FREDERICK LAMAR HARRIS, DANNY CHADWICK, еt al. v. WAYNE GARNER, Commissioner of the Georgia Department of Corrections, A. G. THOMAS, Director of Facilities Division of the Georgia Department of Corrections, et al.
No. 98-8899
D.C. Docket No. 5:97-CV-79-4
United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
September 30, 1999
Before TJOFLAT and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and BRIGHT*, Senior Circuit Judge.
[PUBLISH]
*Honorable Myron H. Bright, Senior U. S. Circuit Judge for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.
TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:
Today, we address (1) whether section 1997e(e) applies to former prisoners who file a claim for injuries suffered while in custody, after they have been released from incarceration; (2) whether section 1997e(a) requires prisoners to exhaust all administrative remedies before they bring a fedеral law action with respect to prison conditions, even if it would be futile for the prisoner to seek such administrative remedies, and even though the administrative remedies are inadequate; (3) what level of injury must be sustained for a prisoner to meet the section 1997e(e) requirement that the prisoner must make a “prior showing of physical injury” before filing suit for “mental or emotion injury suffered while in custody;” and (4) the constitutionality of
I.
Eleven prisoners brought this civil rights suit for damages and injunctive relief1 in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Georgia against employees of the Georgia Department of Corrections (GDC).2 The plaintiffs аlleged violations of the their Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights as a result of actions allegedly taken by the defendants during a “shakedown” at Georgia‘s Dooly State Prison facility.3 According to the plaintiffs, members of a special prison “Tactical Squad,” led by Commissioner Wayne Garner of the GDC, stormed the prison facility on October 23, 1996. The squad officers ordered prisoners to strip
The district court referred the case to a magistrate judge in accordance with
After receiving the magistrate judge‘s recommendation, the district court divided the plaintiffs into four classes according to their different factual circumstances, and issued a ruling particular to each class as follows:
First, the court found that plaintiffs Danny Chadwick, Frederick Harris, Lenois Cook, Willie Hooks, Farrell Nation, and William Dailey had been released from the GDC. As such, their claims for injunctive relief were moot. The court also granted
Second, the district court dismissed without prejudice the claims of plaintiffs Samuel Locklear, Alan Kilgore, and Leroy Langes because these plaintiffs had not yet exhausted all of their administrative remedies and thus had not satisfied the exhaustion requirement of section 1997e(a). The court also found that these plaintiffs’ claims for compensаtory and punitive damages were barred by section 1997e(e) because they did not allege the requisite physical injury.
Third, the court dismissed without prejudice the claims of plaintiff Dayton Brinkley because he had not yet exhausted all of his administrative remedies and had thus not satisfied section 1997e(a). The court also found that Brinkley‘s claims for compensatory and punitive damages were not barred by section 1997e(e) because he alleged the requisite physical injury. Before he could submit any claims to a court, however, Brinkley would have to exhaust his administrative remedies.
Finally, the court granted defendants’ 12(b)(6) motion and dismissed with
Plaintiffs timely appealed.
II.
We review de novo the district court‘s dismissal of a complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. See Republic of Panama v. BCCI Holdings (Luxembourg) S.A., 119 F.3d 935, 948 (11th Cir. 1997). When considering a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, a court must accept the allegations in the complaint as true, construing them in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. See Roberts v. Florida Power & Light Co., 146 F.3d 1305, 1307 (11th Cir. 1998), cert. denied, 119 S. Ct. 1027, 143 L. Ed. 2d 38 (1999). We have done so in setting out the facts, above. A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss should be granted only if it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiffs can prove no set of facts in support of their allegations which would entitle them to relief. See id..
III.
A.
The district court treated the complaint as amended for the six plaintiffs who were released from the GDC before the magistrate judge issued his report and recommendation, and thus correctly dismissed those plaintiffs’ claims for injunctive reliеf as moot. See Tucker, 819 F.2d at 1033 (“If the plaintiff‘s claim is not live, the court lacks a justiciable controversy and must dismiss the claim as moot.“). Relying in part on Zehner v. Trigg, 952 F.Supp. 1318, 1323-27 (S.D. Ind. 1997), the district court also held that “§ 1997e(e) is applicable to the claims of prisoners who have been released” and thus dismissed with prejudice the released prisoners’ claims to compensatory and punitive damages because of a failure to allege physical injury. We find that the district court erred with regard to its section 1997e(e) holding.
