Wilson v. Hogsten , 269 F. App'x 193 ( 2008 )

Opinions of the United
2008 Decisions States Court of Appeals
for the Third Circuit
3-14-2008
Wilson v. Hogsten
Precedential or Non-Precedential: Non-Precedential
Docket No. 07-3992
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"Wilson v. Hogsten" (2008). 2008 Decisions. Paper 1443.
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DLD-76 NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
No. 07-3992
________________
JASON WILSON,
Appellant
v.
WARDEN KAREN HOGSTEN; TROY WILLIAMSON; LT. LYONS; LT. FELTMAN;
LT. CLARKSON; LT. HEPNER; MR. BUCK; DR. BONNER; JOHN DOE
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civ. No. 06-cv-00109)
District Judge: Honorable Richard P. Conaboy
_______________________________________
Submitted for Possible Dismissal Under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) or Summary Action
Under Third Circuit LAR 27.4 and IOP 10.6
Before: BARRY, CHAGARES AND NYGAARD, CIRCUIT JUDGES.
(Opinion Filed March 14, 2008 )
_______________________
OPINION
_______________________
PER CURIAM
This is an appeal from the District Court’s dismissal of Jason Wilson’s complaint.
For the following reasons, we will summarily affirm. See Third Circuit L.A.R. 27.4 and
I.O.P. 10.6.
In January 2006, Appellant, a federal prisoner incarcerated in Pennsylvania,
initiated a pro se Bivens action against various prison authorities at the Federal
Correctional Institute in Allenwood (FCI-Allenwood).1 Appellant’s amended complaint
contended that defendants violated his First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights by placing him in the prison’s Special Housing Unit (SHU) on
administrative detention status without following proper procedures. Prison officials
placed Wilson in the SHU pending the outcome of an internal investigation concerning a
magazine confiscated from Wilson’s locker. Specifically, Wilson claimed that he was
never provided with: 1) an administrative detention order as mandated by the Bureau of
Prison (BOP) regulations; 2) an opportunity to appear before the Segregation Review
Board (SRO); and 3) a psychological assessment despite a history of mental and
emotional problems. Wilson alleged that when he inquired about the status of the
investigation and attempted to file an administrative grievance, prison officials did not
provide him with the proper forms and threatened him with misconduct charges. Wilson
sought compensatory and punitive damages as well as injunctive relief. On September
26, 2007 the District Court granted summary judgment to the defendants on all claims,
and Wilson filed a timely notice of appeal in this Court.
We exercise plenary review over the District Court’s grant of Appellee’s motion
1
In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403
U.S. 388 (1971), the Supreme Court recognized a private cause of action to recover
damages against a federal agent for violations of constitutional rights.
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for summary judgment. See Whitfield v. Radian Guar., Inc., 501 F.3d 262, 265 (3d Cir.
2007). We apply the same standard in reviewing a motion for summary judgment as the
District Court. Id. A motion for summary judgment should be granted only if there are
no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c).
Wilson’s complaint that he was kept in the SHU during the pendency of the ten-
month internal investigation, and for ten weeks afterward, is not a cognizable
constitutional claim.2 In Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472 (1995), the United States
Supreme Court acknowledged that state prison regulations may create liberty interests
protected by the Due Process Clause. However, “these [liberty] interests will be generally
limited to freedom of restraint which, while not exceeding the sentence in such an
unexpected manner as to give rise to protection by the Due Process clause of its own
force, nonetheless imposes atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to
the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin, 515 U.S. at 483-84.3 We assume that the
federal government may conceivably also confer such liberty interests on prisoners. See
2
Under the Prison Reform Litigation Act, a prisoner must exhaust “such
administrative remedies as are available[.]” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a). In the present case, the
District Court determined that there were issues of material fact in dispute as to the
exhaustion requirement and therefore chose not to resolve the issue. See Ray v. Kertes,
285 F.3d 287, 292 (3d Cir. 2002) (PLRA’s exhaustion requirement does not act as a
jurisdictional bar).
3
It is important to note that Wilson is a federal prisoner and therefore his case is
governed by the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. See Crowder v. True, 74
F.3d 812, 814-15 (7 th Cir. 1996).
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Crowder v. True, 74 F.3d 812, 815 (7 th Cir. 1996).
Here, however, the District Court correctly determined that Wilson’s confinement
in administrative segregation did not implicate a liberty interest. As noted by the District
Court, Wilson was the subject of an internal investigation and there was a need for his
confinement in the SHU until November 2005. The subsequent ten-week period of
confinement, beginning after the end of the investigation and prior to Wilson’s transfer to
a different facility in February 2006, also did not transform the entire detention into the
atypical and significant hardship contemplated in Sandin. See Griffin v. Vaughn, 112
F.3d 703, 706 (3d Cir. 1997) (holding that a Pennsylvania prisoner’s confinement in
administrative segregation for 15 months did not implicate a liberty interest). Therefore,
the confinement in SHU and the lack of a formal administrative detention order did not
rise to the level of a constitutional violation.
Further, Wilson’s reliance on BOP regulations is misplaced. “The central teaching
of Sandin is that a state statute or regulation conferring a right is not alone enough to
trigger due process.” Id. at 708. In any event, the forms and affidavits submitted by the
Defendants indicate that Wilson received periodic psychological assessments and SRO
reviews.
Wilson alleged that his placement in the SHU and subsequent deprivation of
procedural rights constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment.
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He failed to raise any genuine issues of material fact as to the claim, however.4
Specifically, Wilson did not plead any facts in his complaint which might lead a court to
believe that he has been deprived of “the minimal civilized measures of life’s
necessities.” Id. at 709.
Finally, the District Court properly granted summary judgment for the wardens of
FCI-Allenwood. Wilson pled only that the wardens failed to take disciplinary action
against prison officials to curb “the known pattern of the staffs [sic] deliberate
indifference to correct procedure”. As stated above, none of the claims against lower
level prison officials is meritorious. Therefore, even if a respondeat superior theory were
available, Appellee’s motion for summary judgment was properly granted.5
Accordingly, because this appeal presents us with no substantial question, we will
summarily affirm the decision of the District Court. See Third Circuit L.A.R. 27.4 and
I.O.P. 10.6.
4
Wilson does not state how defendants violated his First, Fourth, Sixth or
Fourteenth Amendment rights.
5
Most jurisdictions do not recognize respondeat superior liability in a Bivens
action. See Young v. Quinlan, 960 F.2d 351, 358 n.14 (3d Cir. 1992) (superseded by
statute on other grounds).
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