Case Information
*3 Before MAGILL, REAVLEY, [1] and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.
_____________
HANSEN, Circuit Judge.
Thеse two prisoners' civil rights cases arise out of an incident where an Arkansas inmate stabbed two fellow inmates, Ernest Smith and John Stewart, murdering Stewart and seriously injuring Smith. Smith sought declaratory and injunctive relief based on the conditions of his confinement; Smith and Stewart's estate both sought damages based on the stabbing incident. In this consolidated appeal, the Arkansas Department of Correction prison officials appeal the district court's grant of declaratory and injunctive relief requiring additional staffing, the denial of their motions for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, and the district court's grant of partial summary judgment in favor of the plaintiffs on liability.
I. BACKGROUND
Ernest Smith and John Stewart were both inmates at the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. During the early morning hours of August 10, 1992, while they were asleep in their beds, they were brutally stabbed by fellow inmate Robert Lewis. Smith wаs seriously injured, and Stewart died as a result of the attack. Lewis accomplished the act with a hobby craft knife that he had either borrowed or stolen from another inmate within the barracks.
These inmates were all incarcerated together in Barracks No. 8, a large, open, dormitory-style room in the West Hall of the Cummins Unit of the Arkansas Department of Correction. Inmates in the open barracks are free to move about the entire room. Barracks *4 No. 8 housed 86 general population inmates at the time of this incident and was not staffed with a correctional officer inside the room. Barracks Nos. 5 and 6 are similarly organized and similarly lack the presence of a supervising correctional officer inside them.
Following the stabbing incident, Ernest Smith sought damages for his injuries pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the prison conditiоns at the time of the attack, including the prison officials' failure to protect him by not posting a guard inside the open barracks, violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment in the form of inmate on inmate attacks. Smith also sought injunctive relief to remedy the current conditions of confinement, contending that the prison officials were not complying with the requirements imposed in a prior case. See Finney v. Mabry, 546 F. Supp. 628 (E.D. Ark. 1982). The district court determined that Smith lacked standing to seek injunctive relief for the current conditions of confinement at the Cummins Unit because he had been transferred from that facility over one year prior to the commencement of this suit. For the sake of judicial economy, however, the court allowed Smith to add a co- plaintiff to bring that claim. Smith joined Jimmy Rudd, who was a current resident of the Cummins Unit, for the purpose of seeking injunctive relief to remedy the current conditions of confinement. The administrator of John Stewart's estate filed a separate § 1983 action, seeking damages for the defendants' failure to protect Stewart from the violent attack.
The district court determined that Rudd was not entitled to a jury trial on his equitable claim for an injunction and held a five-day bench trial. In its findings of fact, the district court found that prison policy at the time of the stabbing incident allowed some inmates to possess dangerous hobby craft tools in the open barracks for purposes of making arts and crafts. Subsequent to the filing of this case, however, the prison officials adopted *5 a new policy, which removes all hobby craft tools from the open barracks and thus provides an adequate remedy for the dangеrs inherent in the old policy.
The district court also determined that the prison officials were inadequately staffing the open barracks and had done nothing to alleviate the dangers posed by this shortcoming. Supervision of the open barracks is provided by one correctional officer stationed in the hallway between two open barracks. This correctional officer monitors the open barracks by looking through the bars, but this officer is not allowed to enter the barracks because he holds the keys. A different correctional officer periodically walks through the barracks to check on the inmates at unscheduled and unrecorded times. No hourly security checks are logged in security records; neither are random hourly security checks listed in the post orders which inform individual officers what is required during their shifts. Although the post orders include a requirement for random security checks, the court found no indication that random checks must be (or were) accomplished hourly as required by Finney, 546 F. Supp. at 640. The district court credited the testimony of various correctional officers, some of the defendants, and many inmate witnesses, which indicated that random hourly security checks in fact were not made.
The district court concluded that even assuming the defendants were complying with the standards found to be adequate in Finney, the evidence now proves that those standards are inadequate to guarantee inmate safety in the open barracks. Prison records do demonstrate that an officer had walked through the barracks for a security check only ten minutes before Smith and Stewart were violently attacked. Consequently, the district court concluded that even compliance with the random hourly security check found to be adequate in Finney would not have provided the inmates with adequate protection.
