Erickson v. Holloway
| Decision Date | 28 February 1996 |
| Docket Number | 94-4008,Nos. 94-3901,s. 94-3901 |
| Parties | Carroll W. ERICKSON, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Don HOLLOWAY, Pennington County Sheriff; Pennington County, South Dakota, an organized county in the state of South Dakota; Defendants, Jeff Birdsall, guard employed by the Pennington County Jail; Robert Johnle, guard employed by the Pennington County Jail; Dan Carver, Pennington County Deputy Sheriff; Defendants-Appellants, Mary Evelyn Rogers, Pennington County Deputy Sheriff, Defendant. Carroll W. ERICKSON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Don HOLLOWAY, Pennington County Sheriff; Pennington County, South Dakota, an organized county in the state of South Dakota; Defendants-Appellees, Jeff Birdsall, guard employed by the Pennington County Jail; Robert Johnle, guard employed by the Pennington County Jail; Dan Carver, Pennington County Deputy Sheriff; Defendants, Mary Evelyn Rogers, Pennington County Deputy Sheriff, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of South Dakota; Richard H. Battey, Judge.
Donald Paul Knudsen, Rapid City, South Dakota, argued (James S. Nelson, on the brief), for appellants.
Mark S. Falk, Rapid City, South Dakota, argued, for appellee.
Before FAGG, HEANEY, and HANSEN, Circuit Judges.
After Carroll W. Erickson was beaten by a fellow inmate in the protective custody cell block at the Pennington County Jail, Erickson brought this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging several officials failed to protect him from the assault and interfered with a doctor's recommendations for treating his injuries. Deputy Sheriff Dan Carver and jail guards Robert Johnle and Jeff Birdsall appeal the district court's denial of their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Erickson cross-appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to Pennington County, Sheriff Don Holloway, and Deputy Sheriff Mary Evelyn Rogers. We affirm in part, reverse in part, and dismiss in part for lack of jurisdiction.
We grant the motion to supplement the record on appeal, and state the facts in the light most favorable to Erickson, Reece v. Groose, 60 F.3d 487, 488 (8th Cir.1995). On September 8, 1990, Erickson told Johnle, the jail guard on duty at the time, that Herbert Flying Horse, an inmate assigned to the protective custody cellblock for punitive segregation, had threatened to assault Erickson. Because Johnle's shift was nearly finished, Johnle passed the information on to Birdsall, the guard for the next shift. After coming on duty, Birdsall told Erickson that Johnle had informed him of the threat and that he would watch for potential trouble. Later, Flying Horse verbally harassed Erickson in the cell block's common area, and Birdsall told Flying Horse to go somewhere else. When Erickson and another inmate asked permission to play basketball in the recreation area, Birdsall unlocked the recreation room door from the cell block's control panel. After Erickson and the other inmate entered the recreation area, Birdsall locked the door behind them.
Birdsall later left the control panel unattended for about six minutes to make a routine check of the cell block. The control panel is located in the common area and physically accessible to inmates. Birdsall saw Flying Horse moving toward the recreation area, but continued with his rounds because he knew the door to the recreation area was locked. Contrary to jail policy, however, Birdsall had not disabled the control panel to prevent inmates from operating the locks. While Birdsall was away from the panel, an inmate opened the electronic lock to the recreation area to let Flying Horse enter. Once inside, Flying Horse punched and kicked Erickson, then left. Erickson's face was cut and bleeding.
Deputies Carver and Rogers took Erickson to the hospital for immediate treatment. An emergency room doctor stitched a 1.5 centimeter cut beneath Erickson's eye. According to Erickson, the doctor also wanted to x-ray Erickson's head and chest and keep Erickson at the hospital overnight for observation, but Carver refused to allow the x-rays or Erickson's admittance to the hospital. Carver and Rogers then returned Erickson to the jail.
On appeal, Johnle, Birdsall, and Carver assert they are entitled to qualified immunity because they did not violate Erickson's clearly established constitutional rights. Prosser v. Ross, 70 F.3d 1005, 1007 (8th Cir.1995). Before addressing the appeal's merits, we discuss our jurisdiction. Some of Erickson's claims remain in the district court awaiting trial, so the district court has not entered a final order in this case to confer jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. Nevertheless, under Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), we have jurisdiction to consider certain limited issues when officials bring an immediate appeal from the denial of a summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity. We have jurisdiction to consider whether given facts show a violation of clearly established law, but not "evidence sufficiency," that is, which facts the parties might be able to prove at trial. Johnson v. Jones, --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 2155-59, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995). In other words, we can examine the information possessed by an official to decide whether, given those facts, a reasonable official would have known his or her actions violated an established legal standard, but we cannot examine...
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