Henderson v. DeRobertis

• Decision Date: 01 November 1991
• Docket Number: Nos. 88-2698,88-3407 and 88-3430,s. 88-2698
• Citation: 940 F.2d 1055
• Parties: Robert HENDERSON and Thomas Jefferson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard DeROBERTIS, Warden; and Michael O'Leary, Assistant Warden, Defendants-Appellees. Willie WILLIAMS; and Warren Lee Harris, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard DeROBERTIS and Michael O'Leary, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1055

940 F.2d 1055

Robert HENDERSON and Thomas Jefferson, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard DeROBERTIS, Warden; and Michael O'Leary, Assistant

Warden, Defendants-Appellees.

Willie WILLIAMS; and Warren Lee Harris, Individually and on Behalf of all Others Similarly Situated, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. Richard DeROBERTIS and Michael O'Leary, Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 88-2698, 88-3407 and 88-3430.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

Argued May 10, 1990.

Decided Aug. 15, 1991.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc

Denied Nov. 1, 1991.

Michael B. Brohman, Gregory S. Gallopoulos (argued), Jenner & Block, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiffs-appellants.

William H. London (argued), Laurel Black, William H. London, Beverly J. Tiesenga, Asst. Attys. Gen., Office of the Atty. Gen., Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellees.

Before COFFEY and KANNE, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.

KANNE, Circuit Judge.

During a four-day period in 1982, the outdoor temperature at Illinois' Stateville Correctional Center plunged to a low of 22 degrees below zero; the prison's heating system in Cellhouse B-West malfunctioned at the same time. Two of some 300 inmates housed in B-West, Thomas Jefferson and Robert Henderson, filed separate complaints under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 alleging that prison officials violated their eighth amendment rights by subjecting them to freezing temperatures which constituted unusual punishment. In a consolidated trial a jury apparently agreed that because of the deliberate indifference of prison officials Jefferson and Henderson received neither adequate protection nor relief from the freezing conditions in their cells. The jury awarded each plaintiff $3,000.00 in compensatory and $2,000.00 in punitive damages. Defendants filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or in the alternative, a new trial. The district judge entered judgment in favor of defendants notwithstanding the verdict because he found that qualified immunity protected the officials from liability. The motion for a new trial was not considered.

Soon after the jury returned their verdicts, two other inmates of B-West, Warren Lee Harris and Willie Williams, filed separate Sec. 1983 complaints based upon the same factual circumstances. Harris also sought to certify as a class the prisoners confined in Cellhouse B-West during the four-day period. The district judge to whom the Harris and Williams cases were assigned, put these cases on hold until a decision was rendered on the defendants' post-trial motions for judgment notwithstanding the verdict in the Henderson and Jefferson cases. After the judgment notwithstanding the verdict was granted in favor of the prison officials, class certification was granted to Harris. The Harris and Williams cases then were dismissed with prejudice on the basis of the qualified immunity decision rendered in the Henderson and Jefferson cases.

All four cases have been consolidated in this appeal. Because we find that the prison officials were not entitled to the protection of qualified immunity, we reverse the district court's judgment notwithstanding the verdict, reinstate the jury's verdicts in favor of Henderson and Jefferson, and vacate the dismissal of the complaints of Harris and Williams and remand those cases for further proceedings.

The outcome of this appeal is based on the judgment notwithstanding the verdict entered in favor of Jefferson and Henderson, ¹ and our review of that decision is de novo. David Copperfield's Disappearing, Inc. v. Haddon Advertising Agency Inc., 897 F.2d 288, 291 (7th Cir.1990); Webb v. City of Chester, 813 F.2d 824, 827 (7th Cir.1987).

A judgment notwithstanding the verdict, granted in favor of a defendant, "is proper only if reasonable people, viewing the facts most favorably to the plaintiff and disregarding conflicting unfavorable testimony, could not conclude that the plaintiff has made out a prima facie case." Rakovich v. Wade, 850 F.2d 1180, 1188 (7th Cir.) (citing Crowder v. Lash, 687 F.2d 996, 1002 (7th Cir.1982) ), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 968, 109 S.Ct. 497, 102 L.Ed.2d 534 (1988). We must view all the evidence and inferences in the light most favorable to Henderson and Jefferson, who prevailed with the jury; any conflicts in the evidence must be resolved in favor of those inmates and every permissible inference must be drawn in their favor. Rakovich, 850 F.2d at 1187-88; Mathewson v. National Automatic Tool Co., 807 F.2d 87, 90 (7th Cir.1986). Thus, we base our analysis on the following facts which are presented with the required inferences drawn and conflicts resolved in favor of Henderson and Jefferson.

