Pleadro J. SCOTT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. MIAMI DADE COUNTY, et al. Defendants, R. Gomez, C. Weston, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 15-13610
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
Date Filed: 08/01/2016
877
Non-Argument Calendar
Ms. Holmes failed to show that the District‘s proffered reasons for nonrenewal of her contract were pretextual. We therefore affirm the district court‘s grant of summary judgment.
AFFIRMED.
Michael B. Valdes, Robert Anthony Cuevas, Jr., Miami-Dade County Attorney‘s Office, Miami, FL, for Defendants-Appellants.
Before HULL, MARCUS, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Plaintiff Pleadro Scott, a pre-trial inmate in the custody of the Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections, filed а pro se
I. BACKGROUND
A. Facts2
At all relevant times, Plaintiff was an inmate in the custody of the Miami-Dade County Department of Corrections awaiting trial for various chаrges, including sexual battery with a weapon. On June 20, 2011, Plaintiff was assaulted by a group of gang members at Turner Guilford Knight Detention Center. Later that day, Corporal Tompkins, who is not a party here, placed Plaintiff in a single-man cell and listed the names of the inmates involved in the assault on Plaintiff‘s jail card so that prison officials would know to keep Plaintiff separate from these gang-affiliated inmates. However, the violent threats persisted. Plaintiff notified correctional officers оf the continued threats, filed a grievance, and wrote to a state judge to
Plaintiff was transferred to Metro West Detention Center in January 2013. Unfortunately, gang members from the same gang that had given Plaintiff trouble at Turner Guilford were housed at Metro West, in the same unit that Plaintiff had been assigned to. The gang members at Metro West threatened Plaintiff and told other inmates that Plaintiff was a rapist and a snitch.
On March 5, 2013, Plaintiff filed a grievance requesting to be separated “from all inmates at all times.” Around the same time, Plaintiff notified Corporal Gomez of his concerns, and Corporal Gomez “informed [Plaintiff] that he w[ould] make sure that nothing happen[ed] to [Plaintiff].” Plaintiff received a response to his grievance on March 13, 2013. The response asked Plaintiff to identify by name the inmates that were threatening him. Notwithstanding Corporal Gomez‘s assurances and Plaintiff‘s grievance, Plaintiff continued to be placed with other inmates during recreation. These inmates continued to threaten Plaintiff, so he stopped partaking in recreation time.
On March 15, 2013, Plaintiff alerted Sergeant Jefferson3 that other inmates had threatened Plaintiff and that he was concerned for his safety. In response, Sergeant Jefferson and Corporal Gomez interviewed Plaintiff to find out more information. During the interview, Plaintiff explained that he “[had been] assaulted a number of times throughout [his] stay in Miami Dade County Department of Corrections” and that he had been placed in protective custody after the June 20 assault. Plaintiff further explained that members of the gang that had attacked him on June 20 were housed in his unit and continued to threaten him. He requested that he be “kept separate from all inmates at all times.” Sergeant Jefferson and Corporal Gomez assured Plaintiff that he would “not [e]ncounter contac[t] with any other inmates.”
Yet Plaintiff continued to have to take recreation time with other inmates. Thus, on March 25, 2013, Plaintiff filed another written grievance, identifying the inmates who had threatened him, including Anterell Dean. Plaintiff‘s grievance referred back to his original grievance and again requested that he be kept separate from all inmates. Thereafter, Lieutenant Weston went to Plaintiff‘s cell with Corporal Gomez, asked Plaintiff what more could be done given that he was already in a single-man cell, and requested that Plaintiff sign a grievance response form. Plaintiff еxplained that he had been assured more than once that he would not come into contact with other inmates but that officers continued to try to move him to cells with other inmates and that he was being forced to take recreation at the same time as other inmates. Lieutenant Weston “explained that she [would] make sure that the proper steps [were] tak[e]n to [e]nsure that [Plaintiff] [did] not have contac[t] with other inmates.” Accordingly, Plaintiff checked the “resоlved” box on the grievance response form.
On May 15, 2013, Plaintiff was transported from Metro West to the courthouse for a court appearance. There, he was placed in a holding cell with inmate Anterell Dean. Plaintiff told an officer that he could not be in the same cell as Dean.
When Plaintiff and Dean were alone in the cell, Dean “struck [Plaintiff] with his fist in [Plaintiff‘s] face and [the] top of [Plaintiff‘s] head and proceeded to punch [Plaintiff].” When Plaintiff tried to get up, Dean slammed him against the toilet and the wall, and continued to punch him. Plaintiff swung back. An officer passed by the cell and broke up the fight.
Plaintiff completed an incident report documenting the encounter. He woke up the following day with “sever[e] pain in [his] jaw, head, neck, back and shoulder.” A nurse administered Advil to ease the pain. Back at Metro West, Plaintiff was transferred out of Dean‘s unit. He submitted a grievance concerning the incident with Dean on May 20, 2013. The response to Plaintiff‘s grievance stated the facility “had never [] approved for [Plaintiff] an[d] [] Dean to be kept separate.”
