Hardaway v. Meyerhoff

• Decision Date: 04 November 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–2856.,12–2856.
• Citation: 734 F.3d 740
• Parties: Maurice HARDAWAY, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Brett MEYERHOFF, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

734 F.3d 740

Maurice HARDAWAY, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Brett MEYERHOFF, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 12–2856.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 20, 2013.

Decided Nov. 4, 2013.

Nader R. Boulos, Matthew J. Martin, Attorneys, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Evan Siegel, Attorney, Office of the Attorney General, Chicago, IL, for Defendants–Appellees.

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and FLAUM, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

In 2009, Menard Correctional Center inmate Maurice Hardaway (“Hardaway”) was charged with altering official electronics contract forms and selling or trading the counterfeit contracts in exchange for money and/or commissary. Although the charge was later expunged, Hardaway spent six months in segregation as part of the recommended punishment. Hardaway brought suit against prison officials in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois alleging the 182–day term spent in segregation was a violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 based on the denial of his liberty interests protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court granted' motion for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity. We affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

On September 16, 2009, Maurice Hardaway received a disciplinary report completed by prison official Brett Meyerhoff (“Meyerhoff”) charging the inmate with damage or misuse of property, forgery, and trading or trafficking of official electronics contract forms. Two days later, the Correctional Center disciplinary committee held a hearing to consider the charges against Hardaway and found him guilty. Hardaway claims that committee member Charles Parnell (“Parnell”) denied him the opportunity to argue any defense at the hearing or even view the forged contracts that were used as evidence against him. The disciplinary committee's sentence included six months of disciplinary segregation, demotion to C-grade status, and revocation of commissary rights. Hardaway was then removed from his holding cell and relocated to a “six gallery cell” secured by a solid metal door. Due to a childhood incident when he was raped and abused by his grandparents, an experience Hardaway associates with closed solid metal doors, Hardaway requested to be moved to a cell with metal bars. Prison officials denied this request and kept Hardaway in the six gallery cell.

On September 20, 2009, Hardaway initiated a grievance process contending (1) that he knew nothing about the sale of the electronics contracts, (2) the charge was based solely on information provided by a confidential informant, and (3) that the disciplinary report failed to state a specific time, place, or date of the alleged offenses. Additionally, Hardaway argued that Parnell denied him the opportunity to view the forged contracts or argue any defense during the disciplinary hearing. The grievance officer issued a summary report shortly thereafter finding Hardaway guilty of the charges and imposing the recommended disciplinary actions.

The next month, Hardaway filed a second grievance concerning the disciplinary report and proceedings that was considered by the Illinois Administrative Review Board (“ARB”). In December, the ARB recommended that Hardaway's disciplinary report be remanded so that Meyerhoff, the reporting officer, could add more specific information to substantiate the charges cited. Meyerhoff, however, failed to make any revisions to the report, so the ARB affirmed Hardaway's grievance on March 18, 2010. The ARB further concluded that the charge should be expunged from Hardaway's record on the grounds that the disciplinary report did not comply with the Department of Corrections Rule 504.30, which outlines proper procedures for disciplinary reports and hearings. Hardaway had already served his sentence of 182 days in segregation by the time the ARB affirmed his grievance. Nevertheless, he complains that during the entirety of his six-month segregation, he experienced mental anguish as a result of the solid metal door; was physically attacked by his cell mate; and was only released from his cell once per week to shower and use the prison yard.

Several months after his release from disciplinary segregation, Hardaway filed suit against Defendants Meyerhoff and Parnell claiming their acts and omissions led to his placement in disciplinary segregation for 182 days constituting a violation of due process. Hardaway argued that these acts and omissions caused him to endure “significant and atypical hardship” and that he suffered a “mental health issue” because he spent an “unwarranted” six months in segregation behind a large metal door. In an amended complaint, Hardaway further contended that Meyerhoff failed to observe the safeguards of due process by violating administrative regulations and failing to comply with the ARB's order to amend the disciplinary report. Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment contending that Hardaway did not have any protected liberty interest under the Fourteenth Amendment and that they were entitled to qualified immunity.

In February 2012, the Magistrate Judge issued a report denying Defendants' motion for summary judgment and recommended that the parties provide additional facts to determine whether Hardaway was deprived of a protected liberty interest. The district court ultimately granted Defendants' motion for summary judgment on the grounds that Meyerhoff and Parnell were entitled to qualified immunity because, at the time of Hardaway's confinement, there was no clearly established law that could have put Defendants on notice that such acts violate an inmate's due process rights. Hardaway timely appealed the district court's judgment.

II. DISCUSSION

The Seventh Circuit reviews a district court's grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity de novo, accepting all facts and inferences in a light most favorable to Hardaway, the non-moving party. Elder v. Holloway, 510 U.S. 510, 516, 114 S.Ct. 1019, 127 L.Ed.2d 344 (1994); Oates v. Discovery Zone, 116 F.3d 1161, 1165 (7th Cir.1997). The affirmative defense of qualified immunity protects government officers from liability for actions taken in the course of their official duties if their conduct does not violate “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). To determine if qualified immunity applies, the courts employ a two-prong test: (1) whether the facts, viewed in a light most favorable to the injured party, demonstrate that the conduct of the officers violated a constitutional right, and (2) whether that right was clearly established at the time the conduct occurred. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009). Hardaway argues that the first prong should be addressed first, but the court has discretion to address either issue first, depending on the case at hand. Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236, 129 S.Ct. 808. The district court began its analysis with the second prong, deciding that the right for a prisoner not to be confined for six months in segregation was not clearly established at the time of the Defendants' conduct. We concur with the district court's decision.

This Court has noted that an inmate's liberty interest in avoiding segregation is limited. Marion v. Columbia Corr. Inst., 559 F.3d 693, 697 (7th Cir.2009). Whether a prisoner has a liberty interest implicated by special confinement relies on whether the confinement imposed an “atypical and significant hardship on the inmate in relation to the ordinary incidents of prison life.” Sandin v. Conner, 515 U.S. 472, 484, 115 S.Ct. 2293, 132 L.Ed.2d 418 (1995). In assessing whether disciplinary...