CONRAAD L. HOEVER v. R. MARKS, Correctional Officer, et al.
No. 17-10792
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit
April 9, 2021
D.C. Docket No. 4:13-cv-00549-MW-GRJ; [PUBLISH]
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida
(April 9, 2021)
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, WILSON, MARTIN, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, NEWSOM, BRANCH, GRANT, LUCK, LAGOA, BRASHER, and BLACK, Circuit Judges.*
WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, and MARTIN, Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion of the Court, in which WILSON, JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, JILL PRYOR, GRANT, LAGOA, BRASHER, and BLACK, Circuit Judges, joined.
NEWSOM, Circuit Judge, filed a separate opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, in which BRANCH, Circuit Judge, joined, and LUCK, Circuit Judge, joined in Parts I and III.
In 2013, Conraad Hoever was incarcerated at the Franklin Correctional Institution (FCI) in Carrabelle, Florida. According to Mr. Hoever‘s complaint, correctional officers there subjected him to harassment and threats of physical violence in retaliation for his filing grievances about his mistreatment. Proceeding on his own (without counsel), Mr. Hoever successfully defended against the officers’ attempts to dismiss his case, and he was ultimately able to present his claim of First Amendment retaliation to a jury. After a three-day trial, during which the jury heard testimony from Mr. Hoever, the defendant officers, and witnesses who corroborated the threats, the jury returned a verdict in Mr. Hoever‘s favor. But vindication of Mr. Hoever‘s constitutional rights was limited. That is because this circuit has interpreted the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA),
Our circuit stands alone in enforcing
I.
The facts and procedural history of Mr. Hoever‘s case have been thoroughly recounted in this lengthy litigation. See Hoever v. Carraway, 815 F. App‘x 465, 465-68 (11th Cir. 2020) (per curiam) (unpublished), vacated, reh‘g en banc granted, 977 F.3d 1203 (11th Cir. 2020) (mem.). We summarize them only briefly here.
In 2013, Mr. Hoever, proceeding pro se, filed a
The District Court dismissed Mr. Hoever‘s due process claim, claims for compensatory and punitive damages and for declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as all claims against the defendants in their official capacities. Mr. Hoever‘s claims for punitive and compensatory damages were dismissed because this circuit interpreted
Over the course of the three-day trial, the jury heard testimony that correctional officers threatened Mr. Hoever on several occasions because he filed grievances against certain officers for mistreatment. Those threats included statements by a correctional officer that, “If you keep on writing grievances, I promise you the next 11 years is [sic] going to be a heartache for you. You need to stop writing grievances right now or we‘ll make sure that you stop. . . . If you write another grievance, I‘ll take you right now to confinement. . . . I‘ll let you go only if you promise never to write a grievance again.” The jury also heard testimony about other occasions in which an officer threatened, “We‘ve been killing inmates here for a long time and nobody can do a damn thing to us,” and a threat to “take [Hoever] to confinement and starve [him] to death” if he filed additional grievances. Witnesses testified to hearing these threats. After deliberation, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Mr. Hoever, finding that his First Amendment rights were violated seven times. It awarded Mr. Hoever a dollar in nominal damages. Defendants appealed the judgment. Mr. Hoever cross-appealed, challenging, as relevant here, the dismissal of his punitive damages claim.
The panel for Mr. Hoever‘s case followed this circuit‘s precedent and ruled that the PLRA bars punitive damages claims absent a showing of physical injury. Hoever, 815 F. App‘x at 469 & n.5 (citing Al-Amin v. Smith, 637 F.3d 1192, 1196 (11th Cir. 2011), and Harris v. Garner (Harris II), 216 F.3d 970, 984–85 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc)).
Our Court granted rehearing en banc to reconsider the question of whether
For the reasons below, we reverse the District Court‘s dismissal of Mr. Hoever‘s
II.