B. Procedural History
Plaintiff filed a complaint on August 21, 2013, alleging that his constitutional rights had been violated by Defendants’ failure to ensure his safety while incarcerated. The district judge referred the case to a magistrate judge. Plaintiff amended his complaint on July 8, 2014, and again on January 15, 2015. The operative complaint lists as defendants the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections, Lieutenant Weston, Sergeant Jefferson, Corporal Gomez, and “Officer Jane Doe” (the officer who placed Plaintiff in the cell with Dean at the courthouse). Corporal Gomez and Lieutenant Weston moved to dismiss Plaintiff‘s second amended complaint on qualified immunity grounds. The magistrate judge issued an R & R recommending that the motion to dismiss be denied. The district court adopted the R & R and denied Defendants’ motion to dismiss. This interlocutory appeal followed.
II. DISCUSSION
“We have jurisdiction to review the denial of the defense of qualified immunity оn interlocutory appeal pursuant to
“Qualified immunity protects government offiсials performing discretionary functions from suits in their individual capacities unless their conduct violates ‘clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.‘” Dalrymple v. Reno, 334 F.3d 991, 994 (11th Cir. 2003) (quoting Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002)). Plaintiff does not dispute that Defendants were acting within the scope of their discretionary authority at all relevant times. Thus, to analyze whether Defendants are entitled to
A. Violation of a Constitutional Right
Our first task is to determine whether the facts alleged in Plaintiff‘s second amended complaint make out a violation of the
1. Substantial Risk of Serious Harm
The district court adopted the magistrate judge‘s R & R, which concluded that Plaintiff had alleged facts that satisfy all three elements of a deliberate indifference claim. Regarding the first element, the magistrate judge stated that “[t]here is no dispute that plaintiff plead[ed] the existence of a substantial risk of serious harm.” We conclude that Plaintiff has alleged facts that, if true, dеmonstrate that he faced a substantial risk of serious harm.
This Court has previously recognized that inmate-on-inmate violence can amount to serious harm. See, e.g., Purcell ex rel. Estate of Morgan v. Toombs Cty., Ga., 400 F.3d 1313, 1320 (11th Cir. 2005) (“We accept that an excessive risk of inmate-on-inmate violence at a jail creates a substantial risk of serious harm.“); Hale, 50 F.3d at 1583 (“Hale produced evidence that inmate-on-inmate violence occurred regularly when the jail was overcrowded.... Morеover, the evidence indicated that the violence was severe enough to require medical attention and even hospitalization on occasion. A jury viewing this evidence reasonably could find that a substantial risk of serious harm existed at the jail.“). The question, then, is whether the risk of serious harm to Plaintiff was “substantial.”
Plaintiff alleges that he had previously been attacked by members of a prison gang, and members of that gang continued to threaten him. The fact of an earlier аttack made the ongoing threats credible. And the threats were at least credible enough to cause Plaintiff to forgo his recreation time to avoid being around other inmates. On these facts, a jury could conclude that the risk of an attack by gang members was substantial.
On appeal, Defendants rely heavily on our recent decision in Brooks v. Warden, 800 F.3d 1295 (2015), which was issued two months after the district court entered its order denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Brooks was an inmate in the special management (SMU) at a Georgia prison.
Brooks sued the responsible prison officials under
Defendants also seem to argue that Plaintiff did not face a substantial risk of serious harm because he was already housed in a single-man cell and was in protective custody.6 The problem with this argument is that, even after Plaintiff was housed in a single-man cell and in protective custody, officers allegedly tried to move Plaintiff to shared cells and to force him to take his recreation time with other inmates. And Plaintiff was still receiving threats from gang members. So Plaintiff has adequately alleged that even though he had been placed in a single-man cell, he still faced a substantial risk of serious harm.
Defendants also note that Plaintiff indicated on a grievance response form that the issue was “resolved.” But Plaintiff alleges that he checked that box only after Lieutenant Weston assured him that she would make sure he was kept separate from other inmates. So the fact that Plaintiff checked the “resolved” box does not indicate that there was no risk of harm; it shows only that Lieutenant Weston promised him that she would promptly address the then-extant risk.
2. Deliberate Indifference
The second element of a deliberate indifference claim has both a subjective and an
Our decision in Caldwell v. Warden, FCI Talladega, 748 F.3d 1090 (11th Cir. 2014), makes clear that Plaintiff‘s complaint adequately alleges that both Corporal Gomez and Lieutenant Weston were subjectively aware that Plaintiff faced a substantial risk of serious harm. Caldwell also involved an inmate-on-inmate attack. The defendant-officials argued that Caldwell had not adduced enough evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact with respect to the defendants’ subjective awareness of a substantial risk of serious harm to Caldwell. We disagreed. In pertinent part, we explained that the evidence showed that Caldwell told the defendants that he “feared for his life if he was returned to a cell with [his cellmate]” and that a jury could reasonably infer that Caldwell had a well-founded basis for his fear because Caldwell‘s cellmate had previously used Caldwell‘s personal belongings to start a fire in their cell, and the officers were aware of this fire. Id. at 1101.
