Rodriguez v. Phillips

• Citation: 66 F.3d 470
• Decision Date: 15 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 818,D,818
• Parties: Raul RODRIGUEZ and Sara Rodriguez, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. R.J. PHILLIPS, Sheriff, et al. Orange County Warwick, NY; Correctional Officer Soto, et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility; et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility and Alvardo Garcia, N.Y. State Trooper, Defendants, Joseph C. Snow, Superintendent Mid-Orange Correctional Facility; Correctional Officer Rubin, et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility; Correctional Officer Epstein, et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility and Lieutenant Alcock, Defendants-Appellants. ocket 94-2377.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 470

66 F.3d 470

Raul RODRIGUEZ and Sara Rodriguez, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. R.J. PHILLIPS, Sheriff, et al. Orange County Warwick, NY Correctional Officer Soto, et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility; et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility and Alvardo Garcia, N.Y. State Trooper, Defendants Joseph C. Snow, Superintendent Mid-Orange Correctional Facility; Correctional Officer Rubin, et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility; Correctional Officer Epstein, et al. Mid-Orange Correctional Facility and Lieutenant Alcock Defendants-Appellants.

No. 818, Docket 94-2377.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued March 15, 1995.

Decided Sept. 15, 1995.

Marion R. Buchbinder, Assistant Attorney General, New York City (G. Oliver Koppell, Attorney General of the State of New York, New York City, of counsel), for defendants-appellants.

James I. Meyerson, New York City, for plaintiffs-appellees.

Before: MESKILL, CARDAMONE, and ALTIMARI, Circuit Judges.

CARDAMONE, Circuit Judge:

Unlike early English law, where according to Blackstone there existed an established rule "that the king can do no wrong," 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *68, our jurisprudence was nourished in different soil. It is plain that sometimes a sovereign government can do wrong. In the present appeal more than a few wrongs have been charged by plaintiffs against several state officials. In examining these allegations of wrongdoing it is our task to decide whether they set forth only a cause of action in tort arising under state law or whether they rise to the level of a constitutional deprivation.

To succeed on a claim for violation of civil rights under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, plaintiffs must show that state officials, acting under color of state law, deprived plaintiffs of a right guaranteed them by the Constitution or laws of the United States. Moreover, defendants' actions at that time must have been objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established federal law; otherwise, those actors are entitled to qualified immunity. That is what is at issue in this appeal because despite plaintiffs having raised claims of a constitutional nature, we do not believe their allegedly infringed rights were clearly established at the time of the charged offenses, or that the state officials' actions were objectively unreasonable in light of then-existing law. In sum, as our discussion will show, we think defendants are entitled to qualified immunity.

Plaintiffs are a former prison inmate and his mother. Defendants-appellants are officials and corrections officers of a New York state prison. Of the original defendants, only four are parties to this appeal. They are Joseph C. Snow, former Superintendent of New York's Mid-Orange Correctional Facility (Mid-Orange), Lt. Frank Alcock, an officer in that facility, and Mid-Orange Correctional Officers Marvin Epstein and Fernando Rubin. Plaintiffs brought suit alleging numerous violations of their civil rights and asserting various state law claims, arising from a series of events that will be detailed shortly. When appellants moved for summary judgment, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Wood, J.), in a memorandum opinion and order entered on June 21, 1994, granted the motion in part and denied it in part.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Raul Rodriguez was a prisoner at Mid-Orange when his mother, Sara Rodriguez, traveled by bus from New York City to visit him on Sunday, December 30, 1990. The bus dropped her off near the prison. As Ms. Rodriguez approached Mid-Orange she apparently leaned against or touched the fence surrounding the prison, pausing there briefly before continuing on into the visitors reception area. Corrections Officer Fernando Rubin--one of the present appellants--radioed a report to officers inside the facility that he had observed Ms. Rodriguez pass a small brown package through the fence to an unidentified inmate.