First, let us be clear that at the point at which the district court treated the released prisoners’ complaint as amended, those six рlaintiffs became former prisoners who had filed a complaint for monetary damages against employees of the
As noted above,
Absent mistake or absurdity, we implement the statutory language as enacted. Salinas v. United States, 522 U.S. 52, 57-58 (1997), parallel, 118 S. Ct. 469, 473-74, 139 L. Ed. 2d 352 (1997). Here, the language of section 1997e(e) could not be clearer. And contrary to defendants’ congressional intent argument, Congress manifestly wanted to draw a bright line distinction between those who are prisoners, and those who are not prisoners. See 141 Cong. Rec. S7524-26 (daily ed. May 25, 1995) (statements by Senators Dole and Kyl) (prisoners have a unique incentive to file frivolous lawsuits bеcause litigation “has become a recreational activity for long-term residents of our prisons,” because prisoners “have little to lose and everything to gain,” and because filing frivolous complaints is “a means of gaining a short sabbatical in the nearest Federal courthouse“) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). The distinction
B.
The district court dismissed without prejudice two categories of plaintiffs because they failed to exhaust their administrative remedies before bringing suit and thus failed to satisfy the exhaustion requirement of section 1997e(a).6 That section
Plaintiffs make a valiant argument that they should not be required to exhaust their administrative remedies before being allowed to proceed in court because (1) the GDC‘s treatment of similar claims demonstrates that it would be futile for plaintiffs to pursue administrative relief, and (2) no administrative relief is “available” to plaintiffs because the GDC Inmate Grievance Procedures do not provide for the monetary damages award plaintiffs seek. At least with regard to the issue of what remedies are “available” under section 1997e(a), some courts have agreed with the plaintiffs. See Whitley v. Hunt, 158 F.3d 882, 887 (5th Cir. 1998); Lunsford v. Jumao-As, 155 F.3d 1178, 1179 (9th Cir. 1998); Garrett v. Hawk, 127 F.3d 1263, 1267 (10th Cir. 1997). But we think the disposition of this issue is controlled by our recent decision in Alexander v. Hawk, 159 F.3d 1321 (11th Cir. 1998).
In Alexander, we held that “the judicially recognized futility and inadequacy exceptions do not survive the new mandatory exhaustion requirement of the PLRA .
C.
Even though plaintiff James Wade was still in prison and had exhausted all of his administrative remedies, the district court also dismissed with prejudice Wade‘s
Section 1997e(e) does not define “physical injury.” Wade asks us to interpret this part of the statute to mean that any allegation of physical injury is sufficient, including physical manifestations of purely mental or emotional injury. But we think such an interpretation would undermine the statute‘s essential purpose — “to curtail frivolous and abusive prisoner litigation.” Alexander, 159 F.3d at 1324. Congress was clеarly trying to preclude some part of the litigation routinely pursued by prison inmates from being brought, and Wade‘s reading of the statute would almost render the congressional exclusion an empty set. Further, allowing prisoners to surmount this new statutory hurdle with purely trivial allegations of physical injury would make no sense in light of our basic understanding that “routine discomfort is part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses against society.” Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9 (1992), parallel, 112 S. Ct. 995, 1000, 117 L. Ed. 2d 156 (1992) (citation and internal
We therefore join the Fifth Circuit in fusing the physical injury analysis under section 1997e(e) with the framework set out by the Supreme Court in Hudson for analyzing claims brought under the Eighth Amendment for cruel and unusual punishment, and hоld that in order to satisfy section 1997e(e) the physical injury must be more than de minimis, but need not be significant.7 Gomez v. Chandler, 163 F.3d 921, 924 (5th Cir. 1999). We do so, however, with the understanding that our holding today does not affect our Eighth Amendment jurisprudence, but only uses the well established Eighth Amendment standards to guide us in our section 1997e(e) analysis. The Fifth Circuit has concluded, even after Hudson, that in order “to support an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim a prisoner must have suffered from the excessive force a more than de minimis physical injury.” Gomez, 163 F.3d at 924 (emphasis added). In light of the Hudson Court‘s rather fluid approach to what can constitute a cognizable injury under the Eighth Amendment, see Hudson, 503 U.S. at 9, parallel, 112 S. Ct. at 1000 (malicious and sadistic use of force is violative “whethеr or not significant injury is evident“), we have never held that a prisoner must allege a
Viewing the allegations in the light most favorable to plaintiff, we conclude that Wade has not alleged a physical injury that is more than de minimis. A “dry shаve,” without more, is simply not the kind of “injury” that is cognizable under section 1997e(e). Cf. Shabazz v. Barnauskas, 790 F.2d 1536, 1538 (11th Cir. 1986) (dismissing plaintiff‘s Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment claim because allegation of forced shave was de minimis, even though the shaving caused “bleeding, inflammation, irritation, ingrowing of hairs, infection, purulence and pain“), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1011, 107 S. Ct. 655, 93 L. Ed. 2d 709 (1986). Were we to hold that this single allegation is sufficient to satisfy the statutory requirement of physical injury, we would surely sap the congressional scheme of its essential purpose and vitality.
D.
1.
