed. Third, given the prior disciplinary reports filed by the plaintiff, a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Sgt. Moses knew of plaintiff's troubled history with inmate orderlies, such that it would have been unreasonable to disregard the risk to the plaintiff. Finally, after the incident Sgt. Moses wrote a disciplinary report on plaintiff for theft by fraud and that course of action invites inquiry as to her intent and possible bias against plaintiff — especially in light of the fact that plaintiff was brought to an infirmary based on his version of events.
The plaintiff also contends that "Sleet Lockdown," the unit in which he was housed, is a protective custody unit. Whether the plaintiff was being housed under protective custody is also a genuine issue of material fact. If true, that fact could support a finding that Sargent Moses was aware that threats made to the plaintiff were substantial in nature.
In Farmer, the Supreme Court stated:
Whether a prison official had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence. . . . and a factfinder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious.Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 842, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 1981, 128 L.Ed.2d 811.
In Smith v. Brenoettsy, 158 F.3d 908 (5th Cir. 1998), the Fifth Circuit cited this language in rejecting summary judgment for a warden in a Eighth Amendment claim brought by an inmate who was stabbed. The inmate had sent letters to the warden seeking protection prior to the attack. The warden asserted he was entitled to summary judgment because the inmate had failed to prove that the warden had in fact received the letters and was aware of them. Relying in the reasoning in Farmer, the Fifth Circuit held that the inmate had raised an issue of material fact by pointing to facts in the record suggesting that the warden had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk Smith v. Brenoettsy, 158 F.3d 908, 913 (5th Cir. 1998). Whether the warden actuallydrew the inference then was a question of fact to be decided at trial. Id.
In the case at bar, Gallagher has satisfied his burden to defeat a motion for summary judgement filed by defendant, in part, by pointing to facts in the record suggesting that Sargent Moses had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk. See Smith, 158 F.3d 908, 913 (5th Cir. 1998). Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that the defendants' motion for summary judgment be GRANTED as to defendants Sargent Master Lebo and Sargent Seal as to the Duplechain claim.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED: that the defendants' motion for summary judgment with respect to Sargent Christine Moses be DENIED.