This Court reviews de novo a district court‘s order granting a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Boyle v. City of Pell City, 866 F.3d 1280, 1286 (11th Cir. 2017). The interpretation of a federal statute is a question of law that we review de novo. United States v. Murrell, 368 F.3d 1283, 1285 (11th Cir. 2004).
III.
We begin by discussing why
A. The Text of the PLRA Permits Punitive Damages Absent a Showing of Physical Injury
As its title makes clear,
No Federal civil action may be brought by a prisoner confined in a jail, prison, or other correctional facility, for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury or the commission of a sexual act (as defined in section 2246 of Title 18).
Id.
The phrase “[f]ederal civil action” establishes the parameters of this provision. An “action” is a “proceeding in a court of justice by which one party prosecutes another for the enforcement or protection of a right, the redress or prevention of a wrong, or the punishment of a public offense.” Action, Black‘s Law Dictionary (6th ed. 1990); accord Suit, Garner‘s Dictionary of Legal Usage (3d ed. 2011). The statute addresses only “civil action[s],” or actions that “lie [o]n behalf of persons to enforce their rights or obtain redress of wrongs in their relation to individuals.” Action, Black‘s Law Dictionary. And it addresses not just any civil actions, but only those actions in which plaintiffs seek to obtain redress of a wrong.
We know that
Our understanding of the word “for,” of course, depends on its context. Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: An Interpretation of Legal Texts § 24, at 167 (2012) (“Context is a primary determinant of meaning.“). By interpreting the word “for” in
Section 1997e(e) addresses limitations on a prisoner‘s ability to recover compensatory damages because compensatory damages are the only form of relief that redresses past mental or emotional injury. See State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 416 (2003) (“Compensatory damages are intended to redress the concrete loss that the plaintiff has suffered by reason of the defendant‘s wrongful conduct.” (quotation marks omitted)); Akouri v. Fla. Dep‘t of Transp., 408 F.3d 1338, 1345 (11th Cir. 2005) (explaining that emotional distress can be remedied with compensatory damages). And it applies regardless of the cause of action, or alleged misconduct, or source of law. Section 1997e(e) does not prohibit all requests for damages, only those brought “for mental or emotional injury . . . without a prior showing of physical injury.”
Consider too the whole phrase “brought by a prisoner . . . for mental or emotional injury.” The full prepositional phrase—“for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody“—modifies the verb “brought.” And “brought,” of course, refers to “the initiation of legal proceedings in a suit.” Harris II, 216 F.3d at 973 (quoting Bring, Black‘s Law Dictionary 192 (6th ed. 1990)). Accounting for the full phrase, as we must when interpreting the text of the provision as a whole,1 the limitation on damages applies to federal civil actions brought “for,” or with the purpose of compensating, mental or emotional injury when no physical injury is alleged. That is, the text of
Understood properly, then,
injuries suffered. See Memphis Cmty. Sch. Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 306 & n.9 (1986). Rather, their purpose “is to punish the defendant for his willful or malicious conduct and to deter others from similar behavior.” Id. at 306 n.9 (citing, inter alia, Restatement (Second) of Torts § 908(1) (Am. L. Inst. 1979)); see also Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, 554 U.S. 471, 492 (2008) (“[P]unitives are aimed not at compensation but principally at retribution and deterring harmful conduct.“).
Unlike compensatory damages, punitive damages are not “intended to make the plaintiff whole again.” Compensable, Garner‘s Dictionary of Legal Usage. Consider that, if both kinds of damages are awarded, punitive damages provide relief “over and above” the award of compensatory damages that itself remedies a plaintiff‘s injury. Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 54 (1983); see State Farm, 538 U.S. at 419 (“It should be presumed a plaintiff has been made whole for his injuries by compensatory damages, so punitive damages should only be awarded if the defendant‘s culpability, after having paid compensatory damages, is so reprehensible as to warrant the imposition of further sanctions to achieve punishment or deterrence.“). Indeed, punitive damages may be “awarded where there is substantial harm and where there is none.” Restatement (First) of Torts § 908 cmt. c (Am. L. Inst. 1939); see also Smith, 461 U.S. at 54–55 (“[S]ociety has an interest in deterring and punishing all intentional or reckless invasions of the rights of others, even though it sometimes chooses not to impose any liability for lesser degrees of fault.“).
