LAMONT BERNARD HEARD, WILLIAM M. JOHNSON, JAMERO T. MOSES, ANTHONY LEE NELSON, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. TOM FINCO, Defendant, and BRAD PURVES, Dietician and Food Service Manager, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 18-2371
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
July 15, 2019
RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION Pursuant to Sixth Circuit I.O.P. 32.1(b). File Name: 19a0158p.06. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan at Grand Rapids. No. 1:13-cv-00373—Gordon J. Quist, District Judge.
Before: GUY, THAPAR, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges.
COUNSEL
ON BRIEF: Daniel Manville, CIVIL RIGHTS CLINIC, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW, East Lansing, Michigan, for Appellants. Patrick S. Myers, MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL‘S OFFICE, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee.
THAPAR, Circuit Judge. “[G]odliness has value for all things.” 1 Timothy 4:8. But how do you quantify that value? See Quran 83:1 (M.A.S. Abdel Haleem trans., 2004) (“Woе to those who give short measure!“). In our legal system, we typically let the jury decide. And in this case, a jury determined that four Muslim inmates collectively suffеred $900 in damages when prison officials did not provide them with adequate meals during Ramadan to accommodate their fasting. The inmates clаim that the jury ignored the spiritual harms they suffered in making this calculation. The district court disagreed, and we affirm.
I.
Lamont Heard, William Johnson, Jamero Mosеs, and Anthony Nelson have at least two things in common: they all belong to the Nation of Islam, and they all are inmates in Michigan prisons. These two commonalities collided when the inmates wanted to observe Ramadan. Muslims around the world celebrate Ramadan as “the month in which the Islamic Holy Book, the Quran, was revealed.” R. 370, Pg. ID 2922. Typically, Muslims commemorate Ramadan by fasting the entire month; they neither eat nor drink “from dawn to sunset.” Id.
Prison, however, makes that practice a challenge. At first, Michigan prisons provided
Frustrated by this response, the four inmates sued various prison officials. The inmates alleged that the officials violated the First and Eighth Amendments. A jury agreed and awarded damages: $150 for each Ramadan the prison officials disrupted. So Moses and Johnson received $150 each to comрensate injuries suffered in 2012, while Heard and Nelson received a total of $300 each for injuries suffered in both 2011 and 2012. Collectively, then, the inmates reсeived $900 in compensatory damages.
Thinking this amount too low, the inmates filed a motion requesting a new trial on damages. The district court denied thе motion because it found that the jury could have reached its conclusion based on the evidence. The inmates appealed.
II.
On appeal, the prison officials do not dispute that they violated the inmates’ constitutional rights. Instead, this appeal involves how much compensation the inmates should have received as a result of those violations. More precisely, we review whether the district court abused its discretion in denying the inmates’ motion for a new trial on damages. Anchor v. O‘Toole, 94 F.3d 1014, 1021 (6th Cir. 1996). We will reverse the district court‘s decision only if the inmates “unquestionably” proved that they deserved more damages through “uncontradicted” and “undisputed” evidence. Id. But so long as “the verdict is supported by some compеtent, credible evidence,” the district court did not abuse its discretion. Walker v. Bain, 257 F.3d 660, 674 (6th Cir. 2001) (emphasis added).
The jury‘s damages award was justified by the evidence in front of them, and the inmates did not “unquestionably” show that they were entitled to more. Anchor, 94 F.3d at 1021.
At trial, the jury found that the inmates suffered spiritual injuries. The jury based this finding on the evidence, including the inmates’ tеstimony that they could not focus on prayer and Quran readings because they were hungry and frustrated with the lack of food. But, unlike economic injuriеs, spiritual injuries are hard to quantify. Breach-of-contract damages easily line up with dollar amounts; distraction-from-prayer damages do nоt. See Walker, 257 F.3d at 674; Richmond v. McElyea, No. 3-88-327, 1990 WL 303955, at *10 (E.D. Tenn. Aug. 10, 1990) (“[T]he calculation of the exact amount of damages sufficient to compensate . . . for a
constitutional injury is neсessarily unscientific and inexact . . . .“). So courts generally let the jury decide how much money a plaintiff should receive when he has suffered such “subjеctive injuries.” Walker, 257 F.3d at 674; see also King v. Zamiara, 788 F.3d 207, 215 (6th Cir. 2015) (“No formula exists to determine with precision compensatory damages. The amount is left to the sound discretion of the fact finder.” (quoting Smith v. Heath, 691 F.3d 220, 227 (6th Cir. 1982))). A jury sifts through the evidence and chooses what weight to give each piece. Walker, 257 F.3d at 674. And again, its determination need only be “supported by somе competent, credible evidence.” Id.
Here, the jury heard the inmates’ testimony and saw their medical records. The inmates also had two experts—a nutritionist and an Islamic studies scholar—testify about the harms (both physical and spiritual) that the inmates suffered. The jury weighed all this evidence аnd concluded that each inmate suffered $150 worth of harm for each Ramadan the prison officials disrupted. The district court had no good reason to second-guess this determination, and neither do we. See Wayne v. Vill. of Sebring, 36 F.3d 517, 525 (6th Cir. 1994) (holding that “the trial court should deny [a motion for a new trial on damages] if the verdict is one that reasonably could be reached, regardless of whether the trial judge might have reached a different conclusion were he the trier of fact“); see also McDonald v. Petree, 409 F.3d 724, 731 (6th Cir. 2005) (noting that witness credibility—including experts—is “solely within the jury‘s province” (quoting United States v. L.E. Cooke Co., 991 F.2d 336, 343 (6th Cir. 1993))).
The inmates argue that the district court downplayed their spiritual injuries and instead placed a premium on medical records and psychological evaluations. When the district cоurt denied the inmates’ motion for a new trial on damages, it noted that “the jury could have reasonably concluded, based on [the inmates‘] lack of medical or psychological treatment, that [the inmates‘] injuries for the First Amendment violations were not as severe as they claimed.” R. 356, Pg. ID 2707. In mаking this observation, however, the district court was not devaluing the inmates’ evidence about spiritual harms. Indeed, it coupled that observation with аnother one: “damages for interference with an individual‘s freedom to practice his religion extend beyond purely physical injury.” Id. And, earlier during trial, the court had already made that clear to the jury. When the jury asked the court what “is considered an injury” and specifically
whether spiritual harms counted, the court told the jury that it could consider both “tangible and intangible” harms. R. 349, Pg. ID 2672–74. So the district court did not downplay the inmates’ spiritual injuries. Nor did it requirе that the inmates submit medical records to substantiate those injuries. Rather, the court merely noted that objective evidence (like medical records) might have helped the jury reach a higher damages calculation. That makes sense: medical records usually have corrеsponding dollar amounts that spiritual harms do not. Without such concrete, objective evidence, the district court had no room to disagree with the value that the jury assigned to the inmates’ spiritual damages. See Walker, 257 F.3d at 674. Nor do we.
We affirm.