Al–amin v. Smith

• Decision Date: 05 April 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–11498.,10–11498.
• Citation: 637 F.3d 1192
• Parties: Jamil AL–AMIN, Plaintiff–Appellant,v.Warden Hugh SMITH, Admin. Asst. Sanche M. Martin, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

637 F.3d 1192

22 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 1939

Jamil AL–AMIN, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Warden Hugh SMITH, Admin. Asst. Sanche M. Martin, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 10–11498.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

April 5, 2011.

A. Stephens Clay, IV, C. Allen Garrett, Jr., Ronald Lee Raider, Aaron J. Ross, Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, LLP, Atlanta, GA, Mark H. Reeves, Kilpatrick, Townsend & Stockton, LLP, Augusta, GA, for Plaintiff–Appellant.Devon Orland, Atlanta, GA, Matthew Charles Allen, Hall, Booth, Smith & Slover, PC, Atlanta, GA, Andrew M. Magruder, Wilkinson & Magruder, LLP, Jesse W. Owen, Magruder & Owen, LLP, Augusta, GA, for Defendants–Appellees.Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.Before HULL and BLACK, Circuit Judges, and HOWARD,^* District Judge.HULL, Circuit Judge:

Appellant Jamil Al–Amin (“Al–Amin” or “Plaintiff”) appeals the district court's¹ grant of Appellees Hugh Smith and Sanche Martin's (“Defendants”) motion in limine. The district court concluded that 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e) of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (“PLRA”) precluded Al–Amin from offering evidence of either compensatory or punitive damages in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action alleging that Defendants violated his constitutional rights by allowing his legal mail to be opened outside his presence. After review and oral argument, we affirm.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

This Court previously set forth the facts giving rise to Plaintiff Al–Amin's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action in Al–Amin v. Smith, 511 F.3d 1317 (11th Cir.2008). We incorporate those facts here and briefly summarize them below.

Plaintiff Al–Amin was incarcerated at Georgia State Prison (“GSP”) from 2002 to 2007.² Id. at 1320. In 2002, Al–Amin's wife Karima Al–Amin (“Karima”), a licensed attorney, began sending him legal correspondence in envelopes marked “legal mail.” In August 2003, Al–Amin filed a grievance alleging that this legal mail was being opened by prison officials outside of his presence, contravening a Georgia Department of Corrections policy. Id. at 1320–21. In November 2003, Raymond Head, manager of the Inmate Affairs Unit, issued a response directing the appropriate prison personnel “ ‘to ensure this does not occur again in the future.’ ” Id. at 1321.

Defendant Smith, the warden of GSP, instructed Co–Defendant Martin, his assistant who supervised mailroom operations, to treat all mail from Karima as privileged legal mail and to open it only in Al–Amin's presence. Id. Martin provided similar instructions to mailroom staff. Id. at 1321–22. Nevertheless, Al–Amin alleges that, even after Head's grievance response, legal mail sent from his wife continued to be opened outside of his presence.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On March 21, 2005, Al–Amin filed this § 1983 action, suing Smith and Martin in their individual capacities.³ Al–Amin's complaint alleged that Defendants' actions in connection with the opening of his legal mail violated both prison protocol and the Constitution. Additionally, the complaint alleged that Al–Amin was subjected to harassment and retaliation, including termination of visitation and phone privileges. Al–Amin attached to the complaint thirteen exhibits, which contained photocopies of envelopes sent between June 28, 2004 and February 8, 2005. Each envelope was marked “legal mail,” with Karima's law office listed as the return address. The complaint sought various forms of relief, including: (1) a declaratory judgment that Defendants violated his constitutional rights; (2) a permanent injunction ordering Defendants to open all privileged mail in his presence; (3) a protective order mandating that Defendants refrain from retaliation and harassment; (4) nominal damages; (5) punitive damages; (6) attorney's fees; and (7) “such additional relief as this court may deem just and proper.” Compl. at 6–7. Al–Amin sought no compensatory damages, nor did he explicitly allege any physical injury or a mental or emotional injury stemming from the alleged violations.

The parties filed cross motions for summary judgment. In August 2006, the district court denied Plaintiff Al–Amin's motion and denied in part Defendants' motion. The district court dismissed Al–Amin's retaliation claim without prejudice, concluding that he failed to exhaust his available administrative remedies. The district court also found that Defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity, since clearly established law held that prison officials could not open an inmate's legal mail outside his presence. Lastly, the district court ruled that Defendants were not entitled to summary judgment with respect to Al–Amin's ability to recover punitive damages, stating that the Eleventh Circuit had not decided whether § 1997e(e) of the PLRA precluded a prisoner from seeking punitive damages without a prior showing of physical injury.

