McKnight v. Rees

Citation88 F.3d 417
Decision Date10 July 1996
Docket NumberNo. 95-5398,95-5398
PartiesRonnie Lee McKNIGHT, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. John REES, Defendant, Daryll Richardson and John Walker, Defendants-Appellants.
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Ronnie Lee McKnight (briefed), Clifton, TN, for plaintiff-appellee.

Charles R. Ray (briefed), Ray & Housch, Nashville, TN, for defendants-appellants.

Before KEITH, MARTIN, and NELSON, Circuit Judges.

MARTIN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which KEITH, J., joined. NELSON, J. (pp. 425-26), delivered a separate opinion concurring in the judgment.

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.

Tennessee contracts with private corporations to operate its prison facilities. In their capacities as correctional officers, defendants Daryll Richardson and John Walker allegedly violated plaintiff Ronnie McKnight's Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Richardson and Walker now pursue this interlocutory appeal from the district court's denial of their motion to dismiss McKnight's section 1983 action. 1 Richardson and Walker argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity from suit, and that the district court erred in concluding otherwise. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM.

McKnight filed this action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on March 3, 1994, against John Rees, the warden of the Corrections Corporation of America's South Central Correctional Center, and correctional officers Richardson and Walker. 2 Rees was subsequently dismissed from the suit, and his dismissal is not before this Court.

In his complaint, McKnight alleged that these officers violated his constitutional rights under the Eighth Amendment by subjecting him to tight restraints during his transport to another prison. He claims that the restraints caused him serious medical injury which actually required hospitalization. Finally, the complaint states that McKnight's protestations were ignored, and that Richardson and Walker taunted him after he complained about the restraints.

Richardson and Walker moved to dismiss the complaint, asserting that they were entitled to qualified immunity pursuant to their job function as correctional officers. The district court denied the motion to dismiss, holding that Richardson and Walker, as employees of a private, for-profit corporation, were not entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. This timely interlocutory appeal followed.

Section 1983 provides a cause of action against any person who, under color of state law, deprives an individual of any right, privilege, or immunity secured by the Constitution and federal law. 3 42 U.S.C. § 1983. "The purpose of § 1983 is to deter state actors from using the badge of their authority to deprive individuals of their federally guaranteed rights and to provide relief to victims if such deterrence fails." Wyatt v. Cole, 504 U.S. 158, 161, 112 S.Ct. 1827, 1830, 118 L.Ed.2d 504 (1992) (citation omitted). The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that "[w]hen government officials abuse their offices, 'action[s] for damages may offer the only realistic avenue for vindication of constitutional guarantees.' " Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 814, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2736, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). Balanced against this concern is the equally important need to ensure that the threat of personal liability does not inhibit public officials from vigorously performing their duties as representatives of the public interest. Id. We are asked here whether accommodation of these competing interests warrants the extension of qualified immunity to corrections officers employed by a private corporation under contract with the State of Tennessee.

We begin by noting that state employed correctional officers do enjoy the protections of qualified immunity in carrying out their duties. Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 561-62, 98 S.Ct. 855, 859-60, 55 L.Ed.2d 24 (1978); Williams v. Bass, 63 F.3d 483, 486 (6th Cir.1995). It is not immediately apparent, however, whether private correctional officers, performing by contract functions admittedly similar to those traditionally within the governmental sphere, should or should not be granted similar immunity. The principles undergirding qualified immunity do not necessarily apply with equal force when a private actor seeks its invocation.