Additionally, the district court found that a great deal of both reported and unreported criminal activity goes on at night in the open barracks that is not deterred by periodic security checks. Since 1986, reports by independent investigators have indicated that operating large, open barracks with no correctional officer stationed inside presents a serious danger to the inmates so housed. In 1986, the Arthur Young Company, at the request of the Arkansas legislature, compiled two reports concerning the conditions in the open barracks at the Cummins Unit. The first report found that the absence of correctional officers inside the barracks "is contrary to the most fundamental security and safety practices." (Appellants' Addend. at 14.) It also noted that "the almost total lack of direct monitoring could be resulting in the criminal activities currently being charged." (Id.) The report recommended that at least two correctional officers be stationed inside each of the open barracks whenever the majority of the inmates are present there. The second Arthur Young report stated that "[h]ousing units of 100 inmates with no direct supervision cannot be thought to be under control." (Id. at 16.) Again, the second report recommended at least two correctional officers for each open barracks.
In 1989, the United States Department of Justice investigated the situation and notified then Governor Clinton that the staffing and supervision at the Cummins Unit wеre inadequate to ensure the safety of inmates, especially those inmates in the crowded dormitories. The Justice Department recommended that a minimum of 92 additional correctional officers would be needed to ensure inmate safety. To avoid a Justice Department lawsuit challenging the conditions at the state's prisons, the State of Arkansas entered into an agreement with the Justice Department to implement the additional staff recommendations. Funding was approved in 1991 but was subsequently cut back, providing for only 62 additional staff members. At the time of trial, however, the parties stipulated that all 92 positions had been funded.
A 1991 report by the Department of Justice specifically recommended that two correctional officers should be posted in each of the large open dormitoriеs during the night shift. The Arkansas Department of Correction determined that four new positions should be created for each of the open barracks. As of April 22, 1992, a list outlining where the new positions are located showed that sixteen new correctional officers had been assigned to the four open, inadequately supervised barracks. At the time of trial in February 1995, one of the four open barracks was adequately staffed, but the three others, including Barracks No. 8, still did not have an officer regularly stationed inside them as contemplated by the agreement.
The district court found that the State of Arkansas has avoided costly litigation by agreeing to implement these staffing changes and the legislature has provided funding for additional staff, yet to date it has not complied with the agreement. The prison officials argued that thеy had not staffed the barracks with the new correctional officers because in their professional judgment, the additional officers were needed in other parts of the prison. The court dismissed this as a feeble post hoc rationalization since the prison officials had earlier agreed that staffing inside the barracks was a high priority. The court found that these problems have existed for years and that the defendants have recognized the problems and agreed to an appropriate solution, yet nothing has been done. Based upon all of the facts, the district court concluded that the prison officials had not been and were not currently meeting their constitutional duty to reasonably protect inmates in the open barracks from danger.
To remedy this situation, the district court granted Rudd's request fоr declaratory and injunctive relief. The injunction requires the defendants to station at least two correctional officers inside the open barracks at issue and to document and record all entries and exits of prison personnel into or out of the *8 open barracks. To demonstrate compliance, the court required the defendants to make periodic progress reports, the last of which was due in December 1995. The court did not grant Rudd's request for specific orders to remedy the need for quick response procedures, effective communication devices, or shakedown policies, but instead permitted the prison officials, in their discretion, to fashion an appropriate remedy to meet these problems.
In Smith's § 1983 action, the district court determined that the defendants are nоt entitled to qualified immunity on Smith's claim for damages and that Smith is entitled to partial summary judgment on the issue of liability for the injuries he suffered in the stabbing incident. Thus, only the issue of Smith's damages remains for trial. The district court denied Smith's claim for injunctive relief based upon the prison's hobby craft policy, which allowed inmates in the open barracks to possess dangerous tools such as hobby craft knives, because the new hobby craft policy implemented by the prison since this litigation began satisfies all constitutional concerns on this issue.
In the Stewart estate's § 1983 case, the district court determined that the issues are exactly the same as those litigated in the Ernest Smith and Jimmy Rudd case. Accordingly, the court concluded that the doctrine of collateral estoppel bars the defendants from relitigating the issues of qualified immunity and liability. The prison officials in each case appeal.
