Bilal v. GEO Care, LLC

• Decision Date: 23 November 2020
• Docket Number: No. 16-11722,16-11722
• Citation: 981 F.3d 903
• Parties: Jamaal Ali BILAL, f.k.a. John L. Burton, a.k.a. Superman, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. GEO CARE, LLC, FNU Garza, FCCC Custody Officer, individually and in his official capacity as Transport Officer, FNU Jarvis, FCCC Custody Officer, individually and in his official capacity as Transport Official, The Geo Group, Inc., Correct Care Solutions, LLC, et al., Defendants – Appellees, David Wilkins, Secretary, Department of Children & Families, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

981 F.3d 903

Jamaal Ali BILAL, f.k.a. John L. Burton, a.k.a. Superman, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. GEO CARE, LLC, FNU Garza, FCCC Custody Officer, individually and in his official capacity as Transport Officer, FNU Jarvis, FCCC Custody Officer, individually and in his official capacity as Transport Official, The Geo Group, Inc., Correct Care Solutions, LLC, et al., Defendants – Appellees,David Wilkins, Secretary, Department of Children & Families, Defendant.

No. 16-11722

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

November 23, 2020

Jamaal Ali Bilal, Pro Se

Valarie Linnen, Valarie Linnen, Esq, Atlantic Beach, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellant

Gregory A. Kummerlen, Wiederhold Kummerlen & Waronicki, PA, West Palm Beach, FL, for Defendants-Appellees

Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and TALLMAN,^* Circuit Judges.¹

ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge:

The civilly committed may not be punished merely because they are civilly committed. And under the Fourteenth Amendment, they enjoy a substantive-due-process right to liberty interests in, among other things, safety and freedom from bodily restraint. So though the State may appropriately take measures to protect the public from civilly committed individuals found to be dangerous, it must do so in a way that is consistent with professional judgment about what is necessary.

Plaintiff-Appellant Jamaal Ali Bilal is civilly committed and housed in the Florida Civil Commitment Center ("FCCC"), in part because he has been found to represent a danger to the public. Bilal alleged that, during a trip to a court hearing located about 600 miles from the FCCC, Defendants-Appellees, who include the Secretary of Florida's Department of Children and Families ("DCF") and several individuals associated with the FCCC (which is under the purview of the Secretary of DCF) and with GEO Care, Inc. (which, by contract, runs the FCCC), restrained, transported, and temporarily housed him in a manner that was inconsistent with professional judgment and therefore violated his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district court disagreed and dismissed the case for failure to state a claim. After careful consideration and with the benefit of oral argument, we now affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

A. Background Facts

Bilal is civilly committed at the FCCC under Florida's Involuntary Civil Commitment of Sexually Violent Predators Act, Fla. Stat. § 394.910, et seq ., commonly known as the Jimmy Ryce Act. He was sent to the FCCC in 2001 after he stipulated that he qualified as a "sexually violent predator," meaning he was previously convicted of a sexually violent offense, and at the time of commitment, he had a "mental abnormality or personality disorder" that makes him "likely to engage in acts of sexual violence if not confined in a secure facility for long-term control, care, and treatment." Fla. Stat. § 394.912(10). Under Florida law, anyone determined to be a "sexually violent predator" is committed to the custody of the DCF and housed in a secure facility until the individual's condition has improved to the point that it is safe to release him into the community. Fla. Stat. § 394.917(2) ; see also Pesci v. Budz , 730 F.3d 1291, 1299 (11th Cir. 2013). Those committed under the statute are entitled to periodic judicial review to make that determination. Fla. Stat. § 394.918(1).

A state-court judge in Escambia County ordered a hearing at the Escambia County Courthouse in Pensacola, Florida, to determine whether Bilal was eligible for release from civil confinement. Garza and Jarvis,² two armed guards from the FCCC, transported Bilal roughly 600 miles by van to Escambia County. The state court then conducted the relevant hearing on September 10, 2013. Following the hearing, Bilal was housed in the Santa Rosa County Jail until October 10, 2013, when the judge denied Bilal's release from civil confinement. At that time, Garza and Jarvis drove Bilal the approximately 600 miles back to the FCCC.

B. Procedural History

Bilal filed a pro se complaint in state court, invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Florida Statute § 768.28, and asserting that Defendants-Appellees GEO Care, Inc., ("GEO"), David Wilkins, Garza, and Jarvis (collectively referred to as the "Defendants"), violated his civil rights, based on things that he alleges happened during the trip to and from Escambia County. At the time of the events alleged in the complaint, Wilkins served as the Secretary of Florida's DCF; by contract with DCF, GEO operated and managed the FCCC; and as we have noted, FCCC guards Garza and Jarvis transported Bilal.