On appeal before a prior panel of this Court, we reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity with respect to Al–Amin's access-to-courts claim but affirmed the district court's ruling of qualified immunity with respect to Al–Amin's free speech claim. Al–Amin, 511 F.3d at 1336. We concluded that Al–Amin had not shown “actual injury,” a constitutional prerequisite to an access-to-courts claim. Id. at 1332–33. However, we reached a different result with respect to Al–Amin's First Amendment claim, since there is no similar “actual injury” requirement to state a free speech cause of action and “defendants had fair and clear notice that opening Al–Amin's attorney mail outside his presence was unlawful and violated the Constitution.” Id. at 1335–36.⁴

After remand, Defendants filed a supplemental motion for summary judgment, arguing that they were entitled to summary judgment based on a theory of respondeat superior and qualified immunity. In October 2009, the district court denied the motion, whereupon Defendants filed this motion in limine to prevent Al–Amin from offering evidence of compensatory or punitive damages at trial.

In January 2010, the district court this time granted Defendants' motion in limine, precluding Al–Amin from recovering compensatory and punitive damages in this action. Al–Amin v. Smith, No. 6:05–cv–025, slip op. at 5 (S.D.Ga. Jan. 4, 2010). Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), the district court granted Al–Amin's request to certify its punitive damage ruling for interlocutory appeal. Id. A panel of this Court granted Al–Amin's petition for permission to appeal.

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

This Court reviews the district court's grant of a motion in limine for abuse of discretion. Mercado v. City of Orlando, 407 F.3d 1152, 1156 (11th Cir.2005). The interpretation of a federal statute is a question of law that we review de novo. United States v. Murrell, 368 F.3d 1283, 1285 (11th Cir.2004).

IV. DISCUSSION

This case concerns the narrow question of whether, in the absence of physical injury, a prisoner is precluded from seeking punitive damages by the Prison Litigation Reform Act of 1995, Pub.L. No. 104–134, 110 Stat. 1321 (1996).

As this Court has stated previously, Congress enacted the PLRA “to reduce the number of frivolous cases filed by imprisoned plaintiffs, who have little to lose and excessive amounts of free time with which to pursue their complaints.” Napier v. Preslicka, 314 F.3d 528, 531 (11th Cir.2002). To effectuate this purpose, Congress placed various restrictions on the ability of prisoners to seek judicial relief and the form such relief may take.

Included among these restrictions is 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e), the statutory provision at issue here. Section 1997e(e) is entitled “Limitation on recovery” and provides in full: “No Federal civil action may be brought by a prisoner confined in a jail, prison, or other correctional facility, for mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of physical injury.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e).

Al–Amin's complaint does not allege a physical injury and this Court similarly concluded that Al–Amin had not shown an “actual injury” arising from the alleged violations. Al–Amin, 511 F.3d at 1333. Nevertheless, Al–Amin argues that, even given § 1997e(e)'s limitation, the mere absence of a physical injury resulting from the alleged First Amendment violations does not bar his punitive damage claim. Because we conclude this issue has already been resolved by this Court, we examine our relevant precedents.

A. Harris v. Garner

Our first published opinion to address the contours of 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e) was Harris v. Garner, 190 F.3d 1279 (11th Cir.1999), reh'g en banc granted and opinion vacated, 197 F.3d 1059 (11th Cir.1999), opinion reinstated in relevant part, 216 F.3d 970 (11th Cir.2000). In Harris, the plaintiffs alleged that employees at Georgia's Dooly State Prison facility deprived them of their Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights during a prison “shakedown.” 190 F.3d at 1282. Although the Harris Court addressed many questions pertaining to § 1997e(e), the portion relevant here examined the constitutionality of § 1997e(e).

One of the Harris plaintiffs, James Wade, argued that the PLRA's statutory bar (in the absence of physical injury) to his claims for compensatory and punitive damages operated as a denial of due process under the Fifth Amendment. Id. at 1287. In analyzing this question, the Harris Court first concluded that “the statute is best read as only a limitation on a damages remedy,” id., and assumed that it “actually operates to preclude some claims of a constitutional dimension that a prisoner might have been able to bring before the PLRA was enacted.” Id. at 1287–88. The Harris Court ultimately upheld the constitutionality of § 1997e(e) by concluding that “Congress has left open avenues of ... relief that are ample for constitutional purposes.” Id. at 1289. In reaching this conclusion, the Harris Court discussed the various forms of relief that remained available to prisoner litigants after the...