II. DISCUSSION
A. Injunctive Relief Before proceeding to the merits of the injunction, we address two preliminary issues. The first is the question of mootness. The injunction issued in Jimmy Rudd's case required the defendants to file reports detailing their compliance. Reports were due on *9 May 1, 1995, August 1, 1995, and December 1, 1995. The injunction order concluded as follows:
If no report or challenge is filed setting forth any violation of the Court's orders, before December 31, 1995, then and in that event, the injunction granted hereby shall expire without further action by the Court, otherwise to continue in full force and effect. After the expiration of the injunction, the Court assumes that defendants will continue to staff and operate the open barracks in compliance with the Constitution.
(Appellant's Addend. at 2.) The defendants timely filed the required reports. Rudd filed resрonses, suggesting methods for documenting and verifying compliance by the prison officials but setting forth no violations of the district court's injunction.
By its own terms, therefore, the injunction issued in this
case expired on December 31, 1995. Because the injunction has
expired and Rudd has alleged no further violations of the district
court's order, this issue appears to be moot. See generally
Hedberg v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co.,
In this case, the injunction expired shortly after the prison
officials fulfilled their reporting requirements. The injunction
was therefore too short in duration to be fully litigated before
its expiration. Furthermore, the effect of the injunction has not
been eliminated. The district court expressly stated, "After the
expiration of the injunction, the Court assumes that defendants
will continue to staff and operate the open barracks in compliance
with the Constitution" -- presumably as set forth in the district
court's order. (Appellant's Addend. at 2.) If we deem the issue
moot, then there is a reasonable probability that the complaining
parties (in this instance, the prison officials) will face a
situation where they must either continue to comply with the
requirements of an order that has evaded appellate review or most
assuredly be subjected to further prisoner litigation for their
noncompliance. Thus, we conclude that the injunction issue is not
moot but "`capable of repetition, yet evading review.'" Id.
(quoting Weinstein v. Bradford,
The second preliminary issue we must address is that of
standing. As a prerequisite to any inquiry about the conditions of
confinement, as with all claims, an inmate seeking relief must
satisfy basic constitutional standing requirements. This requires
Rudd to demonstrate, among other things, either an actual or
imminent injury in fact. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504
U.S. 555, 560 (1992). See also Lewis v. Casey,
At the time he joined this suit, Rudd was a resident of Barracks No. 8, one of the unsupervised open barracks at the Cummins Unit. In his trial tеstimony, Rudd did not specifically state that he fears an imminent threat of harm from the prison conditions. Nevertheless, Rudd's testimony and his other evidence clearly indicate that he, along with every inmate living in the open barracks, is subjected to an imminent threat of harm in these conditions. Rudd admitted that he has stolen from and harmed other inmates in the open barracks and that he often has trouble sleeping for fear of retaliation against him. The parties stipulated to the several reports summarized above, which all warn of the danger to inmates living in open and unsupervised barracks. The thievery, assaults, and hand-crafted weapons that are common in the unsupervised environment of the open barracks illustrate its inherent danger. Accordingly, Rudd has satisfied the constitutional requirement of demonstrating that he suffers from the threat оf imminent harm.
Turning now to the merits of the injunction, we review the
district court's grant of injunctive relief for an abuse of
discretion. Hosna v. Groose,
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which
proscribes cruel and unusual punishments, "`does not mandate
comfortable prisons'" but does impose a duty on prison officials
"to provide humane conditions of confinement." Farmer, 114 S. Ct.
at 1976 (quoting Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 349 (1981)).
Among other things, this duty requirеs prison officials to take
reasonable steps to protect inmates from violence and assault by
fellow inmates, because being subjected to violent assault is not
"`part of the penalty that criminal offenders [must] pay for their
offenses.'" Jensen v. Clarke, 73 F.3d 808, 810 (8th Cir. 1996)
(quoting Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 347). To prevail on a claim of
failure to protect, prisoners must demonstrate "that they are
`incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious
harm'" and that the prison officials subjectively knew of and
disregarded that safety risk. Id. (quoting Farmer,
to survive summary judgment, he must come forward with evidence from which it can be inferred that the defendant-officials were at the time suit was filed, and are at the time of summary judgment, knowingly and unreasonably disregarding an objectively intolerable risk of harm, and that they will continue to do so; and finally to establish eligibility for an injunction, the inmate must demonstrate the continuance of that disregard during the remainder of the litigation and into the future. . . . If the court finds the Eighth Amendment's subjective and objective requirements satisfied, it may grant appropriate injunctive relief.
