Chapman v. Pickett

• Decision Date: 30 October 1978
• Docket Number: No. 77-1859,77-1859
• Parties: Edward Joseph X. CHAPMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George PICKETT et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 22

586 F.2d 22

Edward Joseph X. CHAPMAN, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. George PICKETT et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 77-1859.

United States Court of Appeals,

Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 13, 1978.

Decided Oct. 30, 1978.

Diane C. Geraghty, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellant.

David E. Worsley, Danville, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before CASTLE, Senior Circuit Judge, and SWYGERT and SPRECHER, Circuit Judges.

SWYGERT, Circuit Judge.

In this case involving the constitutional rights of a federal prisoner, plaintiff-appellant Edward Joseph X. Chapman appeals the denial by the district court after a bench trial of his prayers for injunctive, declaratory, compensatory, and punitive relief. Chapman contends that defendants violated his First Amendment rights by punishing him for his refusal on religious grounds to handle pork during a kitchen cleanup detail. Finding that defendants enjoy a qualified official immunity from liability for damages and ruling that the adoption of a new policy by the Bureau of Prisons and plaintiff's release on parole mooted his requests for injunctive and declaratory relief, the district court refused to reach the merits of Chapman's First Amendment claim. Although agreeing with Chapman that the punishment he suffered was so disproportionate to the severity of the offense with which he was charged that it violated his Eighth Amendment rights, the district court ruled that he was not entitled to monetary damages because he had failed to show that actual damages were suffered. We affirm the district court's finding of qualified immunity on the First Amendment issue but reverse on the question of mootness. As to the Eighth Amendment claim, we affirm as to liability but reverse on the issue of damages.

I

Edward Joseph X. Chapman was a prisoner in the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas when, on October 4, 1972, he was transferred to the Marion, Illinois penitentiary. On October 9 Chapman was assigned to the kitchen detail, which assignment included transporting food carts and clearing food off of them. When Chapman discovered that the food trays in the carts contained pork, he went to his supervisor, defendant J. E. Brown, and informed him that because of the beliefs of his Black Muslim faith, he could not handle the pork on the trays. According to his testimony at trial, Brown then offered Chapman the use of either gloves or various kitchen utensils to enable him to complete the task. While Chapman at trial denied that he was offered these, he did acknowledge that, regardless of such an offer, he would still have refused to do the work, since even indirect touching was forbidden. Brown then advised Chapman that he would be forced to write a disciplinary report on Chapman if the task were not performed. Chapman responded by saying that the last man who had written a report on him concerning an incident of this nature had been "blown out of an oven" at Leavenworth just two months previously.

After the incident Brown filed a report charging Chapman with violating Prison Code § 303, "Failing to perform work as instructed by a supervisor." His report also mentioned the Leavenworth remark. An investigative report, completed the day of the incident by another official and sent to the prison's Adjustment Committee, stated that "Chapman had a very good attitude." It noted that "apparently through Chapman's efforts someone had removed the pork from the cart and Chapman had finished cleaning the cart."

On October 11 the Adjustment Committee, which included defendants Jack Culley, Earl Buzzard, and E. M. Cage, met to consider Brown's report. Chapman was present and, upon having the report read to him, admitted the facts of the incident, again explaining that his refusal was the result of his Black Muslim beliefs. The Committee decided to punish Chapman by placing him in the segregation unit for an indeterminate term.

Chapman's status in segregated confinement was reviewed periodically. At least once during this confinement Chapman sought a formal explanation of his confinement from defendant George Pickett, warden at Marion, and requested immediate release. No reply from Pickett was received. During Chapman's confinement on March 15, 1973, Pickett received a copy of a letter dated March 9, 1973 from the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Norman A. Carlson, in which the Director stated to Congressman Charles Rangel that "We have re-examined the situation and have communicated to the heads of our facilities instructions not to assign individuals to the details where they must work with pork if it is against the religious beliefs of those men." Chapman was not returned to the general prison population, however, until July 25, 1973. While in segregation, Chapman did not eat foods containing pork. He was not provided with added portions of items not containing pork.