Inside the prison, Sara Rodriguez was approached by one or more officers and questioned about the incident at the fence. The officers maintain she admitted passing an old pair of sneakers through the fence. Ms. Rodriguez, a 70-year old woman on heart medication, denies having said any such thing. She insists she stated she leaned on the fence because she felt dizzy. When the corrections officers told her she would be unable to visit her son that day, she left the prison and returned to the bus stop. While Ms. Rodriguez was waiting at the bus stop, Mid-Orange corrections officers came along, seized her and brought her back to the prison facility for further questioning. The state police were contacted, a complaint signed, and Ms. Rodriguez was arrested. She was taken to county court and there arraigned on a charge of promoting prison contraband in the second degree (a misdemeanor). Unable to make bail, Ms. Rodriguez was remanded to the county jail. She was released without explanation the next day. In April 1991, several months after this December 1990 incident Meanwhile, her son Raul's room was searched for contraband. Believing that something other than sneakers, perhaps drugs, had been passed through the fence, prison officials viewed Rodriguez as a potential safety and security risk and placed him in administrative detention pending further investigation. Plaintiff's segregation was ordered by Lt. Frank Alcock, another one of the four appellants and the prison official in charge of the investigation. The investigation involved an inspection of all public areas in the building in which Rodriguez was housed and consultation with a prison informant from that building. In addition, on each day of the three days he was segregated, Rodriguez was questioned by Lt. Alcock. The investigation yielded no results and plaintiff was released from administrative confinement on January 2, 1991, having been so confined for three days. No disciplinary charges were filed against him.

the case against her was adjourned in contemplation of dismissal.

Initially, Superintendent Snow, a third appellant, did not act to suspend Sara Rodriguez' visitation rights with her son. On January 12, 1991 she again traveled by bus to visit Raul, this time accompanied by another son, Ivan. Recognizing Ms. Rodriguez, Corrections Officer Marvin Epstein, the fourth and final appellant, inquired of his supervisor whether she should be allowed to visit her son. He was instructed not to permit her to visit and to require her to leave the premises, although Ivan might remain and visit his brother. Ms. Rodriguez maintains that when she arrived, Officer Epstein screamed at her, put both hands on her shoulders, propelled her toward the building entrance and threw her against the front door. Appellant Epstein denies that any physical contact occurred with Ms. Rodriguez. Ivan persuaded the officers to permit his mother to wait inside the building while he visited Raul. Two days later prison officials sent a letter to Sara Rodriguez, formally advising her that her visitation privileges had been suspended during the pendency of the criminal charges against her. When those proceedings were terminated in April 1991, her visitation privileges were restored.

On July 16, 1991 Raul and Sara Rodriguez brought suit pro se against numerous defendants, including besides appellants various state prison officials and corrections officers, and other state and county officers. Later, after having obtained the benefit of counsel, plaintiffs amended their complaint. In a second amended complaint, plaintiffs alleged violations of their constitutional and state law rights resulting from Sara Rodriguez' arrest, the denial of visitation rights, the administrative detention of Raul Rodriguez, and the use of excessive force on Sara Rodriguez. Plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief as well as compensatory and punitive damages.

After discovery was completed, defendants moved for summary judgment. The magistrate judge, to whom the case was referred, issued a report and recommendation recommending that the motion be granted in part and denied in part. Both sides filed objections. After considering the motion de novo, the district judge adopted, with modifications, the report and recommendation. The result, in relevant part, was that appellants' motion for summary judgment was denied in the following respects: (1) Sara Rodriguez' civil rights claim based on Officer Epstein's alleged use of excessive force on January 12, 1991, (2) Raul Rodriguez' civil rights claims that his administrative confinement was in retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights, and (3) that his due process rights were violated by his being held in administrative confinement for three days without an opportunity to be heard, (4) both plaintiffs' request for declaratory relief relating to their visitation rights that were suspended by Superintendent Snow, and (5) state law claims of false arrest and defamation against Officer Rubin and battery against Officer Epstein.

From these recited denials of their motion, the four named appellants appealed.

DISCUSSION

I Qualified Immunity

The central issue raised on this appeal is whether appellants Epstein, Rubin and Alcock are protected by the doctrine of qualified The doctrine of qualified immunity attempts to balance the strong policy of encouraging the vindication of federal civil rights by compensating individuals when those rights are violated, with the equally salutary policy of attracting capable public officials and giving them the scope to exercise vigorously the duties with which they are charged, by relieving them from the fear of being sued personally and thereby made subject to monetary liability. See Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 806-07, 813-14, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2732, 2735-36, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982); see also Weaver v. Brenner, 40 F.3d 527, 532 (2d Cir.199...