Farmer,
In this case, the district court determined that Rudd was living in conditions that constituted a substantial risk of serious harm and that the prison officials knew of but disregarded this safety risk. After reviewing the record, we conclude that the district court did not rely on either clearly erroneous findings of fact or make erroneous legal conclusions in issuing the injunction.
The evidence adduced from witnesses and stipulated reports indicates that violence, robbery, rape, gambling, and use of weapons by inmates are prevalent in the open, unsupervised barracks. Rudd's testimony illustrates the danger inherent in the open, unsupervised barracks. Rudd testified that he is sometimes unable to rest at night, but he believes he can take care of himself better than the guards because he has a weapon, as do other inmates, and the guards do not. He said that he would rather be caught with a weapon by a guard than be caught without one by a fellow inmate in the open barracks.
We acknowledge that Rudd is not a blаmeless victim in this scenario. His own misdeeds have often bred his inability to rest at night because he feared retaliation from inmates whom he has harmed. Nevertheless, it is painfully obvious that Rudd's own misdeeds and the violence of other inmates thrive in the open barracks due to the lack of supervision. The dangers of the open barracks are further illustrated by the incident where Smith and Stewart were violently stabbed while asleep in their beds. Response time on the part of correctional officers to disarm such volatile situations is limited because the guard in the hallway cannot enter the barracks while in possession of the keys, even if an altercation is in progress. The evidence clearly supports the existence of an objectively substantial risk of personal injury to Rudd and others who live in these conditions. The evidence also *14 supports the court's finding that the prison officials were aware of this objectively intolerable risk of harm and subjectively disregarded it. Finding no clear error of fact or law, we conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting injunctive relief for this constitutional violation.
We note that the open barracks at the Cummins Unit have been
a source of frequent litigation since the 1960s. See Hutto v.
Finney,
that if the State of Arkansas chooses to confine penitentiary inmates in barracks with other inmates, they ought at least to be able to fall asleep at night without fear of having their throats cut before morning, and that the State has failed to discharge a constitutional duty in fаiling to take steps to enable them to do so.
Holt v. Sarver, 300 F. Supp. 825, 831 (E.D. Ark. 1969). Unfortunately, Judge Henley's conclusion rendered more than 25 years ago bears repeating.
We reject the prison officials' contention that the district court erred by ignoring Rudd's own testimony, in which, they contend, he does not allege any concern for his own personal safety. We agree that Rudd's testimony alone does not render him a model candidate for equitable relief. As we indicated earlier in our discussion, however, Rudd's testimony together with his other evidence suffices to demonstrate that he was subjected to prison conditions that present a substantial risk of serious harm. Thus, the district court did not clearly err.
Additionally, we have considered whether the district court
abused its equitable power and imposed a remedy beyond the scope of
the injury, within thе meaning of Lewis v. Casey,
being subjected to the perils of the crowded, unsupervised open
barracks. To suffer a constitutional injury in the denial-of-
access-to-the-courts situation discussed in Lewis, each individual
plaintiff must demonstrate prejudice, and an individual remedy will
be adequate for each injured plaintiff. To the contrary, in the
conditions-of-confinement challenge of the case before us, Rudd and
all the inmates living in the same room are similarly subjected to
the same unconstitutional condition, and no individual remedy will
be adequate unless it eliminates the unconstitutional condition in
the barracks as a whole, which necessarily benefits all the inmates
residing there. It would have made little sense to further
narrowly tailor the remedy by ordering a guard whose duty would be
to protect just Rudd. Because Rudd's injury cannot be remedied on
a more individualized basis, we conclude that the district court
"carefully tailored" the remedy to the specific harm suffered by
the plaintiff. Butler v. Dowd,
The district court judge in this case has a record of giving the prison officials at the Cummins Unit the first opportunity to apply their expertise to fashion a remedy for the open barracks problem, which has existed for many years. See Finney, 546 F. Supp. 628 (E.D. Ark. 1982); Finney v. Mabry, 534 F. Supp. 1026 (E.D. Ark. 1982). At least since 1986, the prison officials have known of the continuing safety concern inherent in the open barracks, and they have formally and consensually agreed to implement the Department of Justice recommendations for additional staffing. Thus, it was originally the prison officials' discretionary professional judgment, not the court's, that the open barracks need additional personnel, and the legislature responded to that need by providing funding for the additional staff. Yet, the prison officials had not implemented the agreed upon additional staffing recommendations by the time of trial -- four years after they agreed that it was appropriate and necessary. The prison officials undoubtedly were given the first opportunity to cure the problem. The district court's injunction merely gave force to the prison officials' professional judgment after they demonstrated their reluctance to implement the agreed-upon solution. The *17 district court specifically denied Rudd's request that it impose more specific procedures regarding the guards' ability to make a quick response, the need for effective communication devices, and specific shakedown policies. In light of the evidence in this case, the district court did not abuse its equitable power by requiring the Department of Correction to abide by its agreement to place additional staff in the open barracks.