The “focus [of punitive damages] is on the character of the tortfeasor‘s conduct,” Smith, 461 U.S. at 54, not on any compensable injury that may flow from that conduct. Meanwhile, compensatory damages, even if they deter illegal conduct as a byproduct, Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 442 (1976) (White, J., concurring in judgment), are “grounded in determinations of plaintiffs’ actual losses,” Stachura, 477 U.S. at 307. In other words, except for the comparative purposes of ensuring
The dissent acknowledges that compensatory damages serve to “remediate the harm that [a prisoner] ‘suffered‘” but insists that punitive damages also “address an injury ‘suffered.‘” Dissenting Op. 32-33 (emphasis added). It supports this assertion by ignoring that punitive damages punish defendants for their misconduct regardless of whether it caused compensable injuries, see id. at 32 (“[P]unitive damages . . . punish those who caused past injuries.“) (internal quotation marks omitted) (alteration adopted), and by pointing to a dissenting opinion construing different language—“on account of“—in a tax law regarding the causal relationship between an injury and an award of punitive damages, see id. at 33 (quoting O‘Gilvie v. United States, 519 U.S. 79, 94 (1996) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (“[A] personal injury is as proximate a cause of the punitive damages as it is of the compensatory damages[.]“)). But whether punitive damages are the remedy sought in an action brought “for” an injury is a different question than whether punitive damages were received “on account of” an injury. And to the extent the dissent is right that O‘Gilvie is relevant to the different question we face here, the Supreme Court held that punitive damages are not “received ‘on account of’ personal injuries.” O‘Gilvie, 519 U.S. at 81.
See Comm‘r of Internal Revenue v. Schleier, 515 U.S. 323, 331-32, 336–37 (1995).
The title Congress gave
It is difficult to see how the dissent‘s interpretation of
The dissent resists the implications of its interpretation by conceding that
Precedent about nominal damages supports our reasoning too. Due to “the importance to organized society that those rights be scrupulously observed,” the Supreme Court has held that the violation of certain constitutional rights is “actionable for nominal damages without proof of actual injury.” Carey v. Piphus, 435 U.S. 247, 266 (1978). Following Carey and our own Court‘s precedent holding that nominal damages are available in
The dissent recognizes that nominal damages do not remedy a “mental or emotional injury” but instead redress “the bare harm that the law attributes to the violation of every legal right.” Dissenting Op. 43 & n.7. In doing so, it correctly explains that
The dissent‘s confusion over the relationship between punitive damages and a plaintiff‘s past injuries is illustrated by Mr. Hoever‘s own case. Mr. Hoever alleged mental and emotional injuries along with other non-physical injuries: “blemish to his prison record,” “impairment of his reputation,” and “defamation.” We all agree that Mr. Hoever may not recover compensatory damages for the mental or emotional injuries he alleged. The dissent says that Mr. Hoever may not obtain punitive damages “based” on the alleged mental or emotional injuries, but he may obtain punitive damages “based on the remaining injuries.” Dissenting Op. 45. But any punitive damages award would be “based” on the same willful misconduct.
