Koprowski v. Baker

• Citation: 822 F.3d 248
• Decision Date: 11 May 2016
• Docket Number: No. 14–5451.,14–5451.
• Parties: Stephen Ted KOPROWSKI, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Karen Bennett BAKER; Jorge Vazquez–Velazquez; Richard R. Ramirez ; Rhonda Jones; Eric D. Wilson ; Mark McHargue, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

822 F.3d 248

Stephen Ted KOPROWSKI, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Karen Bennett BAKER; Jorge Vazquez–Velazquez; Richard R. Ramirez ; Rhonda Jones; Eric D. Wilson ; Mark McHargue, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–5451.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: Jan. 26, 2016.

Decided and Filed: May 11, 2016.

ARGUED: Jeffrey M. Harris, Bancroft PLLC, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Weili J. Shaw, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jeffrey M. Harris, Paul D. Clement, Bancroft PLLC, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Weili J. Shaw, Mark B. Stern, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., Charles P. Wisdom, Jr., Tiffany Fleming, United States Attorney's Office, Lexington, Kentucky, for Appellee. Stephen Ted Koprowski, Knoxville, Tennessee, pro se.

Before: COLE, Chief Judge; GILMAN and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.

COLE

, C.J., delivered the opinion of the court in which GILMAN, J., joined. SUTTON, J. (pp. 261–69), delivered a separate dissenting opinion.

OPINION

COLE

, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff–Appellant Stephen Koprowski is a former federal prisoner who was housed at Fort McCreary in Pine Knot, Kentucky. While imprisoned on November 23, 2009, Koprowski severely injured his back when he fell off a ladder while working in the food-service area of the prison. Koprowski alleges that various prison staff members were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs in the wake of this injury. He sued these individuals under the doctrine of Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics,

403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), for, among other things, violating his Eighth Amendment rights. The district court dismissed the claim on the ground that the Inmate Accident Compensation Act (“IACA”), 18 U.S.C. § 4126(c), a workers' compensation scheme that covers federal prisoners injured during the course of their prison employment, is the exclusive means by which federal prisoners may receive monetary compensation for employment-related injuries.

We reverse. The Supreme Court has consistently reaffirmed its holding in Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980)

, that federal prisoners may bring Bivens claims under the Eighth Amendment against federal prison officials. Joining the three other circuits to have considered this issue, we conclude that the IACA does not displace such an action simply because the alleged Eighth Amendment violation occurred in the context of the prisoner's employment. See

Smith v. United States, 561 F.3d 1090 (10th Cir.2009) ; Bagola v. Kindt, 131 F.3d 632 (7th Cir.1997) ; Vaccaro v. Dobre, 81 F.3d 854 (9th Cir.1996). We affirm the district court's dismissal of Koprowski's other claims and remand for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

On November 23, 2009, Koprowski was cleaning a fry hood in the food-service area of the prison when he fell off a step ladder and landed on his back. Koprowski lost feeling in his legs for a few minutes and experienced severe pain when he finally stood up. He had difficulty walking for the next several days, and the intense pain persisted even while lying down.

Koprowski alleges that the prison's medical staff treated his injuries as minor and temporary, thereby causing him unnecessary pain and further aggravating his condition. He says the medical staff delayed taking x-rays and refused to perform a Magnetic Resonance Imaging

(“MRI”) scan, which would have shown that he had broken his back. Koprowski also claims that prison staff denied him access to specialized care, surgery, and ambulatory aids. In one instance, he claims, staff threatened to send him to solitary confinement unless he surrendered a wheelchair he had been using; when he complied with their order to walk, the resulting pain and fatigue caused him to be bedridden for several hours. Another time, Koprowski allegedly was sent to a segregation unit—“the hole”—as punishment for being unable to walk to his work assignment.

About a week after his injury, when his pain had not abated, Koprowski's back finally was x-rayed. The x-rays showed a wedge compression fracture

of the L3 vertebra. A subsequent x-ray taken in January 2010 showed that the fracture had worsened. Koprowski alleges this injury resulted from his fall and has led to continued pain and permanent disability.

Koprowski complained about the prison's treatment of his injury through its Administrative Remedy Procedure (“ARP”). He was also eligible to receive lost-time wages through the IACA for the work he missed as a result of the injury, and to seek compensation should he still have a “physical impairment” at the time of his release. See 28 C.F.R. § 301.101

.

