Lead Opinion
Seyon Haywood, formerly an inmate at Illinois’s Shawnee Correctional Center, accused his auto mechanics teacher of attacking him. Guards charged him with making false statements. A disciplinary panel found him guilty and ordered him transferred to segregation for two months; the panel also revoked one month of good-time credit. After these events he was transferred to a different prison, where he remains in custody.
Haywood contends in this proceeding under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that these penalties violate his right to speech, protected by the Constitution’s First Amendment (applied to states by the Fourteenth). He also alleges that the conditions of his confinement in segregation were cruel and unusual, violating the Eighth Amendment (again applied via the Fourteenth). The district court dismissed the first claim on the pleadings and granted summary judgment to defendants on the second. The only defendant against whom- Haywood still seeks damages is Jody Hathaway, Shawnee’s Warden during Haywood’s time there.
The district court dismissed the First Amendment claim because the disciplinary panel’s decision, which affected the duration of Haywood’s confinement, had not been set aside on collateral review or by executive clemency. The Supreme Court held in Heck v. Humphrey,
Although Haywood maintains that his good-time credits were restored while this appeal has been pending, the forms that Haywood has submitted show only the Department of Corrections’s calculation of his projected release date, not whether the disciplinary board’s decision has been vacated in the manner Heck and Edwards require. At all events, things that happen after a district court’s decision do not demonstrate that the court erred. Heck and Edwards hold that a § 1983 claim does not accrue until the conviction or discipline had been set aside. Once that occurs, the prisoner has the time allowed by the statute of limitations (two years in Illinois) to commence suit. A dismissal under Heck and Edwards is without prejudice to litigation after a conviction or disciplinary sanction is annulled.
As for his waiver of any challenge to the duration of confinement: that’s irrelevant because no matter what a prisoner demands, or waives, § 1983 cannot be used to contest the fact or duration of confinement. See Preiser v. Rodriguez,
Haywood relies on Peralta v. Vasquez,
Heck and Edwards say that a challenge is not possible as long as it is inconsistent with the validity of a conviction or disciplinary sanction. See also Nelson v. Campbell,
In Wallace v. Kato,
[Heck] ■ analogized [the § 1983] suit to one for malicious prosecution, an element of which is -the favorable termination of criminal proceedings. [512 U.S.] at 484,114 S.Ct. 2364 . We said:
“[I]n. order to recover damages for allegedly unconstitutional conviction or imprisonment, or for other harm caused by actions whose unlawfulness would render a conviction or sentence invalid, a § 1983 plaintiff must prove that the conviction or sentence has been reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such determination, or called into question by a federal court’s issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, 28 U.S.C. § 2254, A claim for damages bearing that relationship to a conviction or sentence that has not been so invalidated is not cognizable under § 1983. Id., at 486-487 [114 S.Ct. 2364 ] (footnote omitted).”
We rested this conclusion upon “the hoary principle that civil tort actions are not appropriate vehicles for' challenging the validity of outstanding criminal judgments.” Id., at 486,114 S.Ct. 2364 . “ ‘Congress,’ ” we said, “ ‘has determined that habeas corpus is the1 appropriate remedy for state prisoners attacking the validity of the fact, or length of their confinement, and that specific determination must override the general terms of § 1983.’ ” Id., at 482,114 S.Ct. 2364 (quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez,411 U.S. 475 , 490,93 S.Ct. 1827 ,36 L.Ed.2d 439 (1973)).
Nothing in Heck, Edwards, or any of the Court’s later decisions suggests that the “favorable termination” element that the
Peralta is incompatible not only with the Supreme Court’s decisions but also with McCurdy v. Sheriff of Madison County,
Haywood’s Eighth Amendment claim is unaffected by Heck. He contends that the cell in which he was held during his 60-day term of segregation had a broken window and that, when the prison’s power failed during a storm in January 2010, the heat went off and the • temperature fell below freezing. Haywood maintains that the guards refused to repair the window or provide adequate clothing and blankets. Instead, he asserts, the guards made conditions worse by turning on the ventilation system (which he calls “the blowers”). Wind aggravates the effect of cold by increasing the speed at which heat is removed from exposed skin.
