Hall v. Lombardi

• Decision Date: 11 August 1993
• Docket Number: No. 92-2543,92-2543
• Citation: 996 F.2d 954
• Parties: Harvey Lucious HALL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George LOMBARDI; William Armontrout, Warden; Donald Cline, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 954

996 F.2d 954

Harvey Lucious HALL, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George LOMBARDI; William Armontrout, Warden; Donald Cline Defendants-Appellants.

No. 92-2543.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted March 18, 1993.

Decided June 29, 1993.

Rehearing and Suggestion for Rehearing En Banc Denied Aug. 11, 1993.

Bruce Farmer, Jefferson City, MO, argued (William L. Webster and Christine A. Alsop, on the brief), for appellants.

David H. Bailey, St. Peters, MO, argued, for appellee.

Before McMILLIAN, JOHN R. GIBSON, and WOLLMAN, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. GIBSON, Circuit Judge.

George Lombardi, William Armontrout, and Donald Cline appeal from the district court's ¹ denial of their request for summary judgment on Missouri inmate Harvey Lucious Hall's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1988) suit. Hall claims that the appellants violated his Fourteenth and Eighth Amendment rights by failing to release him from the Missouri State Penitentiary's Special Management Facility after he had been approved for reassignment to the general population's Protective Custody Unit. The appellants argue that they are entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Armontrout and Lombardi also contend that they are entitled to summary judgment because they did not have personal knowledge of and were not involved in Hall's continued confinement. We affirm the judgment of the district court.

In June 1987, Hall was transferred to Level I of the Special Management Facility ² for possessing dangerous contraband. The Classification Committee reviewed Hall's placement later that same month and moved him to Level II. In September 1987, the Committee transferred Hall to Level III, and in December 1987, the Committee recommended that Hall be released to the general population's Protective Custody Unit. Although the Warden's designee approved the Committee's recommendation, Hall was not reassigned. The Committee reviewed Hall's status again on four different occasions during 1988 and each time recommended that he be released from the Special Management Facility. The recommendations were always approved, but Hall was not released. In February 1989, Hall committed another conduct violation, the Classification Committee recommended that Hall be reclassified for Level I housing in the Special Management Facility, and the recommendation was approved. Hall worked his way through the Special Management Facility levels again, and in June 1989, the Committee's recommendation that Hall be assigned to an "acceptable level" was approved. In August 1989, the Committee again recommended that Hall be released, the recommendation was approved, and Hall was finally reassigned to the Protective Custody Unit.

Hall filed suit, claiming that the appellants violated his Fourteenth and Eighth Amendment rights by failing to release him after the recommendations for release had been approved. The appellants requested summary judgment, arguing that Hall did not have a constitutional right to be transferred, that Hall received procedural due process, that other inmates who were moved before Hall were different, that the Special Management Facility conditions were not cruel and unusual, and that qualified immunity applied.

The district court referred the case to a magistrate judge, ³ who recommended that the appellants' request for summary judgment be denied. Hall v. Lombardi, No. 89-4221-CV-C-5, Slip op. at 8 (W.D. Mo. Feb. 13, 1992) (Magistrate's Report and Recommendations). The magistrate judge found that Hall "spent approximately fourteen months in the Special Management Facility after he was approved for release in December, 1987, and approximately two months in the Special Management Facility after he was approved for release in June, 1989." Id. at 4. The magistrate judge rejected the appellants' arguments regarding qualified immunity because, although Hall had received procedural protection regarding his housing assignment, "the failure to release [Hall] from administrative segregation and retransfer him to protective custody was an arbitrary failure to restore the measure of liberty to which [Hall] was entitled--a substantive right." Id. at 6-7. The magistrate judge determined that Hall had a liberty interest in being released from the Special Management Facility, and stated that "any reasonable person should know that neglecting [Hall] for seventeen months may well be in violation of his rights." Id. at 7. The magistrate judge examined the appellants' reasons for keeping Hall in the Special Management Facility and concluded that a material issue of fact existed, namely, whether the appellants arbitrarily had deprived Hall of his liberty interest keeping him in the Special Management Facility for such a long period of time after he was approved for release. Id. at 7-8. The district court adopted the magistrate judge's recommendations and denied the motion for summary judgment. Hall v. Lombardi, No. 89-4221-CV-C-5 (W.D. Mo. June 11, 1992). Lombardi, Armontrout, and Cline appealed.

I.

The appellants argue that the district court erred in denying their motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity.

A denial of a motion for summary judgment is not a final judgment, and therefore, is not usually appealable. See Wright v. South Ark. Regional Health Ctr., 800 F.2d 199, 202 (8th Cir.1986). A denial of summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity, however, is an exception to the general rule, and we have held that when there is a closely related question of law, we will consider the merits of the appeal. Drake v. Scott, 812 F.2d 395, 398-99 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 965, 108 S.Ct. 455, 98 L.Ed.2d 395 (1987); see also Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2817-18, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985); Johnson v. Hay, 931 F.2d 456, 459-60 (8th Cir.1991); Wright, 800 F.2d at 202.

We review the district court's denial of summary judgment under the same standard as the district court applied to the motion. A party is entitled to summary judgment only when "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and ... the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). We view the evidence in the light most favorable to Hall, the nonmovant, and give him the benefit of all reasonable inferences. Johnson, 931 F.2d at 460. In addition, qualified immunity is an affirmative defense which the appellants have the burden of proving. Slone v. Herman, 983 F.2d 107, 109 (8th Cir.1993).

Prison officials may generally rely on the defense of qualified immunity to protect them from liability for civil damages. Brown v. Frey, 889 F.2d 159, 165 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1088, 110 S.Ct. 1156, 107 L.Ed.2d 1059 (1990). In determining whether the appellants are protected by qualified immunity, we must first decide "the essentially legal question whether the conduct of which [Hall] complains violated clearly established law," and then we must decide whether Hall adequately alleged the commission of such acts. Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 526, 105 S.Ct. at 2815; Johnson, 931 F.2d at 460. The test "focuses on the objective legal reasonableness of an official's acts," and the qualified immunity defense fails if the official violates a clearly established right because "a reasonably competent public official should know the law governing his conduct." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818-19, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982).

A.

In Knight v. Armontrout, 878 F.2d 1093, 1095 (8th Cir.1989), we held that Missouri State Penitentiary Regulation 20-212.040 creates "a protectible liberty interest." We did not decide Knight, however, until about the time Hall was released from the Special Management Facility. The appellants therefore contend that even if Hall had a substantive due process right to be removed from the Special Management Facility, it was not "clearly established." The appellants argue that if neither the Supreme Court nor this Court has decided a factually and legally similar case, the right is rarely considered "clearly established." The appellants then point out that the district court did not cite any Supreme Court or Eighth Circuit authority in support of its conclusions.

Apparently believing that the law regarding Hall's liberty interest was not clearly established, the magistrate judge determined that "[d]efendants are not entitled to qualified immunity for actions which are arbitrary and capricious." Slip op. at 6. Relying on Childs v. Pellegrin, 822 F.2d 1382 (6th Cir.1987), the magistrate judge determined that the facts in this case suggested that the appellants' failure to release Hall was "an arbitrary failure to restore the measure of liberty to which plaintiff was entitled--a substantive right." Slip op. at 6-7 (emphasis added). The magistrate judge examined the appellants' reasons for Hall's prolonged confinement, and concluded that a material issue of fact existed as to whether the appellants had "arbitrarily" deprived Hall of a constitutionally protected liberty interest. Id. at 8.

As the appellants point out, "[w]e have yet to decide whether substantive due process provides a right to be free from arbitrary and capricious state action." See Weimer v. Amen, 870 F.2d 1400, 1405 (8th Cir.1989). We, however, need not decide this question here because we conclude that the law was clearly established at the time of Hall's prolonged detention. ⁴

To demonstrate that the law is "clearly established," there must be a showing that a "reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violate[s]" plaintiff's rights. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). A government official is not required to guess, at his peril, the future development of constitutional doctrine, see Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 535 n. 12, 105 S.Ct. at 2820 n. 12, nor is a government official liable for a "violation of extremely abstract rights." Anderson, 483 U.S. at...