The dissent maintains that a jury could impose punitive damages to punish the conduct that might have led to both injuries, but it could not impose them insofar as that conduct led to one injury, but not another. That interpretation makes no sense because punitive damages relate only to malicious conduct: they do not remedy past injuries. After all, a plaintiff—at least one alleging a constitutional violation—need not allege a compensable injury to seek punitive damages, so long as he plausibly alleges that the underlying misconduct was willful or malicious. See Carey, 435 U.S. at 254, 257 n.11, 266; La. ACORN Fair Hous. v. LeBlanc, 211 F.3d 298, 302 (5th Cir. 2000) (explaining that punitive damages are recoverable for a constitutional violation without a showing of compensable harm); see also Stuart M. Speiser et al., 2A Am. L. Torts § 8:60 (2014) (explaining that punitive damages are often available under state tort law without a showing of compensable harm, at least where they are supported by a nominal damages award).
Our reading avoids this confusion. It tells the district court to dismiss only a request for compensation for an alleged mental or emotional injury in the absence of an alleged physical injury. In so holding, we join the several other circuits in determining that
B. Our Circuit‘s Prior Interpretation of the PLRA Was Incorrect
Now we turn to this Court‘s precedent and explain today‘s point of departure. This circuit‘s first published opinion to interpret
Instead, Harris I emphasized the statute‘s reference to “physical injury” rather than “for mental or emotional injury.” See Al-Amin, 637 F.3d at 1197 (noting that Harris I “did not distinguish between cases in which a prisoner pleads a ‘mental or emotional injury’ and those where a prisoner does not so plead“). But again, it is the phrase “for mental or emotional injury” that qualifies the reach of
But this is not the statute Congress passed. Instead, Congress included the qualifying phrase “for mental or emotional injury” to clarify that the physical injury requirement is associated only with those actions seeking compensation for mental or emotional injury. The interpretation from Harris I renders the qualifying phrase mere surplusage and runs contrary to a foundational canon of interpretation. See Reiter v. Sonotone Corp., 442 U.S. 330, 339 (1979) (“In construing a statute we are obliged to give effect, if possible, to every word
Congress used.“); see also Scalia & Garner, Reading Law § 26, at 174–79. Take the federalIn Napier v. Preslicka, 314 F.3d 528 (11th Cir. 2002), our Court again affirmed the dismissal of a punitive damages claim. Id. at 534. Because Napier did not specifically discuss punitive damages, our Court has described the case as a “sub silentio” ruling that the punitive damages claim was barred by the PLRA. Al-Amin, 637 F.3d at 1198–99. A subsequent panel then relied on Napier for the proposition that compensatory and punitive damages “are precluded under the PLRA” absent physical injury. Smith v. Allen, 502 F.3d 1255, 1271 (11th Cir. 2007), abrogated on other grounds by Sossamon v. Texas, 563 U.S. 277, 131 S. Ct. 1651 (2011).
And in Al-Amin, the panel considered itself bound by circuit precedent, and interpreted the phrase “for mental or emotional injury” to preclude the award of punitive damages for any claim in the absence of physical injury. 637 F.3d at 1199. The panel in Al-Amin hewed to Harris I‘s interpretation of the statute by saying that limiting
But we now recognize that these concerns misapprehend the text of the statute and the nature of the physical injury requirement when it comes to punitive damages. As has been observed, other circuits “have held that . . . the special deterrent role of punitive damages means that they are not ‘for . . . injury suffered,’ emotional or otherwise.” Carter, 940 F.3d at 1235 (William Pryor, J., respecting the denial of rehearing en banc) (collecting cases).4 Because
That brings us, at last, to Mr. Hoever‘s case. A jury found that Mr. Hoever‘s First Amendment rights were violated seven times. For those seven violations, he received only one dollar in nominal damages. On remand, Mr. Hoever should be given an opportunity to obtain punitive damages too.
IV.
Our precedent foreclosed an important remedy intended to punish and deter the intentional violation of the rights of prisoners. Because the text of
We reverse the District Court‘s dismissal of Mr. Hoever‘s punitive damages claim for violations of the First Amendment and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. In all other respects, we reinstate the panel opinion.
REMANDED TO THE DISTRICT COURT.