According to Haywood, power and heat were off for four days, and when power was restored the cell remained frigid and the guards continued to ignore his request to fix the window or provide blankets, a coat, or any other means of warmth. If circumstances were as Haywood asserts, then the prison violated his constitutional rights. Dixon v. Godinez,
. The district court granted summary judgment not because it discounted Haywood’s evidence or thought the conditions acceptable, but because of the identity of the sole defendant: the warden. Haywood did not sue (or, if he did sue, did not serve) the guards and other persons responsible for climate control. He sued only the top of the organization, and the district court concluded that the warden cannot be personally liable under the Supreme Court’s decision in Ashcroft v. Iqbal,
Farmer v. Brennan,
To meet the, second element, a plaintiff must show that “ ‘the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.’ ” Estate of Miller,
Haywood brought forth evidence in opposition to Warden Hathaway’s motion for summary judgment that Warden Hathaway knew both of the extreme cold in the segregation unit and the causes of that cold. Specifically, the warden knew of the ice storm that caused the prison to lose power, see R.87-4 (Warden Hathaway’s answers to • interrogatories) at 16; he was apprised that Haywood could not shut his window, see R.l at 19 (Emergency Grievance attached as exhibit to Complaint) (“There is lots of air coming in through the windows because the seals on the outside are broken.”); and he personally toured the" segregation unit at least once between January and March 2009, see R.87-4 at 22 (“Defendant did go to Segregation during this time frame [between January 9, 2009, and March 9, 2009].”).
The extent of the warden’s response to this information, however, was that he “enured [sic] that the generators were operating properly and had maintenance perform periodic temperature checks.” Id. at 23. Nothing in the record indicates how frequently Warden Hathaway had maintenance perform temperature checks, whether those were performed during or after the power outage, or, indeed, whether any were performed apart from the check of the unit on January 23—one of the warmest days of the winter. Moreover, the fact that the generators were operational would have little effect on the temperature of the unit if, as Haywood testified, the windows in the unit would not close. The warden’s “plainly inappropriate” responses to Hathaway’s grievance, to the extreme weather, and to the situation in the segregation unit allow the inference that he was deliberately indifferent to the extreme cold suffered by Haywood and the other prisoners. See Hayes,
Our dissenting colleague reads Iqbal and Vance v. Rumsfeld,
This court’s decision in Vance is not without its ambiguities. But one thing is clear; it must be read to conform to Farmer, the governing authority. It cannot be read, as the dissent does, as altering the standards of Farmer. In Vance, the plaintiffs alleged “torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, ,.. presented as Fifth Amendment substantive due process claims,” Vance v. Rumsfeld,
Farmer rejected a contention that wardens (or guards) can be liable just because they know that violence occurs in prisons and don’t do more to prevent it on an institution-wide basis. To get anywhere, Vance and Ertel would need to allege that Rumsfeld knew of a substantial risk to security contractors’ employees, and ignored that risk bécause he wanted plaintiffs (or similarly situated persons) to be harmed.
Id. at 204. This dicta overstates Farmer ⅛ holding. Farmer instructs that the deliberate indifference standard “is satisfied by something less than acts or omissions for the very purpose of causing harm or with knowledge that harm will result”:
We hold ... that a prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.
Farmer,
In any event, the standard articulated in Vance is satisfied here. The evidence showed that Warden Hathaway had actual knowledge of the unusually harsh weather conditions, that he had been apprised of the specific problem with the physical condition of Haywood’s cell (i.e., the windows
In short, there simply is no evidence that,' in Iqbal, the Supreme Court overruled or limited Farmer. See Minneci v. Pollard,
Consistent With our approach in Townsend, other courts of appeals have determined that, post-Iqbal, Farmer’s deliberate indifference standard continues to govern claims of unconstitutional conditions of confinement brought against supervisory prison officials. See Barkes v. First Correctional Medical, Inc.,
The judgment is affirmed with respect to the First Amendment theory and reversed with respect to the Eighth Amendment theory. The case is remanded for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Dissenting Opinion
dissenting in part.