Defendants removed the action to the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida, which ultimately dismissed it. But along the way, Bilal filed a Third Amended Complaint, which added new defendants and is the operative pleading in this case. Among other things, the Third Amended Complaint began referring to GEO as GEO Care, LLC. GEO nonetheless continued throughout the litigation to respond.³ Because GEO has responded throughout this litigation to filings addressed to GEO Care, Inc., and GEO Care, LLC, we use "GEO" in this opinion to refer to both designations. The Third Amended Complaint also ceased to mention Wilkins, substituting then-DCF Secretary Mike Carroll in his place. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 25(d).

We review the relevant allegations in the Third Amended Complaint. But before doing so, we note that we are reviewing the district court's order granting the defendants’ motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). So we set forth the allegations in the complaint as though they are true, viewing them in the light most favorable to Bilal. Am. Dental Ass'n v. Cigna Corp. , 605 F.3d 1283, 1288 (11th Cir. 2010). Of course, if Bilal's action proceeds, he will have to prove his allegations.

Now, the allegations: during the trip to and from Escambia County, Garza and Jarvis used leg irons

, waist chains, and black-box⁴ restraints on Bilal. They also deprived Bilal of food, except for a bottle of water and two slices of cheese on two stale pieces of bread, and they refused to allow him any bathroom breaks during the lengthy trip. Because Bilal needed to defecate, he had to do so into his clothing and then sit in his feces for about 300 miles of the trip. Plus, the van seats were cramped, and that, in combination with the shackling, aggravated his pre-existing knee injuries. Adding to Bilal's misery, the guards traveled at excessive speeds as Garza "leisurely review[ed] child porn on his cellphone."

Based on these allegations, Bilal set forth several counts in his pro se complaint. Because of Bilal's pro se status, the breakdown of the specific counts is not neat and tidy. But we construe Bilal's complaint to have made the following claims.

As relevant on appeal, in Counts I, IV, and VI⁵ , Bilal alleged that Garza, Jarvis, GEO, and the Secretary of DCF violated his Fourteenth Amendment due-process rights on the 1,200-mile roundtrip journey between the FCCC and the Escambia County courthouse. He complained that transporting him in a van (as opposed to an airplane) for more than 1,200 miles roundtrip, while he was in leg irons

, waist chains, and a black-boxed set of handcuffs; feeding him only a single cheese sandwich, which he asserts gave him botulism ; putting him in a cramped van in shackles while he had injuries to his knees, which then required him to need to undergo surgeries; forcing him to endure no bathroom stops during the entire journey, which caused him to defecate on himself midway through the trip to Escambia County "and caused suppression and wounded his bowel movements that caused constipation"; and traveling at speeds in excess of 90 miles per hour constituted unjustified punishment and imposed unnecessary and unconstitutional restraints, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In Count II, asserted against all Defendants, Bilal challenged his stay in the Santa Rosa County Jail while the court was deciding whether to release him. Bilal alleged the stay, like the journey to and from Escambia County, violated the Fourteenth Amendment. He complained that while at the jail, he missed out on mental-health treatment, which caused him not to be able to advance in his mental-health treatment back at the FCCC; Garza and Jarvis, annoyed with Bilal's complaints, influenced the jail guards to act abusively towards Bilal, which caused Bilal to become suicidal and to have to spend two weeks in a suicide cell in the jail; and he was placed in confinement at the jail and did not have access to television, phone calls, the law library, visitation, fresh-air exercise, canteen privileges, or religious groups.⁶

Bilal sought declaratory and injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages.

After Bilal filed the Third Amended Complaint, the district court issued an order directing Bilal, by July 1, 2015, to complete service-of-process forms for the ten additional defendants (including Carroll and GEO Care, LLC) and to return ten additional copies of the Third Amended Complaint to the court for service. The Order warned that "[f]ailure to return the completed forms within this allotted time period without further explanation will result in dismissal of this action without further notice."

Bilal sought a thirty-day extension of time to file a notice of lawsuit and request for waiver of service of summons, summons, and United States Marshal Service Form 285. Upon considering Bilal's motion, the district court noted that the original Defendants (who had previously received service of process) had not yet filed a response to the Third Amended Complaint. So it directed those Defendants (GEO, Wilkins, Garza, and Jarvis) to file a response to the Third Amended Complaint. The court also found good cause to grant Bilal's motion for extension of time, and it gave him an additional thirty days from June 18, 2015, to comply with the previous order. It warned that "[f]ailure to do so may...