Giroux v. Somerset County

• Decision Date: 10 December 1998
• Docket Number: No. 98-1770,98-1770
• Citation: 1999 WL 335145,178 F.3d 28
• Parties: , Shawn GIROUX, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. SOMERSET COUNTY, Fred Hartley, and Barry DeLong, Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

178 F.3d 28 Shawn GIROUX, Plaintiff, Appellant, v. SOMERSET COUNTY, Fred Hartley, and Barry DeLong, Defendants Appellees.

No. 98-1770.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard Dec. 10, 1998.

Decided May 24, 1999.

Michael J. Schmidt, with whom Peter T. Marchesi was on brief for appellant.

Edward R. Benjamin, with whom Michael R. Bosse was on brief for appellees.

Before SELYA, Circuit Judge, GIBSON, Senior Circuit Judge, ^* and LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

LIPEZ, Circuit Judge.

Shawn Giroux, a former inmate at the Somerset County Jail, brought suit pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against one prison employee (Sergeant Hartley), Somerset County Sheriff Barry DeLong, and Somerset County after he was assaulted by another inmate. Giroux alleges a violation of the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual punishments" and pendent state claims pursuant to the Maine Tort Claims Act, Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 14, § 8101 et seq. The district court granted a summary judgment to all defendants on the § 1983 claims and dismissed the state law claims without prejudice. We reverse the judgment of the district court.

I.

A. Facts

We present the facts from the summary judgment record in the light most favorable to Giroux, the non-moving party, and draw all reasonable inferences in his favor. See Maldonado-Denis v. Castillo-Rodriguez, 23 F.3d 576, 581 (1st Cir.1994). Giroux was incarcerated in the Somerset County Jail in September 1995. ¹ On September 19, 1995, Deputy Doug Manson informed Giroux that a detective from the Somerset County Sheriff's Department wanted to speak with Giroux. Manson escorted Giroux from his cell to meet with the detective. Robert Tucker, an inmate with whom Giroux shared a common day room, ² threatened Giroux in the presence of Manson upon hearing that Giroux was going to meet with the detective. Robert Tucker apparently thought that Giroux was going to be asked for information about Tucker. After meeting with the detective, Giroux was escorted to a new cell; his belongings had been collected and moved for him. Although no reason for Giroux's September 19th cell change is reflected in the jail's records, it is a fair inference that Giroux was relocated in response to Robert Tucker's threats.

The next day, September 20, 1995, Robert Tucker again threatened Giroux as he was taken past Robert Tucker's cell on his way to breakfast. While at breakfast, Scott Tucker, Robert Tucker's brother, sat down at a table with Giroux and communicated a veiled threat to Giroux and two other inmates, Tony St. Pierre and Wayne Curtis, telling them that they were lucky that his brother Robert Tucker was "on the other side of the glass" or "on the opposite side of the window" (referring to the fact that they were separated from Robert Tucker during breakfast). Following breakfast on September 20th, Scott Tucker and other inmates who Giroux believed were in association with Robert and Scott Tucker passed by Giroux's cell and threatened Giroux, telling him "you're dead."

Later that day Giroux and fellow inmates St. Pierre and Curtis met with Jail Administrator Judith Thornton and, according to Giroux, requested protective custody due to the Tucker brothers' threats. ³ Although Thornton testified in her deposition that she has no recollection of such a meeting, jail records indicate that Giroux was placed on cell feed status on September 20, 1995, and Giroux is listed in jail records as being on cell feed status again on September 21, 1995. There is no policy in the record governing the use of cell feed status to protect inmates. Nevertheless, every employee deposed testified to the practice of using cell feeding as a protective device. Indeed, according to that testimony, the only reasons for an inmate to be placed on cell feed status are (1) health related or (2) as a form of protective custody from other inmates. Jail employees, including co-defendant and shift supervisor Sergeant Fred Hartley, testified that the inmate roster should have indicated the reason for Giroux's cell feed status. Although no reason for cell feeding Giroux is recorded in the jail's records, it is a fair inference that he was being cell fed because of threats against him.