In July 2011, Koprowski brought this Bivens suit against six prison officials, who are defendants-appellees here. Most germane to this appeal, Koprowski alleges the defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights by acting with deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. The district court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss, finding that the IACA is the exclusive vehicle by which a federal inmate may receive compensation for injuries suffered during the course of his employment in prison. The district court also dismissed Koprowski's other claims, brought under the First, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

After the district court denied Koprowski's post-trial motions, he timely appealed.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

As an initial matter, we must decide whether the defendants' challenge is jurisdictional. The district court dismissed Koprowski's Eighth Amendment claim for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. We disagree. We have jurisdiction to adjudicate claims that arise under the Constitution, including Koprowski's Eighth Amendment claim. See Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko, 534 U.S. 61, 66, 122 S.Ct. 515, 151 L.Ed.2d 456 (2001)

(citing 28 U.S.C. § 1331 ). The relevant question here is whether judicial relief is available to Koprowski for his claim. See

Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228, 244, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979). We review the district court's dismissal de novo, taking all well-pleaded allegations in the complaint as true. Left Fork Mining Co. v. Hooker, 775 F.3d 768, 773 (6th Cir.2014).

B. The Bivens Doctrine and the Eighth Amendment

In Bivens, the Supreme Court held that an individual injured by a federal officer's violation of the Fourth Amendment may bring an action in federal court seeking money damages from the officer. Bivens, 403 U.S. at 397, 91 S.Ct. 1999

. The Court held that the cause of action arose under the Fourth Amendment itself, and that a judicially created remedy was necessary to give the plaintiff a “remedial mechanism” to redress the violation of his constitutional right. Id. at 395–97, 91 S.Ct. 1999. The Court noted that creating a money-damages remedy for Fourth Amendment violations did not involve any “special factors counseling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress.” Id. at 396, 91 S.Ct. 1999. But the Court also acknowledged that Congress could limit such actions by creating “another remedy, equally effective in the view of Congress.” Id. at 397, 91 S.Ct. 1999.

The Supreme Court later extended the Bivens doctrine to allow the estate of a federal prisoner to bring a money-damages suit against federal officers who violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Carlson, 446 U.S. at 18–23, 100 S.Ct. 1468

. The prisoner in Carlson had died after an asthma attack due to prison officials being “deliberately indifferent” to his “serious medical needs.” See

id. at 16–17 & n. 1, 100 S.Ct. 1468 (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) ). The Court reiterated its discussion from Bivens that a cause of action for money damages arising directly under the Constitution could be defeated, either if “special factors counsel [ ] hesitation” or if “Congress has provided an alternative remedy.” Id. at 18–19, 100 S.Ct. 1468. The Court found, however, that no “special factors” counseled against allowing the claim because prison officials “do not enjoy such independent status in our constitutional scheme as to suggest that judicially created remedies against them might be inappropriate,” and that qualified immunity “provides adequate protection” against disruptions in their official duties from these sorts of suits. Id. at 19, 100 S.Ct. 1468. The Court next considered whether the provision of the Federal Tort Claims Act (“FTCA”), 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h), creating a cause of action against the United States for intentional torts committed by federal law enforcement officers, displaced the plaintiff's Eighth Amendment claim. Carlson, 446 U.S. at 19–20, 100 S.Ct. 1468

. The Court found that “the congressional comments accompanying [the Act] made it crystal clear that Congress views FTCA and Bivens as parallel, complementary causes of action.” Id. Based on these considerations, the Court ultimately held that the plaintiff could pursue his Eighth Amendment claim.

C. Availability of a Bivens Remedy to Koprowski

Carlson provides the starting point for the case before us. A prisoner can state a claim under the Eighth Amendment against federal prison officials who have been deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. Carlson also provides, however, that Congress may displace that right if a statutory scheme provides an alternative remedy. 446 U.S. at 18–19, 100 S.Ct. 1468

. Defendants argue that two statutory schemes, the IACA and the ARP, do just that.

1. The IACA

The Supreme Court has not expressly addressed whether the IACA is meant to exclude a prisoner's ability to seek money damages from a prison official for a constitutional tort like the one claimed by Koprowski. Three other circuits have addressed the question,¹ and each of them has come out the same way: The IACA does not displace an Eighth Amendment Bivens claim. See Smith, 561 F.3d at 1102–03

; Bagol...