For the same reasons, we also conсlude that Rudd's failure to
file a prison grievance complaining of the conditions of
confinement is not fatal to his claim. In Farmer, the Supreme
Court counseled that "[w]hen a prison inmate seeks injunctive
relief, a court need not ignore the inmate's failure to take
advantage of adequate prison procedures, and an inmate who
needlessly bypasses such procedures may properly be compelled to
pursue them."
Since oral argument in this case, Congress has enacted the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, 18 U.S.C. § 3626. We requested supplemental briefing on the potential effect of this Act *18 on the present appeal. The Act provides that the power to grant injunctive relief "in any civil action with respect to prison conditions shall extend no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right of a particular plaintiff or plaintiffs." 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1). The Act also provides that "[t]he court shall not grant or approve any prospective relief unless the court finds that such relief is narrowly drawn, extends no further than necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right, and is the least intrusive means necessary to correct the violation of the Federal right." Id.
The district court did not have an opportunity to apply this
statute in the first instance, but we are satisfied, and the
parties agree, that the Act merely codifies existing law and does
not change the standards for determining whether to grant an
injunction. See Williams v. Edwards,
We conclude that the district court did not abuse its discretion in granting Jimmy Rudd's request for injunctive relief.
B. Summary Judgments
In Ernest Smith's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for damages arising
out of the brutal attack by fellow inmate Lewis, the defendant
prison officials moved for summary judgment on qualified immunity
grounds, asserting that they acted in conformity with the clearly
established law as set forth in Finney v. Mabry,
When a district court denies a summary judgment motion based
on qualified immunity, we view the facts in the light most
favorable to the nonmoving party and consider "`whether the facts
as alleged (by the plaintiff, or, in some cases, the defendant)
support a claim of violation of clearly established law.'" Johnson
v. Jones, 115 S. Ct. 2151, 2156 (1995) (quoting Mitchell v.
Forsyth,
The Court has determined that these measures, if continued as represented to the Court, are sufficient to provide adequate safety and inmate security in the open barracks despite the numbers of inmates now housed there. Therefore, no order requiring a reduction of the population in those barracks will be entered. If the respondents continue the security measures as represented to the Court, they will be in compliance with the requirements of the Constitution, the Consent Decree, and all prior orders of the Court on the issue of inmate safety and overcrowding in the open barracks.
Id. Thus, in Finney, the district court allowed the prison
officials to devise their own solution to the overcrowding and supervision problems in the open barracks, and the district court adopted those solutions as providing constitutional minimum conditions of confinement. The prison officials now argue that "Finney, in reality, did not establish any requirements for security in the open barracks." (Appellants' Br. at 46-47.) We disagree. While the "requirements" set forth in Finney may not be inflexible, they certainly represent the constitutional minimum conditions that the court required to be maintained at the Cummins *21 Unit. Thus, the district court in this case properly measured the prison officials' conduct and knowledge against the standards set forth in Finney.
The district court's ultimate finding that the prison officials were not acting in compliance with Finney, however, is beyond the scope of a summary judgment proceeding. Material issues of fact and credibility were present that precluded granting summary judgment to the prison officials on the ground of qualified immunity. See Ludwig v. Anderson, 54 F.3d 465, 473 (8th Cir. 1995). Smith presented evidence from which a reasonable juror could conclude that the prison officials were not in fact complying with Finney, as the testimony of some witnesses and the stipulated reports indicated that regular security checks were not being made. On the other hand, the evidence also indicated that a correctional officer had walked through the barracks only minutes before the attack and that a guard had been posted out in the hall all night. Prison officials testified that they had instructed officers to make the security checks and that they were under the impression that they were in fact being made. Further, the officer responsible for making rounds on the night of the assault testified that hourly checks were made, though he could not remember at what times they were made. Additionally, though not regulated by Finney, prison officials knew of the presence of hobby craft tools and the danger posed by them from Department of Justice reports that specifically set forth the risk inherent in the hobby craft policy.
Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party, there exists a material dispute of fact concerning
whether the prison officials were complying with the terms of
Finney and providing adequate protection to inmates. To conclude
definitively that the defendants were not complying with Finney, as
it did, the district court made credibility assessments, weighed
the conflicting evidence presented, and resolved disputed issues of
*22
fact. See Mem. Op., filed Feb. 23, 1995, at 25 ("The defense of
qualified immunity, to be of any value, must usually be disposed of
before trial. In the great majority of the cases, the facts are
not in dispute and the issue is therefore one of law. This,
however, is not such a clear cut case.") (emphasis added); id. at
28 ("Mr. Smith contends that security checks were almost never
made. The defendants contend that they were made routinely on an
hourly basis as required by Finney. The Court finds that such
security checks were made on an irregular and random basis . . .
.") (emphasis added); id. at 32 ("The Court has heard and
considered the testimony of the witnesses for both the plaintiff
and the defendants and has received and considered the documentary
evidence, and finds therefrom that the requirements of Finney have
not been adhered to, or followed, in recent years, and certainly
not since the first of 1992.") (emphasis added); id. at 30
("Generally the Court was impressed by the credibility of Sergeant
Johnson, but felt that he was under pressure to support the ADC's
claimed adherence to the Finney security check requirement while
knowing that such was not the case."). This is improper in the
summary judgment context. We conclude that the district court toоk
the evidence presented on the equitable claim for an injunction and
used it to decide the disputed issues of fact not only on the
injunction issue but also on the qualified immunity issue. We
conclude that "[t]he evidence in this case presents material issues
of fact on which the issue of qualified immunity turns and
`presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a
jury.'" Ludwig,
The same factual dispute that precludes a grant of qualified
immunity -- whether the prison officials were actually complying
with the requirements of Finney аt the time of the incident -- also
precludes summary judgment in favor of Smith on the issue of
liability. In an appeal from the denial of qualified immunity, we
do not have jurisdiction to address any issues that are not
themselves immediately appealable unless they are "inextricably
intertwined" with the qualified immunity determination of whether
the alleged facts support a violation of clearly established law.
Swint v. Chambers County Comm., 115 S. Ct. 1203, 1212 (1995);
Kincade v. City of Blue Springs, Mo.,
Because we conclude that a material question of fact exits on the issue of whether the prison officials complied with Finney, the premise on which the district court granted partial summary judgment establishing liability no longer exists. The mаterial dispute of fact that precludes summary judgment on the ground of *24 qualified immunity also precludes summary judgment on the issue of liability under a Finney theory. With respect to the district court's grant of summary judgment establishing liability against the defendants based on the prison's policy of permitting inmates to have hobby craft tools, including sharp knives, in the open barracks, we note that the court held that that policy, in combination with the staffing shortcomings the district court had found, created a pervasive risk of harm. To reach such a conclusion, the court relied on its own factual findings. See Mem. Op., filed Feb. 23, 1995, at 39. Accordingly, we must reverse the district court's grant of partial summary judgment on liability and remand Smith's § 1983 case for a trial on the merits.
In the John Stewart estate's case, we conclude for the same reasons that the district court properly denied thе prison officials' request for qualified immunity but improperly granted summary judgment on the issue of liability. We have no jurisdiction in this qualified immunity appeal to review the district court's decision that the defendants' failure to respond to the Administratrix's Requests for Admissions results in the requests being deemed admitted. The district court did not rely on any of the deemed admissions in reaching its decision with respect to the defendants' qualified immunity motion. This discovery dispute is not "inextricably intertwined" with the qualified immunity issue, and its resolution must await the appeal from the final judgment if any is taken. This case must also be remanded for a trial on the merits.
III. CONCLUSION
We affirm the district court's grant of injunctive relief to Jimmy Rudd. In each § 1983 case, we affirm the denial of qualified immunity but reverse the grant of summary judgment on the issue of liability. We remand the § 1983 claims in each case for a trial on the merits.
A true copy.
Attest:
CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.
Notes
[1] The HONORABLE THOMAS M. REAVLEY, United States Circuit Judge for the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation.