Biggs v. Meadows

• Decision Date: 18 September 1995
• Docket Number: No. 94-6667,94-6667
• Citation: 66 F.3d 56
• Parties: Robert BIGGS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William C. MEADOWS; Nurse Cartwright; Superintendent Barnes; Mr. Weeks, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 56

66 F.3d 56

Robert BIGGS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. William C. MEADOWS; Nurse Cartwright; Superintendent Barnes; Mr. Weeks, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 94-6667.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued March 9, 1995.

Decided Sept. 18, 1995.

ARGUED: James Douglas Minor, Student Counsel, Appellate Litigation Clinical Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, for Appellant. James Peeler Smith, Department of Justice, Raleigh, NC, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Steven H. Goldblatt, Director, Ellen R. Finn, Supervising Attorney, Appellate Litigation Clinical Program, Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, for Appellant. Michael F. Easley, Attorney General of North Carolina, M. Lynn Jarvis, Associate Attorney General, Department of Justice, Raleigh, NC, for Appellees.

Before ERVIN, Chief Judge, WILKINS, Circuit Judge, and WILLIAMS, United States District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Chief Judge ERVIN wrote the opinion, in which Judge WILKINS and Judge WILLIAMS joined.

OPINION

ERVIN, Chief Judge:

In this case, we address whether a plaintiff filing a complaint under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 must plead expressly that state officials are being sued in their individual, rather than official, capacities. Adopting the view accepted by most other circuits, we hold that a litigant need not explicitly draw such a distinction. Instead, a court must look to the substance of the complaint, the relief sought, and the course of proceedings to determine the nature of a plaintiff's claims. Because the district court erroneously applied a presumption that defendants are sued only in their official capacities unless a complaint specifically states that a personal capacity suit is intended, we reverse the judgment of the district court dismissing this action and remand the case for further proceedings.

I.

On January 11, 1993, appellant Robert Biggs, a North Carolina inmate incarcerated at the Gates Correctional Center in Gatesville, filed a pro se complaint pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The complaint named as defendants prison Nurse Juanita Cartwright, prison Superintendent Barnes, and Area Administrator William Meadows. Seeking compensatory damages in the amount of $10,000 for the denial of proper medical treatment and his attendant suffering, Biggs alleged that the defendants had acted with deliberate indifference to his medical needs, in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Specifically, Biggs, who was taking various prescription drugs when he was transferred to Gates on December 1, 1992, claimed that the prison psychiatrist had prescribed new medication for him on December 13, which he did not receive until December 29. This lapse apparently was related to the prison's medical personnel not having the newly prescribed drugs on the premises. Ordered from another prison pharmacy, the medication did not arrive until the afternoon of December 23, the last working day before Christmas. In addition to the substantial delay, Biggs asserted that he had vomited every night from taking the wrong medication and that he had filed two grievances based on the improper administration of his medicine, both of which had been denied. Biggs also contended that Nurse Cartwright had failed to dispense the prescribed medication at the appropriate time and that Assistant Superintendent Austin Weeks had failed to correct the problem after Biggs brought it to his attention.

On May 28, 1993, the district court ordered Biggs to particularize his complaint with regard to defendants Barnes and Meadows, because Biggs had failed to allege any conduct on which liability could be imposed on them. Biggs responded by conceding that Barnes and Meadows had no direct involvement in the events at issue and by seeking to amend his complaint in order to add Superintendent Weeks as a defendant. On July 2, 1993, the court dismissed the claims against Barnes and Meadows as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1915(d) and granted Biggs' request to add Weeks as a defendant.

Weeks and Cartwright filed motions to dismiss and for summary judgment on March 25, 1994. They contended that they had not been deliberately indifferent to Biggs' medical needs. In addition, Weeks and Cartwright argued that Biggs' suit was barred by the Eleventh Amendment, because Sec. 1983 prohibits claims for damages against state officers acting in their official capacities, and Biggs had failed to plead expressly that the defendants were being sued as individuals. Finally, Weeks and Cartwright claimed that they were qualifiedly immune from liability.

The district court granted the motion to dismiss. In doing so, the court applied a presumption that Sec. 1983 defendants are sued only in their official capacities unless the complaint explicitly states that the defendants are being sued in their individual capacities: "When a complaint is silent on the issue, we should normally assume defendants are sued in their official capacities only; a complaint should expressly say 'individual capacity' when a plaintiff intends to sue a defendant as such." The court then noted that the Eleventh Amendment prohibits the recovery of monetary damages from state officials sued in their official capacities and that Biggs had sought monetary relief only. As a result, the court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Biggs filed a timely notice of appeal to this court. Jurisdiction over this Sec. 1983 action is proper under 28 U.S.C. Secs. 1343(3) and 1291. ¹

II.