Prior to his release from segregation, Chapman instituted this action. Following a one-day hearing held on October 9, 1973, the district court for the Eastern District of Illinois entered judgment for defendants, ruling that Chapman's request for an injunction was mooted by his release from segregation and that Chapman had failed to prove his complaint. On appeal to this court we affirmed the denial of a mandatory injunction but otherwise reversed and remanded the cause for a new trial, finding that the claims for monetary, declarative, and prohibitive injunctive relief had not been mooted. Chapman v. Kleindienst, 507 F.2d 1246 (7th Cir. 1974). We also found that the district court had prematurely terminated Chapman's presentation of evidence and had erred in concluding that Chapman had failed to prove a prima facie case. Following the remand, a new trial was held. The district judge found Chapman's confinement in segregation was excessive after May 5, 1973 and declared that this violated Chapman's rights under the Eighth Amendment. All other relief prayed for by Chapman, however, was denied. Chapman then brought this appeal.

II

Chapman first appeals the district court's ruling that the defendants enjoy qualified official immunity from liability for the damages he claims to have suffered as a result of their violation of his First Amendment rights. The test currently employed to determine the availability of the official immunity defense was enunciated by the Supreme Court in Wood v. Strickland, 420 U.S. 308, 95 S.Ct. 992, 43 L.Ed.2d 214 (1975). Although that case involved the immunity of local school board members, the same test was applied by this court to state correctional administrators in Knell v. Bensinger, 522 F.2d 720 (7th Cir. 1975). The Supreme Court recently approved this extension of the Wood test to prison officials and officers in Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 98 S.Ct. 855, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978). ¹

As the Court states in Navarette, the test is essentially two-pronged:

Under the first part of the Wood v. Strickland rule, the immunity defense would be unavailing to petitioners if the constitutional right allegedly infringed by them was clearly established at the time of their challenged conduct, if they knew or should have known of that right and if they knew or should have known that their conduct violated the constitutional norm.

(T)he second branch of the Wood v. Strickland standard . . . would authorize liability where the official has acted with "malicious intention" to deprive the plaintiff of a constitutional right or to cause him "other injury." This part of the rule speaks of "intentional injury," contemplating that the actor intends the consequences of his conduct.

Id. at 562, 566, 98 S.Ct. at 861-62. Since Chapman does not contend that defendants acted with malicious intentions, and since the record is devoid of evidence that defendants did so act, we are here concerned solely with the first prong of the Wood test.

One of the requirements of this test is that the constitutional right allegedly infringed by the defendants must have been clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct. The general First Amendment right of a prisoner to be free from punishment or discrimination on account of his religious faith may be said to be clear. Cooper v. Pate, 382 F.2d 518, 521 (7th Cir. 1967). Under Procunier v. Navarette, supra, however, it appears that the right in question must have been established in a more particularized way to meet the Wood test.

In Navarette a state prisoner sought relief for an alleged violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when prison officials interfered with his outgoing mail. The Supreme Court held that, at the time of the alleged interference, no specific right protecting the mailing privileges of prisoners had been established. The Court so held even though a series of cases in the local United States district court had confirmed such rights as that of inmates to receive newspapers and magazines and that of parolees to make speeches to public gatherings without obtaining advance permission. 434 U.S. at 564 n. 11, 98 S.Ct. 855. Indeed, one case had recognized that pretrial detainees have a First Amendment right in their correspondence. Id. None of these cases, however, had dealt specifically with the rights of convicted prisoners in their mail, and thus the Court found that the particular constitutional right at issue had not yet been declared.

Following the rationale of Navarette, it would appear that the specific right at issue here that of a prisoner to refuse an order requiring him to handle foodstuffs forbidden by his religion was not "clearly established" in October 1972. While Cooper noted the existence of a prisoner's right to be free from punishment on account of his religious beliefs, it also noted that a prisoner is subject to various curtailments of his freedom to exercise his beliefs. 482 F.2d at 521. Indeed, courts in other circuits had at the time declared that the practice of one's religious faith does not permit violation of...