In Duncan v. Peck, 844 F.2d 1261 (6th Cir.1988), this Court held that qualified immunity does not protect from subsequent liability private individuals who resort to state garnishment or prejudgment attachment procedures in pursuit of personal interests. Id. at 1264-66. In so holding, we examined the scope of the immunity doctrine developed by the Supreme Court, initially pointing out that "section 1983 allows no immunities on its face." Id. at 1263; See also Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 417, 96 S.Ct. 984, 988-89, 47 L.Ed.2d 128 (1976). However, we also recognized that the Supreme Court has afforded governmental officials one form of immunity or another in a variety of situations. Duncan, 844 F.2d at 1263. Thoroughly examining the common law history of immunity for private individuals and the policy rationales traditionally used to justify immunity, we concluded that neither supported the grant of qualified immunity to the private actors in that case. Id. at 1264. The Supreme Court has embraced this position as well. Wyatt, 504 U.S. at 168-69, 112 S.Ct. at 1833-34 (holding that private parties invoking state garnishment or prejudgment attachment statutes later found to be unconstitutional are not entitled to qualified immunity). We have recently reaffirmed this approach in a Bivens action. Vector Research, Inc. v. Howard & Howard Attorneys P.C., 76 F.3d 692, 698-99 (6th Cir.1996) (holding that private attorneys who assisted federal agents in a search and seizure pursuant to an ex parte order could be liable for constitutional violations arising out of their conduct). Nonetheless, neither Vector Research, Duncan nor the Supreme Court's decision in Wyatt necessarily forecloses the application of qualified immunity here because each of those cases relied in part on the fact that the policy rationales that support qualified immunity did not apply on the facts. Further inquiry is needed, and we must examine the public policy underpinnings of qualified immunity to determine whether these defendants should be allowed to utilitize its protections.

When determining whether a private individual may claim qualified immunity as a defense to a section 1983 claim, the Supreme Court's decision in Wyatt teaches that we must look first to determine whether the "tradition of immunity [is] ... firmly rooted in the common law." Wyatt, 504 U.S. at 164, 112 S.Ct. at 1831 (quoting Owen v. City of Independence, 445 U.S. 622, 637, 100 S.Ct. 1398, 1408, 63 L.Ed.2d 673 (1980)). However, we also note that the Supreme Court's decision in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, "completely reformulated qualified immunity along principles not at all embodied in the common law." Anderson, 483 U.S. at 645, 107 S.Ct. at 3042 (citing Harlow, 457 U.S. at 815-20, 102 S.Ct. at 2736-39). Therefore, although we have already recognized that there is "no evidence that the common law ever extended [qualified] immunity to include private citizens," Duncan, 844 F.2d at 1264, we conclude that, when determining whether qualified immunity is appropriate, the traditions of common law immunity inform our analysis but the presence or absence of immunity found there is not necessarily dispositive.

In addition to examining the historical roots of immunity, we also determine whether strong public policy reasons support the recognition of qualified immunity in particular cases. Wyatt, 504 U.S. at 164-66, 112 S.Ct. at 1831-32; Duncan, 844 F.2d at 1263-64 (relying on City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 258-59, 101 S.Ct. 2748, 2755-56, 69 L.Ed.2d 616 (1981)). At this juncture of the analysis, we are informed by the Supreme Court's explanation that we must "examine the nature of the functions with which a particular official or class of officials has been lawfully entrusted" to determine whether we should recognize qualified immunity in a given case. Forrester v. White, 484 U.S. 219, 224, 108 S.Ct. 538, 542-43, 98 L.Ed.2d 555 (1988). Finally, when determining whether public policy supports the grant or denial of immunity, "[w]e do not have a license to establish immunities from [section] 1983 actions in the interests of what we judge to be sound public policy." Tower v. Glover, 467 U.S. 914, 922-23, 104 S.Ct. 2820, 2826, 81 L.Ed.2d 758 (1984). We turn now to a perusal of the various rationales utilized to support qualified immunity.

While discussing the rationale underlying the creation of immunity from suit in Forrester v. White, the Court explained that:

Suits for monetary damages are meant to compensate the victims of wrongful actions and to discourage conduct that may result in liability. Special problems arise, however, when government officials are exposed to liability for damages. To the extent that the threat of liability encourages these officials to carry out their duties in a lawful and appropriate manner, and to pay their victims when they do not, it accomplishes exactly what it should. By its nature, however, the threat of liability can create perverse incentives that operate to inhibit officials in the proper performance of their duties. In many contexts, government officials are expected to make decisions that are impartial or imaginative, and that above all are informed by considerations other than the personal interests of the decisionmaker.... When officials are threatened with personal liability for acts taken pursuant to their official duties, they may well be induced to act with an excess of caution or otherwise to skew their...

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