NEWSOM, Circuit Judge, joined by BRANCH, Circuit Judge, and joined in Parts I and III by LUCK, Circuit Judge, concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part:
There is a subtle but important difference in how the Court and I read
At the outset, let me just say that
In pertinent part,
No Federal civil action may be brought by a prisoner confined in a jail, prison, or other correctional facility, for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury. . . .
For its part, the Court holds that Mr. Hoever‘s prayer for punitive damages survives because, on its reading,
According to the Court,
Maybe. Pretty much everyone else seems to read
I‘ll start with the Court‘s textual arguments and, in particular, its reading of the word “for.” I‘m not convinced that “for” is best understood here, as the Court says, to “indicate[] purpose or aim.” Maj. Op. at 7 (citing dictionaries). To be sure, the word “for” certainly can connote purpose. But according to the OED—one of the dictionaries on which the Court relies—“for” can also mean any of (if I‘m counting correctly) 76 other things. See For, Oxford English Dictionary (online ed.) (last visited April 9, 2021). If ever there were “a word of many, too many, meanings,” it is “for.” Cf. Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Env‘t, 523 U.S. 83, 90 (1998). And at least as used in
Is there a better option? I think so. It seems to me more likely that, as used in
This reading not only makes sense of the word “for“—and our own previous explanation of its use in
16 U.S.C. § 831c-2(a)(1) : “An action against the Tennessee Valley Authority for injury or death arising or resulting from the negligent or wrongful act or omission of any employee . . . .”16 U.S.C. § 1383a(e)(7)(A) : “An observer on a vessel . . . may not bring a civil action under any law of the United States for that illness, disability, injury, or death . . . .”46 U.S.C. § 30101(c)(1) : “In a civil action against the United States for injury or damage done or consummatedon land by a vessel on navigable waters . . . .” 46 U.S.C. § 30508(b) : “The owner . . . may not limit . . . the period for . . . bringing a civil action for personal injury or death . . . .”50 U.S.C. § 2783(b)(1) : “The remedy . . . shall apply to any civil action for injury, loss of property, personal injury, or death . . . .”
In each of these provisions, replacing the word “for” with “concerning” yields natural and expected results. The same cannot be said—as to any of them—of replacing the word “for” with something like “with the purpose of.”
Now in fairness, the Court doesn‘t wager everything on the word “for.” Rather, to its credit, it looks to the entire phrase in which that word is situated: “civil action . . . brought . . . for mental or emotional injury suffered.” See Maj. Op. at 8. From that phrase, the Court mines two additional textual arguments. First, it says, the term “civil action” means an action “to enforce [a person‘s] rights or obtain redress of wrongs.” Id. at 7 (quoting Action, Black‘s Law Dictionary (6th ed. 1990)). And second, it says, the use of the past-tense “suffered” demonstrates that
And that‘s where I get a little wobbly. As I understand it, the Court‘s argument for making this final, crucial move—distinguishing between compensatory- and punitive-damages requests—turns on how
I‘m just not so sure about that. All monetary awards concern past injuries—i.e., harm already “suffered.” Compensatory damages, as the Court says, serve (at least in the main) to remediate past injuries.3 So too, though, punitive damages
serve not just to deter future wrongdoing but also, as the Court acknowledges, to “punish[]” those who caused past injuries. See Maj. Op. at 12; see also, e.g., Memphis Cmty. Sch. Dist. v. Stachura, 477 U.S. 299, 306 & n.9 (1986) (explaining that punitive damages aim, in part, “to punish the defendant for his willful or malicious conduct“); State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 416 (2003) (explaining that punitive damages “are aimed at [both] deterrence and retribution“).