Biggs contends that the district court erred by dismissing his complaint based on his failure to allege expressly that he was suing state officials Weeks and Cartwright in their individual capacities. We review de novo a dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, construing the factual allegations in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Schatz v. Rosenberg, 943 F.2d 485, 489 (4th Cir.1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 936, 112 S.Ct. 1475, 117 L.Ed.2d 619 (1992). Estate Constr. Co. v. Miller & Smith Holding Co., 14 F.3d 213, 217 (4th Cir.1994). Dismissal for failure to state a claim is proper where "it is clear that no relief could be granted under any set of facts that could be proved consistent with the allegations." Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73, 104 S.Ct. 2229, 2232, 81 L.Ed.2d 59 (1984).

In Hafer v. Melo, 502 U.S. 21, 23, 112 S.Ct. 358, 360, 116 L.Ed.2d 301 (1991), the United States Supreme Court held that state officials sued in their individual capacities are "persons" for purposes of Sec. 1983. The Hafer Court noted, but declined to resolve, a split among the federal circuit courts on the appropriate way to treat a complaint that fails to state explicitly the capacity in which a defendant is sued under Sec. 1983. The Court "reiterate[d] the Third Circuit's view that '[i]t is obviously preferable for the plaintiff to be specific in the first instance to avoid any ambiguity.' " Id. at 24 n.*, 112 S.Ct. at 361 n.* (quoting Melo v. Hafer, 912 F.2d 628, 636 (3rd Cir.1990), aff'd, 502 U.S. 21, 112 S.Ct. 358, 116 L.Ed.2d 301 (1991)). In a footnote, the Supreme Court noted that the Third Circuit had looked to the proceedings below to determine whether certain of the plaintiffs had brought their claims for damages against the defendant in her official or personal capacity. Id.; cf. Gregory v. Chehi, 843 F.2d 111, 119-20 (3rd Cir.1988) ("[R]esolving doubts in favor of plaintiff, we will assume he is suing the individuals in their personal capacities as well."). In addition to the Third Circuit, a substantial majority of other circuits--including the Second, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh--have adopted this approach, looking to the substance of the plaintiff's claim, the relief sought, and the course of proceedings to determine the nature of a Sec. 1983 suit when a plaintiff fails to allege capacity. See, e.g., Frank v. Relin, 1 F.3d 1317, 1326 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 604, 126 L.Ed.2d 569 (1993); Parker v. Graves, 479 F.2d 335, 336 (5th Cir.1973); Conner v. Reinhard, 847 F.2d 384, 394 (7th Cir.1988), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 856, 109 S.Ct. 147, 102 L.Ed.2d 118 (1988); Price v. Akaka, 928 F.2d 824, 828 (9th Cir.1990), cert. denied, 502 U.S. 967, 112 S.Ct. 436, 116 L.Ed.2d 455 (1991); Houston v. Reich, 932 F.2d 883, 885 (10th Cir.1991); Lundgren v. McDaniel, 814 F.2d 600, 604 (11th Cir.1987).

In contrast, two Circuits--the Sixth and the Eighth--utilize the presumption applied by the district court in this case: where a Sec. 1983 complaint is silent as to capacity, it is presumed that a defendant has been sued only in her official capacity. See Wells v. Brown, 891 F.2d 591, 592 (6th Cir.1989); Nix v. Norman, 879 F.2d 429, 431 (8th Cir.1989). ² This position is based on a perception that the Eleventh Amendment operates as a substantive limitation on the subject matter jurisdiction of the federal courts. See Wells, 891 F.2d at 592; Nix, 879 F.2d at 431. The case of Will v. Michigan Dept. of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 71, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 2312, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989), establishes that a Sec. 1983 plaintiff cannot overcome a state's immunity under that Amendment merely by naming a state official instead. Because Rule 9(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires that capacity be averred "to the extent required to show the jurisdiction of the court," these circuits have mandated that individual capacity be pleaded expressly to demonstrate that Eleventh Amendment immunity is not implicated and that jurisdiction is proper.

Heretofore, we have published no authority on this issue. Because we find the majority view to be more persuasive, we hold today that a plaintiff need not plead expressly the capacity in which ...