Sims v. Schaad ( 1999 )

F I L E D
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
JUN 14 1999
TENTH CIRCUIT
PATRICK FISHER
Clerk
LARRY DARNELL SIMS,
Plaintiff - Appellee, No. 98-1476
v. (D. Colorado)
DEPUTY SCHAAD, (D.C. No. 96-Z-141)
Defendant - Appellant,
and
JOHN W. ANDERSON, Sheriff;
DEPUTY BEARGA; R. JOHNSON,
Deputy; MARK MILLER, Deputy;
SERGEANT ZAIN; CAPTAIN
SANTIAGO; DEPUTY
CHRISTENSEN,
Defendants.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before ANDERSON, KELLY, and BRISCOE, Circuit Judges.
*
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. The court
generally disfavors the citation of orders and judgments; nevertheless, an order
and judgment may be cited under the terms and conditions of 10th Cir. R. 36.3.
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the determination of
this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is
therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
Plaintiff Larry Darnell Sims is a Colorado state prisoner incarcerated at the
Arrowhead Correctional Facility. Prior to his placement at the Arrowhead
facility, he was incarcerated at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center (CJC).
Proceeding pro se, 1 Sims brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, alleging that
defendants, as employees of the CJC or of the El Paso County Sheriff’s
Department, violated his federal constitutional rights under the Eighth and
Fourteenth Amendments. Defendants moved for summary judgment, claiming
qualified immunity or lack of personal involvement. The district court granted
the motion as to all claims and defendants, except as to Deputy Schaad. Schaad
now appeals from the district court’s denial of his motion for summary judgment.
He contends that the district court erred in failing to find that he was entitled to
qualified immunity as a matter of law. We affirm in part and dismiss in part.
After Sims filed his verified complaint, the district court sought volunteer
1
counsel for Sims, and eventually volunteers were appointed. The volunteer
counsel have represented Sims in all subsequent proceedings and pleadings.
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BACKGROUND
In his verified complaint, Sims alleges that, on October 19, 1995, while he
was incarcerated at the CJC on ward 2-D-2, he was attacked in his cell, severely
beaten, and almost killed by inmate Javan Gadlin. He also alleges that, prior to
the attack, he had informed Schaad, who was the deputy on duty, that “all day that
morning and afternoon,” “Gadlin had been making threats to do him serious
harm.” Appellee’s Br., Ex. 1 at 2. According to the complaint, “Schaad did
nothing but say to inmate Sims in the way of ‘I am busy or something.’” Id.Then, despite the warning, Schaad left the ward for more than three hours,
“only . . . return[ing] to check on the status of the cell doors, to see if they were
either open or closed.” Id. Sims further complained that, during the period the
attack was actually occurring, “Schaad [failed] to investigate the crowd in front of
[Sims’] cell.” Id. at 3. Schaad denies having been informed of the threats.
Appellant’s App. at 178.
After the summary judgment motion and response were filed, the matter
was referred to a magistrate judge who recommended dismissal of all claims and
defendants except the above-stated claim against Schaad for the Eighth
Amendment violation. Id. at 214-22. Noting Sims’ claim that he had informed
Schaad of the threats, but Schaad did nothing to protect Sims from those known
threats, the magistrate judge concluded that Schaad was not entitled to qualified
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immunity at the summary judgment stage. Id. at 218. Defendants filed a “Notice
of Appeal” of the magistrate judge’s order as to Schaad. They argued that the
magistrate judge erred in considering the conclusory allegations of the complaint
as sufficient to establish the fact of notice to Schaad. Additionally, the
defendants contended that even if Schaad had been notified of the threat, the
conditions did not pose a substantial risk of serious harm, and, at most, the facts
demonstrated negligence rather than deliberate indifference. Upon de novo
review, the district court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation. Schaad
then brought this appeal.
DISCUSSION
Qualified immunity generally shields public officials from suit if 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 (1982); Foote v. Spiegel, 118 F.3d 1416, 1424 (10th Cir. 1997). Once a
defendant raises a qualified immunity defense, the burden shifts to the plaintiff to
demonstrate that the defendant’s actions violated a clearly established
constitutional right. See Guffey v. Wyatt, 18 F.3d 869, 871 (10th Cir. 1994); see
also Siegert v. Gilley, 500 U.S. 226, 232 (1991).
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The law regarding Sims’ Eighth Amendment claim was clearly established
at the time of the alleged actions. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 833 (1994)
(noting that the Eighth Amendment imposes a duty upon prison officials to
protect prisoners in custody from violence at the hands of other prisoners);
Northington v. Marin, 102 F.3d 1564, 1567-68 (10th Cir. 1996); Grimsley v.
MacKay, 93 F.3d 676, 679 (10th Cir. 1996). However, not every injury caused to
one inmate by another inmate results in Eighth Amendment liability for prison
officials responsible for the inmates’ safety. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834. In order to
prove an Eighth Amendment violation, the plaintiff must establish that “(1) he is
incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm, and (2)
prison officials acted with a sufficiently culpable state of mind, known as
‘deliberate indifference.’” Grimsley, 93 F.3d at 681 (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. at
834).
We review de novo the district court’s ruling on summary judgment.