Wade argues that the statutory bar to claims not involving physical injury amounts to a denial of due process under the Fifth Amendment. Courts and commentators have approached the issue of whether Congress can tailor jurisdiction so as to preclude all effective remedies for a claimed constitutional violation with so much dodging and trepidation that the D.C. Circuit has been led to write that “it has become something of a time-honored tradition for the Supreme Court and lower federal courts to find that Congrеss did not intend to preclude altogether judicial review of constitutional claims in light of the serious due process concerns that such preclusion would raise.” Bartlett v. Bowen, 816 F.2d 695, 699 (D.C. Cir. 1987). And we think that if section 1997e(e) actually precluded all effective judicial review, the statute would raise constitutional questions that would be, at the very least, troublesome. Because we find that the statute is best read as only a limitation on a damages remedy, however, we need not address the vexing jurisdictional questions
At the outset, we assume that section 1997e(e)‘s bar to claims “for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury” actually operates to preclude some claims of a constitutional dimension that a prisoner might have been able to bring before the PLRA was enacted. Section 1997e(e) refers to claims for injuries “suffered.” Use of the past tense indicates that the provision constitutes a limitation on a damages remedy only, and does not impair a prisoner‘s right to seek declaratory and injunctive relief for constitutional violations.8 An action at law for money damages is the assumed remedy for a violation of legal rights that has occurred in the past, whereas the threat of imminent future harm can only be cured by an equitable remedy. Thus, Congress could not have meant to preclude claims for declaratory and injunctive relief under the PLRA because such relief addresses a violation the prisoner has not yet “suffered.” The harm will be suffered, if at all, in the future. No injury is required in a pleading for prospective equitable relief; only a threat of future injury is necessary. We therefore join the other circuits who have considered the issue in holding that section 1997e(e) only precludes some actions for money damages, and does not materially thwart actions for declaratory and injunctive
Read as a limitation on recovery only, the provision presents no cоnstitutional infirmity that would offend the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Despite Wade‘s ringing invocation of Marbury v. Madison, that “[t]he very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury,” 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 162, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803), this case is not about a denial of the law‘s protection. What this issue boils down to is whether or not the Constitution of the United States mandates a tort damages remedy for every claimed constitutional violation; and the answer is certainly that it does not. In both Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 103 S. Ct. 2404, 76 L. Ed. 2d 648 (1983) and Schweiker v. Chilicky, 487 U.S. 412, 108 S. Ct. 2460, 101 L. Ed. 2d 370 (1988), as the D.C. Circuit has observed, the Supreme Court declined to infer a
2.
Wade also argues that section 1997e(e) violates the Equal Protection component of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment.13 Classifications that disadvantage a suspect class or impinge upon the exercise of a fundamental right are subject to strict scrutiny, while classifications that do neither are subject only to review for rationality. Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 216-17 (1982), parallel, 102 S. Ct. 2382, 2394-95, 72 L. Ed. 2d 786 (1982). Wade argues that section 1997e(e) impinges on his fundamental right to access the courts.
Wade‘s argument is similar to his first attack, but it comes dressed in Equal Protection clothing. Prison inmates do have a constitutional right of access — they must be afforded “a reasonably adequate opportunity to present claimed violations of fundamental constitutional rights to a court.” Lewis v. Casey, 518 U.S. 343, 351 (1996), parallel, 116 S. Ct. 2174, 2180, 135 L. Ed. 2d 606 (1996). As discussed in the context of Wade‘s
Because section 1997e(e) neither disadvantages a suspect class nor impinges on a fundamental right, we review the provision only for rationality. Plyler, 457 U.S. at 216-217, parallel, 102 S. Ct. at 2394-95. Under this lenient standard of review, section 1997e(e) easily passes muster. Congress’ stated purpose to limit frivolous lawsuits by those who face uniquely low opportunity costs for pursuing litigation rationally supports its action in adopting the measure. Wade‘s reliance on Romer v. Evans, 517 U.S. 620 (1996), parallel, 116 S. Ct. 1620, 134 L. Ed. 2d 855 (1996) is misplaced. In that case, the Supreme Court struck down a Colorado constitutional provision that targeted gays and lesbians and denied them political redress “across the board,” id. at 633-34, parallel, 116 S. Ct. at 1628-29, because there was no rationale for the provision other than animus against a politically unpopular group. In this case, Congress’ much more narrow restriction on the right of prisoners to obtain certain forms of relief, coupled with a rationale that does not reduce to mere animus against prisoners, convince us that the section
IV.
For the forgoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court‘s ruling with respect to plaintiffs Locklear, Kilgore, Langes, and Brinkley. We also AFFIRM the district court‘s dismissal of plaintiff Wade‘s claims for compensatory and punitive damages, but REMAND with instructions that the district court consider Wade‘s claims for declaratory and injunctive relief. We VACATE the district court‘s dismissal of claims for compensatory and punitive damages for plaintiffs Chadwick, Harris, Cook, Hooks, Nation, and Dailey, and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this oрinion.