To illustrate the point, imagine an inmate who alleges that vengeful corrections officers framed him for a cooked-up disciplinary infraction and, in response, threw him in a dark, dank, rat-infested cell for two solid weeks. He brings a “civil action” “for“—i.e., concerning—the “mental or emotional injury” that he “suffered” as a result of his confinement, but without alleging any accompanying physical injury. As relief he seeks to recover both compensatory damages, to remediate the harm that he “suffered,” and punitive damages, to punish the defendants for inflicting the harm that he “suffered.” Why, as a plain-language matter, is his request for compensatory damages necessarily barred, and his request for punitive damages necessarily not? To me, both seem to address an injury “suffered” in the past within the meaning of the statutory text. Cf. O‘Gilvie v. United States, 519 U.S. 79, 94 (1996) (Scalia, J., joined by O‘Connor and Thomas, JJ., dissenting) (“[A] personal injury is as proximate a cause of the punitive damages as it is of the compensatory damages; in both cases [the injury] is the reason the damages are awarded. That is why punitive damages are called damages.“).4
B
The Court separately seeks support for its distinction between compensatory and punitive damages in
. . . .“). Unless every one of these statutes is internally incoherent, the title “[l]imitation on recovery” does not indicate that
And to be clear, Congress‘s consistent usage of the term “recovery” to include punitive damages isn‘t a function of “imprecis[ion].” See Maj. Op. at 14. Rather, it follows straightaway from the pertinent definitions in the leading legal-usage authorities, and it comports with the way that courts themselves employ—and apply—the term. Black‘s, for instance, defines “recovery,” in relevant part, in terms that readily include punitive damages: “[t]he obtainment of a right to something (esp. damages) by a judgment or decree,” or “[a]n amount awarded in or collected from a judgment or decree.” Recovery, Black‘s Law Dictionary 1466 (10th ed. 2014). And the judicial decisions (including our own) referring to plaintiffs “recover[ing]“—or again, to the “recovery” of—punitive damages are too numerous to count. See, e.g., The Dutra Grp. v. Batterton, 139 S. Ct. 2275, 2278 (2019) (“This case asks whether a mariner may recover punitive damages . . . .“); Smith v. Wade, 461 U.S. 30, 39 (1983) (holding that a showing of maliciousness is not required for “recovery of punitive damages“); Echols v. Lawton, 913 F.3d 1313, 1321 (11th Cir. 2019) (explaining that plaintiff “must prove actual malice to recover . . . punitive damages“). Accordingly, it seems absolutely clear to me that, in the context of a legal statute aimed at circumscribing prison litigation, the term “recovery” most assuredly includes punitive damages.5
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Bottom line: I just can‘t see anything in the phrase “civil action . . . brought . . . for mental or emotional injury suffered“—or in the title “[l]imitation on recovery“—that clearly distinguishes between compensatory- and punitive-damages awards, such that the former are necessarily covered and the latter necessarily excluded. Having said that, I acknowledge that I‘m a lonely voice—that pretty much everyone seems to think the Court has
II
Mr. Hoever argues in the alternative that, even if
I‘ll confess that I, too, initially thought that Mr. Hoever was correct—that a claim of “constitutional injury” is categorically outside
As an initial matter, I agree wholeheartedly with the foundational premise of Mr. Hoever‘s argument: Not all claims about non-physical injuries necessarily concern mental or emotional injury. The contrary view—that if it isn‘t physical injury, it must be mental or emotional—runs into two problems, one conceptual and one textual.
First, as a conceptual matter, the universe of injuries isn‘t neatly divided between the physical, on the one hand, and the mental or emotional, on the other, such that any injury that isn‘t the former ipso facto constitutes the latter. The surest refutation of that rigid dualism is the ubiquitous economic injury, which is neither physical nor mental or emotional. But the taxonomy doesn‘t end there. Theodore Sedgwick‘s foundational treatise on the law of damages grouped “[t]he injuries for which the common law affords a remedy, and for which, therefore, in a proper case it gives reparation by way of damages,” into the following six classes: (1) “Injuries to property“; (2) “Physical injuries“; (3) “Mental injuries“; (4) “Injuries to family relations“; (5) “Injuries to personal liberty“; and (6) “Injuries to reputation.” Theodore Sedgwick, A Treatise on the Measure of Damages § 39, at 45 (9th ed. 1920).