The allegations in Plaintiff‘s complaint here follow a similar path. Plaintiff alleged that he informed Defendants, verbally and in writing, that he feared for his safety if he was not kept separate from other inmates, including members of the prison gаng and Dean in particular. Plaintiff‘s allegations make clear that this fear was well-founded given that members of the gang had targeted Plaintiff, had previously assaulted him, and continued to threaten Plaintiff. Accordingly, Plaintiff adequately alleged that Defendants were subjectively aware of a substantial risk of serious harm to Plaintiff.
To establish the second prong of the deliberate indifference element, a plaintiff must show that the officer responded in an objectively unreasonable manner to the substantial risk of serious harm. “An official responds to a known risk in an objectively unreasonable manner if he knew of ways to reduce the harm but knowingly [or] recklessly declined to act.” Rodriguez v. Sec‘y for Dep‘t of Corr., 508 F.3d 611, 620 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks and citation omitted); accord LaMarca v. Turner, 995 F.2d 1526, 1538 (11th Cir. 1993) (explaining that the proper inquiry is whether a prison official “knowingly or recklessly disregarded solutions within his means“).
Plaintiff alleges facts from which a jury could conclude that Defendants responded to Plaintiff‘s complaints of a substantial risk of serious harm in an objеctively unreasonable manner. In short, Plaintiff asserts that although Defendants paid his concerns lip service, repeatedly assuring him that they would take the necessary steps to ensure that he would not encounter other inmates, Defendants failed to take any action. Plaintiff argues that it was objectively unreasonable for Defendants to do nothing in response to the risk he faced from gang members, and that it was especially unreasonable to have failed to follоw standard operating procedure by indicating on Plaintiff‘s jail card that he had to be kept separate from all other inmates at all times.7 Assuming that De-
Defendants argue that Plaintiff does not claim to have encountered any other inmates from the time he conferred with Defendants in March until the attack in May. The implication, we take it, is that either the situation self-corrected or Defendants took action to correct it. If the former, then Defendants were under no duty to act, and if the latter, then Defendants were not deliberately indifferent. Although it is true that Plaintiff did not allege that he encountered other inmates at Metro West after his final discussion with Defendants, at this stage, we simply do not know what steps Defendants took in response to Plaintiff‘s complaints, if any. Plaintiff alleges that they did nothing and specifically cites their failure to indicate on his jail card that he could not be placed with any other inmate under any circumstances. Thus, Plaintiff has adequately alleged that Defendants “knew of ways to reduce the harm but knowingly [or] recklessly declined to аct.” Rodriguez, 508 F.3d at 620 (quotation marks and citation omitted). Of course, discovery may reveal that Defendants did take some measures in response to Plaintiff‘s concerns, and Defendants are “not precluded from asserting the qualified immunity defense throughout the proceedings as the facts develop[].” Oladeinde v. City of Birmingham, 230 F.3d 1275, 1289 (11th Cir. 2000); Bowen v. Warden, 826 F.3d 1312, 1325 (11th Cir. 2016) (“This case may look very different as it moves beyond the pleadings and the record is more fully developed.“).
3. Causation
Defendants do not dispute that Plaintiff adequately pleadеd the causation element of his
B. Clearly Established Constitutional Right
Because Plaintiff‘s second amended complaint sufficiently alleges a constitutional violation, “we next determine whether preexisting law clearly established that [] [D]efendants’ conduct amounted to a constitutional violation.” Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1359 (11th Cir. 2003). “Fоr a constitutional right to be clearly established, its contours ‘must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.‘” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987)). We look to the law “as interpreted at the time by the United States Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the Florida Supreme Court.” Terrell v. Smith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1255 (11th Cir. 2012).
This Court has held that a plaintiff can demonstrate that the contours of the alleg-
Plaintiff‘s complaint alleges that Defendants took no measures to prevent Dean‘s attack even though Plaintiff had repeatedly warned Defendants that he was being threatened by Dean and other members of the gang that had previously assaulted him. In 2013, no reasonable officer could have believed that doing nothing in the face of these circumstances was constitutional. See Marsh v. Butler Cty., Ala., 268 F.3d 1014, 1034 (11th Cir. 2001) (en banc) (“[A]t the time of the assaults in this case, it was clearly established in this Circuit that it is an unreasonable response for an official to do nothing when confronted with prison conditions—like the conditions alleged in this case—that posе a risk of serious physical harm to inmates.“), abrogated on other grounds by Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 561-63, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). Accordingly, at this stage, Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity.
III. CONCLUSION
Plaintiff‘s complaint sufficiently alleged that Defendants violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights. At the time of the events underlying this suit, it was clearly established that a prison official violates an inmate‘s constitutional rights where the official is aware of a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate, including an inmate-on-inmate attack, and takes no aсtion. Accordingly, Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity at this juncture, and the district court‘s denial of Defendants’ motion to dismiss Plaintiff‘s