Frigid weather descended upon northern Illinois from January 8th through January 11th of 1982. The sub-zero temperatures recorded dropped to twenty-two degrees below zero with a corresponding wind chill factor of eighty degrees below zero. During these abnormally cold days, many areas in the Stateville Correctional Center experienced colder than usual temperatures. But in Cellhouse B-West, the heating system malfunctioned and the inside temperatures there fell and remained below freezing. Broken windows in the cell block permitted the frigid outside air to flow in, ice formed in the cells, and "it was cold enough to see your breath." Richard DeRobertis, the former warden of Stateville, and Michael O'Leary, the former assistant warden of operations, were present in B-West at various times during the period from January 8 through January 11. O'Leary testified that it was important with the kind of environmental conditions being experienced by the inmates that the administrative officials be present so inmates would know that officials were aware of the severity of the conditions. Correctional officers, cellhouse workers and the warden wore winter coats, hats and gloves while in B-West during this four-day period. An inmate plumber while doing work in B-West on January 10th wore an overcoat with fur inside, a jumpsuit, pants, shirt, sweatpants, sweatshirt, longjohns, three pairs of socks, work boots with rubber boots over them, gloves and a skullcap and still was not warm.

Segregation inmates who were moved to B-West from their general population cells for violations of prison rules were not permitted to bring along any of their extra clothes such as winter coats or additional shirts. Henderson testified that after the heating system malfunctioned he asked O'Leary for blankets and clothes. Jefferson wrote a letter to DeRobertis complaining that there was no heat, and also asked O'Leary, as he made his rounds, to get him out of Cellhouse B-West.

The assistant warden told the superintendent that extra blankets should be distributed. The superintendent said that extra blankets were passed out starting on Friday, the 8th. A senior corrections officer permitted extra blankets to be distributed upon request, provided that inmates would not use them as rugs. But Henderson, Jefferson and Harris did not receive additional blankets. ²

Because of security concerns and because his personnel were working to fix the heat problem, assistant warden O'Leary never contemplated moving inmates from B-West to another part of the institution where the heating system worked. Moving a prisoner safely from his cell in Cellhouse B-West to other less secure areas required the presence of a correctional officer and the use of handcuffs on the prisoner. Moreover, despite efforts to bring in employees stranded in their homes by the cold weather, Stateville experienced staff shortages during the four-day period. Stateville officials took measures to have the heating system repaired, but four days passed before Henderson and Jefferson were provided with relief from the freezing conditions in Cellhouse B-West.

It was solely on the basis of qualified immunity that the verdict in favor of Henderson and Jefferson was set aside. Qualified immunity is a question of law reserved for the district judge and not the jury, but it must be determined within the framework of the particular facts of the case. Rakovich, 850 F.2d at 1180. Thus, it is in the context of the foregoing facts that we must judge the propriety of the district judge's grant of a judgment notwithstanding the verdict in favor of the defendants.

Government officials performing discretionary functions will be shielded from liability for damages where 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, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). A constitutional right still may be clearly established even if the precise action in question has not previously been held unlawful, however, the unlawfulness must then be apparent in the light of pre-existing law. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). A court should "look to whatever decisional law is available to ascertain whether the law is clearly established." Rakovich, 850 F.2d at 1209 (citing Capoeman v. Reed, 754 F.2d 1512, 1514 (9th Cir.1985)). Thus, a " 'sufficient consensus' based on all relevant case law, 'indicating that the officials' conduct was unlawful' " is required. Landstrom v. Illinois Dept. of Children & Family Serv., 892 F.2d 670, 676 (7th Cir.1990) (quoting Lojuk v. Johnson, 770 F.2d 619, 628 (7th Cir.1985), cert. denied 474 U.S. 1067, 106 S.Ct. 822, 88 L.Ed.2d 795 (1986)). This court has further elaborated on the "clearly established" standard and said that "the right must be sufficiently particularized to put potential defendants on notice that their conduct probably is unlawful." Colaizzi v. Walker, 812 F.2d 304, 308 (7th Cir.1987) (citing Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d 1296, 1301 (7th Cir.1986)). We have held that until a particular constitutional right has been stated so that reasonably competent officers would agree on its application to a given set of...