Second, and separately, the view that an injury must be either (1) physical or (2) mental or emotional is difficult to square with
Accordingly, I agree with Mr. Hoever that
But I disagree with Mr. Hoever‘s more ambitious contention that every suit alleging the violation of a constitutional right is necessarily, and by definition, not “for mental or emotional injury.” The nub of his position, as embraced by several other courts, is that “constitutional injuries” make up a discrete category, “distinct from mental and emotional injuries,” and that because
Here‘s why. In the ordinary, more colloquial sense, “injury” means “[a]ny harm or damage.” Injury, Black‘s Law Dictionary 905 (10th ed. 2014). In a more technical sense, “injury” means “[t]he violation of another‘s legal right, for which the law provides a remedy.” Id. Colloquial “injury” is typically a function of real-world, observable facts, whereas technical “injury” is a function of the state of the law at any given time. Of course, the word‘s two senses are related—legal rules, after all, often conform to accepted notions of harm, and the law attributes a nominal harm to any violation of a legal right. See Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski, 141 S. Ct. 792, 799–800 (2021). But we and others have been careful to distinguish between the two senses, especially when interpreting the term “injury” in statutes. See, e.g., Nardone v. Reynolds, 508 F.2d 660, 662–63 (5th Cir. 1975) (certifying question whether the word “injury” in a statute of limitations “connote[d] physical injury“—as in “paralysis [or] coma“—or “injury in the sense that there has been an invasion of a legal right“); In re Geiger, 113 F.3d 848, 852 (8th Cir. 1997) (interpreting the word “injury” to mean “legal injury . . . in the technical sense, not simply harm to a person” (emphasis added)); Granahan v. Pearson, 782 F.2d 30, 32 n.4 (4th Cir. 1985) (interpreting the word “injury” to mean “positive, physical or mental hurt to the claimant, not legal wrong in the broad sense that his legally protected interests have been invaded” (emphasis added)).
Now, whether Mr. Hoever‘s constitutional-injury argument fires or misfires turns on how
In asking us to hold that a “constitutional injury” is, by definition, not a “mental or emotional injury” within the meaning of
to a claim‘s legal status rather than its harmful effects. Constitutional, Black‘s, supra, at 377. That conceptual commingling, I fear, dooms his position.
To be clear, I don‘t object to the idea, or even the existence, of “constitutional injury“—only to Mr. Hoever‘s use of that term in the
So, enticing as it may seem—and again, I say so having initially been enticed myself—I find that I ultimately cannot accept the position that all actions rooted in the Constitution, including those alleging mental or emotional harms, fall within their own special category of “injury” that sits outside
III
That leaves for me the question of what to do with Mr. Hoever‘s suit. In his operative complaint, Mr. Hoever alleged that in retaliation for various grievances and lawsuits that he filed, and in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, corrections officers taunted him, harassed him, and threatened him—all of which resulted in the following injuries: “personal humiliation,” “mental anguish,” “intimidation,” “blemish to his prison record,” “impairment of his reputation,” “defamation,” and other unspecified “irreparable harm.” Although Mr. Hoever originally sought compensatory damages, punitive damages, and “[a]ny additional relief” that the district court deemed appropriate, the sole question before the en banc Court is whether the district court erred in denying him the opportunity to seek punitive damages.
Applying my own interpretation, I would hold that
That conclusion differs in most respects from the Court‘s, except insofar as I agree that Mr. Hoever can seek damages—including punitive damages—for the subset of his alleged injuries that are neither mental nor emotional, which aligns and overlaps with the Court‘s holding that he
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In sum, the Court reads the phrase “civil action . . . brought . . . for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody” to distinguish between categories of damages—compensatory damages are subject to the provision‘s limitation, whereas punitive damages are not. I read