Co-defendant Sergeant Fred Hartley was the shift supervisor on the evening and night of September 21, 1995. Giroux and eight or nine other inmates participated in the jail's visitation period that evening. After Giroux had been in the common visiting room for some time, ⁴ Scott Tucker was brought into the same visitation room. The record does not establish who escorted Giroux and Scott Tucker into the visitation room. According to policy, all the prisoners are subjected to a strip search after participating in visitation and before being returned to their cells. The inmates wait for this search in a holding cell in which they are under observation through a plexiglass window. No prison guards are physically present. After an argument began between Scott Tucker and another inmate in the holding cell, the other inmate was escorted out of the holding cell. Immediately thereafter, Scott Tucker began an argument with Giroux, and they exchanged words. Scott Tucker then physically assaulted Giroux, causing a broken nose, torn shoulder ligaments, and a head laceration which required stitches to close. Because Hartley was close by, distributing medication to other inmates, he was the first person to break up the fight between Scott Tucker and Giroux.

Additional facts will be referenced when relevant to the discussion.

B. Procedural History

In a complaint filed on September 8, 1997 alleging violations of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ⁵ and the Maine Tort Claims Act, Me.Rev.Stat. Ann. tit. 14, § 8101 et seq., Giroux claimed that Sergeant Fred Hartley, Somerset County Sheriff Barry DeLong, both of whom were sued in their individual and official capacities, and Somerset County had deprived him of his right to be free of cruel and unusual punishment in contravention of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. ⁶ Specifically, Giroux claimed that the defendants had violated his right to be protected against attacks by other inmates.

The district court, adopting the findings and conclusions of the magistrate judge, held that the evidence that Sergeant Hartley had violated Giroux's Eighth Amendment rights was insufficient and granted all defendants a summary judgment on the § 1983 claims. Although acknowledging a fair inference that Sergeant Hartley knew that Giroux was on cell feed status, the court noted that the Eighth Amendment requires an actual, subjective appreciation of a risk of harm in order to hold prison officials liable under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment, and that Giroux had "presented no facts that Hartley knew of the threats to [Giroux's] life, or that those threats were made by an inmate who was in the holding cell with [Giroux]." Turning to Giroux's claims against the Sheriff and the County, and construing those claims as alleging a failure to train Sergeant Hartley, the court stated that it was "satisfied that Defendant Hartley did not violate [Giroux's] Eighth Amendment rights," and therefore concluded that "no liability can attach to Somerset County or Defendant [Sheriff] DeLong for failing to properly train or supervise [Hartley]." The court then dismissed the state law claims without prejudice. Giroux now appeals those decisions.

II.

A. The Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause of the Eighth Amendment

The Eighth Amendment prohibits "cruel and unusual punishments," and "it is now settled that 'the treatment a prisoner receives in prison and the conditions under which he is confined are subject to scrutiny under the Eighth Amendment.' " Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (quoting Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 31, 113 S.Ct. 2475, 125 L.Ed.2d 22 (1993)). ⁷ Prison officials have a duty to "provide humane conditions of confinement; prison officials must ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, and must 'take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.' " Id. (quoting Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984)). That duty has its origins in the forced dependency of inmates: "Having incarcerated persons with demonstrated proclivities for antisocial criminal, and often violent, conduct, having stripped them of virtually every means of self-protection and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the government and its officials are not free to let the state of nature take its course." Id. at 833 (internal quotations and brackets omitted). Therefore, under the Eighth Amendment, "prison officials have a duty ... to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners." Id. (quoting Cortes-Quinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship, 842 F.2d 556, 558 (1st Cir.1988)).

However, not every injury suffered by a prisoner at the hands of a fellow inmate gives rise to an Eighth Amendment claim. In order for a prison-conditions complaint ⁸ to state a violation of the Eighth Amendment, two requirements must be met. First, the alleged deprivation of adequate conditions must be objectively serious, i.e., "the inmate must show that he is incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm." Id. at 834. Second, the official involved must have had "a sufficiently culpable state of mind," Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 299, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991), described as "deliberate indifference" to inmate health or safety. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834. ⁹ In this context, "deliberate indifference" means 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." Id. at 837. This standard, requiring an actual, subjective...