Opinion
Case No. 02-CV-73096
September 25, 2003
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
I. Introduction Brief Statement of Facts
This matter is before the Court on Magistrate Judge Paul J. Komives' Report and Recommendation dated April 29, 2003. Defendants filed timely objections to the Report and Recommendation on May 13, 2003.
In this case, Plaintiff was assaulted by a fellow inmate. Her claim is that Defendants failed to intervene and did nothing to assist her out of the violent situation. Plaintiff claims that their failure to intervene and prevent the serious injuries she sustained as a result of the beating (blindness in her left eye), demonstrated Defendants' deliberate indifference to the health, safety and welfare of Plaintiff s being in violation of her Eight Amendment constitutional rights. Defendants assert that they had no duty to intervene; they are cloaked from liability under the doctrine of qualified immunity; and there is no genuine issue of material fact relative to Defendants' liability in this matter. II. Standard of Review
This Court "shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the report or specified proposed findings or recommendations to which objection is made." 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(C). This Court "may accept, reject or modify, in whole or in part, the findings or recommendations made by the magistrate." Id. III. Applicable Law Analysis
This Court has had the opportunity to review the Report and Recommendation, Defendants' Objections and the underlying dispositive motions and responses and finds that Magistrate Judge Komives reached the correct conclusion for the proper reasons. The Court agrees that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Defendants Jouppi and Massaquoi acted with deliberate indifference in regard to ending an assault upon Plaintiff's person by another prisoner. The genuine issue of fact is premised upon the affidavits from inmates who eye witnessed the assault. Their version of what transpired contradicts Defendants' factual version on key points. (Exhibit C to Plaintiff's Response to Defendant's Rule 56 (b) Motion for Summary Judgment).
A. Defendants' Argument
In Defendants' Objections, they rely upon Arnold v. Jones, 891 F.2d 1370 (8th Cir. 1989) to support their position that Defendants had no duty to physically intervene and prevent Plaintiff from sustaining injuries from the assault. (Defendant's Objections to the Report and Recommendation, pp. 2-3). However, in Arnold, the corrections officers were unarmed, the prisoner committing the assault was armed with a lead pipe, and the corrections officers were verbally assisting the victim by ordering the prisoner committing the assault to stop the behavior. Those are not the facts before this Court.
The record does not indicate whether Defendants were armed, the assaulting prisoner used her fists and feet to assault Plaintiff as opposed to a weapon, and there is affidavit testimony from inmate eyewitnesses to the assault that Defendants neither physically nor verbally did anything to break up the physical altercation between the two women. Arnold stands for the proposition that under those facts, the corrections officers were not obligated to physically intervene, not that they had no duty to intervene at all. In Arnold, the verbal orders to stop fighting were successful and the fight ended without physical intervention. In this case, the claim is that the Defendant Corrections Officers did nothing, and it was another corrections officer and inmate who physically intervened and pulled the assaulting inmate off of the Plaintiff.
Plaintiff does not characterize the assault as a fight because she asserts that she never hit the aggressor in the altercation so that it would be obvious that this was not a fight, but rather an unwarranted and brutal attack upon Plaintiff.
B. Qualified Immunity
Government officials are entitled to qualified immunity where their actions do not "violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Green v. Reeves, 80 F.3d 1101, 1104 (6th Cir. 1996) (citing, Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). "A Defendant will not be immune if, on an objective basis it is obvious that no reasonably competent officer would have concluded that [the action at issue was lawful]; but if officers of reasonable competence could disagree on this issue, immunity should be recognized." Malley v. Briggs, 475 U.S. 335, 341 (1986). Qualified immunity is an initial threshold question the Court is required to rule on early in the proceedings so that the cost and expenses of trial are avoided where the defense is dispositive. Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001).
Qualified immunity is "an entitlement not to stand trial or face the other burdens of litigation." Mitchell v. Forsyth, 471 U.S. 511, 526 (1985). The privilege is "an immunity from suit rather than a mere defense to liability and, like an absolute immunity, it is effectively lost if a case is erroneously permitted to go to trial." Id. The "clearly established" rights allegedly violated by the official cannot be considered at an abstract level, but must be approached at a level of specificity, " [t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639 (1987). "Reasonableness" is a question of law to be decided by the trial court. Jeffers v. Hevrin, 10 F.3d 380 (6th Cir. 1993), A plaintiff must prove two factors to show that a government official is not entitled to qualified immunity from his suit: (1) that the facts as alleged by him show a violation of a constitutional right; and (2) that such violated right was clearly established. Saucier, supra. A court required to rule upon the qualified immunity issue must consider, taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, whether the facts alleged show the officer's conduct violated a constitutional right. Id.
In this case, both parties submitted their own version of what occurred on August 3, 1999. Defendants allege that during the assault the attacking prisoner was apprehended within seconds, but not before Plaintiff was wounded in the eye. Plaintiff submitted affidavits with signatures of five (5) prisoners who assert they witnessed the assault in question. The affidavits assert that Defendants watched the assault between five (5) and twenty (20) minutes before any intervention. The Court agrees with the Magistrate Judge that if the testimony of Plaintiff and her witnesses is credited, qualified immunity is not a viable defense. The Court finds that Magistrate Judge Paul J. Komives' findings and conclusions are supported by the facts and the law.
Accordingly,
IT IS ORDERED that Magistrate Judge Paul J. Komives' Report and Recommendation [Docket No: 17-1, filed April 29, 2003] is ADOPTED and ACCEPTED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment [Docket No: 11-1, filed November 27, 2002] is DENIED.