I agree with the court’s disposition of Haywood’s First Amendment claim but not with its conclusion that Warden Hathaway can be personally liable for cold temperatures in his cell.
Haywood seeks to hold the warden directly (rather than derivatively) liable on the theory that he filed two grievances alerting the warden to the cold. But Iqbal concludes that knowledge is not enough.
[Respondent argues that supervisors] can be liable for “knowledge and acquiescence in their subordinates’ use of discriminatory criteria to make classification decisions among detainees.” Iqbal Brief 45-46. That is to say, respondent believes a supervisor’s mere knowledge of his subordinate’s [misconduct] amounts to the supervisor’s violating the Constitution. We reject this argument. Respondent’s conception of “supervisoryliability” is inconsistent with his accurate stipulation that [supervisors] may not be held accountable for the misdeeds of their agents. In a § 1983 suit or a Bivens action—where masters do not answer for the torts of them servants—the term “supervisory liability” is a misnomer. Absent vicarious liability, each Government official, his or her title notwithstanding, is only liable for his or her own misconduct.
No one contends that Warden Hathaway had a policy that authorized, or even tolerated, subjecting prisoners to freezing temperatures. To the contrary, it is undisputed that, when he received Haywood’s first grievance, he directed one of the prison’s engineers to find out what was happening. The engineer told the warden that the temperature in Haywood’s cell was 75° F, and the warden then dismissed the grievance. If the engineer was lying, he might face liability, but it is impossible to see how the warden himself could be liable—and that conclusion would hold even if Iqbal had come out the other way and held that supervisors can be liable just because they know that subordinates are misbehaving. Haywood’s description of the blowers as “torture” does not add anything, because air movement at 75° is hardly an intolerable condition of confinement. And Haywood’s second complaint to the warden also does not add anything, not only because of Iqbal but also because the record shows that it did not reach the warden’s desk until March 9, 2010, the day that Haywood was returned to the general population. Nothing the warden did, or omitted, in response to the second grievance could have affected Haywood.
Prisoners need to sue the persons responsible for the conditions of which they complain. A warden is an easy target—his name is known, and it is easy to achieve service of process. But decisions such as Iqbal and Vance mean that liability rests with the people who injure prisoners; the top of a bureaucratic hierarchy is the wrong person to sue, unless the claim concerns the prison’s formal policies or other decisions that the warden took personally.
I do not read Iqbal or Vance as incompatible with Farmer, which did not address the question whether supervisors can be liable for failing to cure problems created or ignored by their subordinates. By contrast, Iqbal and Vance do address that situation. We observed in Vance that a supervisor does not become liable just because someone sends him a message notifying him that bad things are going on. That’s what plaintiffs alleged in Vance, and a panel held the allegation sufficient, but the en banc court held it legally insufficient.
Vance shows that supervisors are entitled to delegate. The top of an organization must be able to allocate duties without being personally .liable if subordinates mess up.'Warden Hathaway delegated. He sent an engineer to diagnose the situation and fix any problem. The engineer reported that there was no problem. Haywood chose not to sue the engineer, the engineer’s subordinates, or the personnel who should have repaired any broken window, but Haywood’s choice cannot-.mean that the warden becomes personally liable for his subordinates’ inaction.or ineptitude.
My colleagues are among many federal judges who prefer an approach under which notice to a supervisor is enough to create personal liability. The Supreme Court encountered such an approach in Iqbal and disapproved it. When a panel of this court adopted that approach in Vance, the court took the case en banc and disapproved it. As my colleagues observe, decisions in other circuits have continued to impose supervisory liability when notice does not lead to a remedy. They cite Barkes v. First Correctional Medical, Inc.,
The grants of certiorari in Turkmen set the stage for a new look at the question whether and when supervisors (including Hasty, a prison’s warden) can be liable for failing to prevent or rectify misconduct by guards and other subordinates. See Ziglar v. Turkmen, — U.S. —,
