Parker v. McKeithen

• Decision Date: 15 February 1974
• Docket Number: No. 71-2499.,71-2499.
• Citation: 488 F.2d 553
• Parties: George O. PARKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John J. McKEITHEN, Governor of the State of Louisiana, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

488 F.2d 553 (1974)

George O. PARKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. John J. McKEITHEN, Governor of the State of Louisiana, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 71-2499.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

January 24, 1974.

Rehearing Denied February 15, 1974.

David L. Morgan, Jr., New Orleans, La., for plaintiff-appellant.

Jack P. F. Gremillion, Atty. Gen., Stanford O. Bardwell, Jr., Baton Rouge, La., for defendants-appellees.

Paul P. Rutledge, New Orleans, La., for Hartford Accident & Ind. Co.

Before WISDOM, COLEMAN and SIMPSON, Circuit Judges.

SIMPSON, Circuit Judge:

George O. Parker, the plaintiff below appeals from the entry of what was styled below as a summary judgment in favor of the appellees, McKeithen and others. Decision was withheld to await the result of other litigation and the appeal is now ripe for our decision. In our view, the order entered below amounted to a dismissal for failure to state a claim, an erroneous disposition. Since summary judgment is now a proper disposition, we vacate the original judgment below and remand for the entry of summary judgment upon new and independent grounds.

The suit by Parker was based on injuries received by him while an inmate of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Louisiana. Named as defendants were the state and numerous Louisiana State officials ranging from Governor McKeithen to the Warden at Angola.¹ Suit for damages in excess of one million dollars was brought under the federal civil rights, Title 42 U.S.C. Secs. 1981 and 1983 et seq., with jurisdiction claimed under Title 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1331 and 1343. The complaint charged that due to the gross negligence of the prison officials acting under color of state statutes, usages and customs, Parker was deprived of his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment² and his Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection of the laws.

The underlying facts are as follows.³ On September 15, 1969, the date of his injury, Parker was a medium security inmate in Camp H. of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Counting time allowed for good behavior, Parker was due to be released from Angola less than a week later, September 21, 1969. On the morning of September 15th, inmate Willie Edmonson, also billeted in Camp H, made his way from the second floor of the building in which he and Parker were domiciled to Parker's bed on the first floor. Parker was asleep. Edmonson stabbed Parker in the abdomen several times with a homemade knife, inflicting serious injuries. Parker was hospitalized at the Earl K. Long Hospital at Baton Rouge for two months.

The original complaint below alleged that Parker's stabbing by Edmonson was the result of gross negligence on the part of prison officials in that: (1) the officials were aware that inmates at Angola — and Edmonson in particular — made and were regularly in possession of various types of weapons, including knives similar to the one used by Edmonson on Parker, but failed to conduct inspections therefor and failed to maintain protective safeguards to prevent their manufacture; (2) prison officials were aware that Edmonson was a violent person with a record of prior attacks on fellow inmates; (3) prison officials were aware that Edmonson had made specific threats against Parker shortly before the date of the attack; and (4) prison officials had refused to isolate Parker from Edmonson and other inmates but permitted him to remain in an open type dormitory.

Defendants moved for summary judgment alleging that Parker had not presented a substantial federal claim and pointing out that he had filed a suit identical in all respects save the allegations of violations of federal law in Louisiana state court. Following a hearing on the motion, summary judgment was granted as to all defendants, written reasons therefor being assigned by opinion-order.

The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Governor, McKeithen, C. C. Aycock, President Pro Tempore of the state senate and Lieutenant Governor, and John S. Garrett, Speaker of the House of Representatives on the ground of their immunity from suit for acts or omissions done within the sphere of legitimate executive or legislative activities.⁴ As to the Warden, Henderson, the Assistant Warden, Hoyle, and the Deputy Warden, Dees, the district judge asserted that, although since Monroe v. Pape, 1961, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492, courts have differed as to whether unintentional negligent conduct under color of state law will support a claim under Sec. 1983, he followed the view that under exceptional circumstances, unintentional conduct by prison officials may support such a claim. However, he continued, Parker had failed to state such a claim because he alleged only "an isolated incident of negligent failure to protect." Additionally, he considered himself bound by a federal "hands off" policy explicated in numerous cited cases,⁵ of refusing to review matters of prison administration, "including the discipline, treatment and care of those confined" unless "exercised in such a manner as to constitute clear abuse or caprice upon the part of prison officials", citing Williams v. Field, 9 Cir.1969, 416 F.2d 483, cert. denied, 1970, 397 U.S. 1016, 90 S. Ct. 1252, 25 L.Ed.2d 431. He found nothing in the record to indicate bad faith or oppressive motive on the part of the defendant prison officials in failing to protect Parker, and hence no violation of Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment rights.