Taylor v. Meacham, 82 F.3d 1556, 1559 (10th Cir. 1996). As an initial matter, we
must determine whether Schaad may bring this interlocutory appeal of the denial
of summary judgment on the issue of qualified immunity. Under the standard set
forth in Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995), and Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S.
299 (1996), if the district court determined that the law allegedly violated by the
defendant was clearly established at the time of the challenged actions, that ruling
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is immediately appealable. Similarly, a determination that the facts taken in the
light most favorable to the nonmoving party demonstrate a violation of clearly
established law is also immediately appealable. See Behrens, 516 U.S. at 313;
Johnson, 515 U.S. at 312-14; Foote, 118 F.3d at 1422. However, to the extent the
district court’s order decides nothing more than whether the evidence could
support a finding that particular conduct occurred, government officials cannot
bring an interlocutory appeal of a pretrial denial of qualified immunity. See
Behrens, 516 U.S. at 313.
Schaad does not contend that the law was not clearly established. Rather,
he complains that the district court erred (1) by failing to address whether the
alleged facts establish conditions of incarceration which pose a substantial risk of
serious harm; and (2) by finding that a genuine issue of material fact precluded
summary judgment on the issue of whether his conduct violated clearly
established law. 2
2
In part, Schaad attempts to frame this second issue as a purely legal
question, arguing that the alleged facts do not establish a constitutional violation.
Thus, he contends that an Eighth Amendment violation can be found only if there
are repeated warnings, and that, as a matter of law, Sims’ allegation that he told
Schaad about the threats to his safety (presumably only once) is insufficient to
establish a sufficiently culpable state of mind. Since the critical issue is whether
a defendant was subjectively aware of a risk of serious harm, Farmer, 511 U.S. at
837, we find no merit in Schaad’s assertion that, on this record, Sims’ claim can
be resolved on the sufficiency of the pleadings as a matter of law. See note 3,
infra.
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Significantly, the second claim of error involves the district court’s
determination that the evidence could support a particular finding. 3 Under
Behrens and Johnson, the district court’s order as to the sufficiency of that
evidence at the summary judgment stage is unreviewable. Foote, 118 F.3d at
1422 (“An order denying qualified immunity on summary judgment is not
appealable if it merely determines the facts asserted by the plaintiff are
sufficiently supported by evidence in the record to survive summary judgment.”).
Accordingly, we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 to review the district
court’s determination that the conditions alleged posed a substantial risk of
serious harm. We lack jurisdiction, however, to the extent that Schaad seeks
interlocutory review of the district court’s ruling that genuine disputes of fact
precluded summary judgment based on qualified immunity. We therefore dismiss
that portion of Schaad’s appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
Following its de novo review of the magistrate judge’s recommendation,
the district court found that “[t]he statement made by plaintiff to the defendant is
3
Schaad’s argument focuses primarily on Sims’ factual allegations and upon
his own efforts to dispute and dismiss them. Thus, he denies any knowledge of
the risk, and he argues that the “conclusory” allegations of the complaint were
inadmissible for summary judgment purposes. Because a verified pleading may
be treated as an affidavit if the facts alleged are within the pleader’s personal
knowledge, see Jaxon v. Circle K Corp., 773 F.2d 1138, 1139 n. 1 (10th Cir.
1985), the district court did not err in considering the complaint as responsive to
the summary judgment motion.
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sufficient evidence to show that plaintiff was incarcerated under conditions
posing a substantial risk of serious harm. Further, there are allegations by
plaintiff that defendant Schaad was deliberately indifferent to plaintiff’s request
for protection.” Appellant’s Br., Ex. 2 at 2-3. Relying on Grimsley, 93 F.3d at
681-82, Schaad apparently argues that, as a matter of law, Sims failed to allege
facts which demonstrate that he was incarcerated under conditions posing a
substantial risk of serious harm. 4 Although Schaad correctly cites Grimsley for its
conclusion that the conditions at issue there did not pose a substantial risk of
serious harm, “notwithstanding the fact that an inmate . . . succeeded in inflicting
injury upon [the plaintiff],” id. at 683, Grimsley is easily distinguished on its
facts. Significantly, Grimsley involved an injury to an inmate who was “securely
locked [behind a steel door] by himself in a maximum security cell.” Id. By
contrast, Sims was in an open ward where Gadlin and other inmates could gain
free access to his cell. 5 Given Sims’ allegation that he advised Schaad of the
repeated threats of serious harm from Gadlin, and viewing that evidence in the
light most favorable to Sims, we find no error in the district court’s conclusion
4
Overlooking the district court’s express finding, Schaad also argues that
the district court erred by wholly failing to address this element. Appellant’s Br.
at 11-13.
5
Schaad also asserts that Sims put himself in harm’s way. However, that
assertion relies on facts and conclusions which are not necessarily clear from the
present record.
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that the conditions alleged posed a substantial risk of serious harm. Farmer, 511
U.S. at 833 (“having stripped [inmates] of virtually every means of self-protection
and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the government and its officials are not
free to let the state of nature take its course”).
AFFIRMED in part and DISMISSED in part.
ENTERED FOR THE COURT
Stephen H. Anderson
Circuit Judge
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