Opinion
Civil Action No. 03-4631.
August 5, 2004
ORDER
AND NOW, this day of August, 2004, upon consideration of Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment (Document No. 25) Pursuant to Rule 56 (c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, it is hereby ORDERED that the Motion is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART and Judgment is entered in favor of Defendant as a matter of law as to Plaintiff's punitive damages claim.
Summary Judgment shall be granted where the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). A court in considering a motion for summary judgment must determine whether the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party; in making this determination, all facts must be viewed and all reasonable inferences must be drawn in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Slater v. Marshall, 915 F. Supp. 724, 725 (E.D.Pa. 1996) (citing Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986)); Saini v. Bloomsburg University Faculty, 826 F. Supp. 882, 885 (M.D.Pa. 1993); Pittsburgh Indus. Furnace Co. v. Universal Consol. Companies, Inc., 789 F. Supp. 184, 188 (W.D.Pa. 1991). As previously noted by the Supreme Court, the party seeking summary judgment always bears the initial responsibility of informing the district court of the basis for its motion and identifying those portions of the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file . . . which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323 (1986).
(1) Eighth Amendment Claim
In this Motion for Summary Judgment, Defendant contends that he is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law since Plaintiff has failed to establish deprivation of his constitutional rights by use of cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Under the Eighth Amendment, after a prisoner is incarcerated only the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain" constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Whitley v. Wright, 475 U.S. 312, 319 (1986) (citing Ingraham v. Wright, 430 U.S. 651, 670(1977)). What constitutes this "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain" varies according to the nature of the alleged constitutional violation. Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 5 (1992). For example, in a case where a prison official's failure to attend to a prisoner's serious medical needs is in question, the appropriate inquiry is said to be whether the official exhibited deliberate indifference. Id. In contrast, where officials act in response to a prison disturbance, their actions are necessarily taken in haste, under pressure, and balanced against competing institutional concerns for the safety of prison staff or other inmates. Under these situations, the inquiry becomes whether force was applied in a good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously and sadistically applied for the very purpose of causing harm. Hudson, 503 U.S. at 6. In order to make this determination, courts have considered such factors as (1) the need for the application of force, (2) the relationship between the need and the amount of force that was used, (3) the extent of injury inflicted, (4) the extent of the threat to the safety of staff and inmates, and (5) any efforts made to temper the severity of a forceful response.Whitley, 475 U.S. at 321 (1986) (citing Johnson v. Glick, 481 F.2d 1028, 1033 (2d Cir. 1973)).
Here, Plaintiff testified that the bruises, swelling, cuts, and bleeding he suffered as a result of Defendant James' assault, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment. As in Hudson, Plaintiff here sustained only a minor injury on his face. However, unlike Hudson where Defendants assaulted the plaintiff with malicious intent, here, we simply do not have enough evidence of the circumstances surrounding the incident or of Defendant James' state of mind to determine if his use of force was malicious and sadistic such as to constitute cruel and unusual punishment prohibited under the Eighth Amendment. Because none of the evidence submitted attests to Defendant's state of mind at the time, we find that there is a material issue of fact that precludes entry of summary judgment. As such we must deny Defendant's motion for summary judgment with regard to the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment claim.
(2) Qualified Immunity
Alternatively, Defendant argues that he is entitled to summary judgment as he is protected from liability by qualified immunity.
Previous cases establish that qualified immunity shields government officials from suit for damages if a reasonable officer could have believed the action in question to be lawful, in light of clearly established law and the information that he possessed. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641 (1987). Under this doctrine, "the right the official is alleged to have violated must have been clearly established in a more particularized, and hence more relevant, sense: The contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right."Id. at 640. If the law was clearly established, the immunity defense ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct.Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982).
Here, under this settled law, Defendant would be entitled to immunity if we could find that a reasonable corrections officer in Defendant's position could have believed his actions to be lawful. Since both Whitley and Hudson were decided sometime in the 1980's and early 1990's, we find that these cases created a clearly established law with regard to inmates' constitutional rights against cruel and unusual punishment. With such a relevant law firmly established, a reasonable prison corrections officer should have known the law regulating such an important part of his job. We thus cannot find that Defendant is entitled to qualified immunity as a matter of law based on the facts alleged here. Thus, Defendant's motion for summary judgment with regard to qualified immunity is denied as well.
(3) Punitive Damages
In this case Plaintiff also seeks punitive damages from Defendant Ron James.
As an established rule, "punitive damages cannot be recovered from defendants in their official capacities." Gregory v. Chehi, 843 F.2d 111, 120 (3d Cir. 1988); Ellis v. Horn, 37 Fed. Appx. 38, 39 (3d Cir. 2002). Where Plaintiff alternatively seeks punitive damages against Defendant in his personal capacity, courts have required a proof that Defendant acted with a reckless or callous disregard of, or indifference to, the rights or safety of others. Savarese v. Agriss, 883 F.2d 1194, 1204 (3d Cir. 1989) (citing Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 33 (1983)). "Thus, for a Plaintiff in a section 1983 case to qualify for a punitive award, the defendant's conduct must be, at a minimum, reckless or callous." Id.
Here, none of the evidence suggests that Defendant acted with reckless or callous disregard of the rights or safety of Plaintiff in his cell. Even when we construe the facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party in determining this motion, we find no evidence suggesting Defendant's disregard of Plaintiff's rights. In light of the foregoing, Defendant's motion for summary judgment is granted with regard to the plaintiff's punitive damages claim.