Our review starts with noting that we are not bound by the label which the district court attached to its action. Tuley v. Heyd, 5 Cir.1973, 482 F.2d 590. As in that case, the district court here erroneously labeled as a summary judgment what was in fact a dismissal, either for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, F.R.Civ.P. Rule 12(b)(6), or alternatively for reasons apparently based on principles of federal-state comity. We treat the district court's order as a dismissal in our analysis.

We consider first the district court's ruling that failure to allege "more than an isolated incident of negligent failure to protect" provided grounds for dismissal under F.R.Civ.P. Rule 12(b)(6). The district court cited no authority for such a test of the sufficiency of a complaint under Sec. 1983, and we know of none. Indeed, there are several cases from this Circuit in which claims under Sec. 1983, alleging violation of Eighth Amendment rights arising from negligence of state officials have been recognized.⁶ We hold that a dismissal in the instant case for failure to state a claim under Sec. 1983 was in error, and the judgment of the district court based on those grounds must be vacated.

We next consider the correctness of the district court's action in dismissing the suit on the further basis that federal courts prefer to abstain on grounds of comity from reaching the merits of a challenge to the acts of state prison officials. While it is true that federal courts are usually reluctant to interfere in matters of prison administration, Sostre v. McGinnis, 2 Cir.1971, 442 F.2d 178, 191, cert. denied, 404 U.S. 1049, 92 S.Ct. 719, 30 L.Ed.2d 740, cert. denied, Oswald v. Sostre, 405 U.S. 978, 92 S.Ct. 1190, 31 L.Ed.2d 254, it can no longer be correctly asserted that the federal courts are unwilling in all situations to review the actions of state prison administrators to determine the existence of possible violations of constitutional rights. Anderson v. Nosser, supra, Roberts v. Williams, supra, Whirl v. Kern, supra. For this reason we disapprove also the action of the district court to the extent that it can be considered a dismissal on abstention grounds.

In trying to determine what disposition is now to be made of this appeal, we note first that the plaintiff-appellant has sought and received a final adjudication of the question of negligence on the part of prison officials in a separate suit maintained in the courts of the State of Louisiana, Parker v. State, 1971, 19th Judicial District Court (June 29, 1972, Nos. 143, 418) aff'd, 1972 La. App., 261 So.2d 364, aff'd 1973, La., 282 So.2d 483, on rehearing, La.1973, 282 So.2d 488, cert. denied ___ U.S. ___, 94 S.Ct. 724, 38 L.Ed.2d 550 No. 73-597, 42 U.S.L.W. 3552, Dec. 10, 1973, filed 42 U.S.L.W. 3227 (No. 73-597, Oct. 4, 1973). In the state courts the decision was against the plaintiff on the question of negligence. The trial court applied the test earlier established in St. Julian v. State, La.App.1957, 98 So.2d 284, 285, for determining whether prison officials have been negligent in allowing prison inmates to inflict harm upon one another:

The general rule gathered from the cases is that in order to hold the State or the employees of a state who have charge of a prison liable for injury to one inmate inflicted by another inmate, there must be knowledge on the part of such officers in charge that such injuries will be inflicted, or good reason to anticipate such, and following that, there must be showing of negligence on the part of these officials in failing to prevent the injury. (Citing cases).

The state trial court found insufficient the plaintiff's evidence that prison officials knew or should have known that Parker was to be stabbed by Edmonson and dismissed plaintiff's suit.

On appeal, the Louisiana Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court. The court of appeals recognized that prison officials had been informed of the threats made by Edmonson against Parker, but noted that such threats were commonplace in the compound in which Parker was an inmate. The court felt compelled to draw a distinction between mere knowledge of the existence of threats and the existence of actual danger of execution of the threat. The court of appeals found that the trial court had not erroneously concluded that Edmonson's threat against Parker was properly treated by prison officials as little more than an idle threat by a...