Black v. Coughlin

• Decision Date: 09 February 1996
• Docket Number: D,No. 299,299
• Citation: 76 F.3d 72
• Parties: Theadore BLACK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas A. COUGHLIN III, Defendant-Appellee. ocket 95-2190.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 72

76 F.3d 72

34 Fed.R.Serv.3d 463

Theadore BLACK, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Thomas A. COUGHLIN III, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 299, Docket 95-2190.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Submitted Nov. 9, 1995.

Decided Feb. 9, 1996.

Theadore Black, Attica, New York, Plaintiff-Appellant pro se.

Dennis C. Vacco, Attorney General of the State of New York, Albany, New York (Wayne L. Benjamin, Nancy A. Spiegel, Victor Paladino, Assistant Attorneys General, Albany, New York, of counsel), for Defendant-Appellee.

Before: KEARSE and WINTER, Circuit Judges, and POLLACK, District Judge ^*.

KEARSE, Circuit Judge:

Plaintiff pro se Theadore Black, a New York State prisoner, appeals from a final judgment of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York, David G. Larimer, Judge, (a) dismissing his complaint against defendant Thomas A. Coughlin III, formerly Commissioner of the New York State Department of Correctional Services ("DOCS"), under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1994) seeking damages for punishment imposed as a result of an improperly conducted prison disciplinary hearing, and (b) denying Black's motion for permission to amend his complaint in order to add the hearing officer and appellate review officer as defendants. The district court granted summary judgment dismissing the complaint on the ground that Coughlin was not personally involved in any phase of the disciplinary proceeding. The court denied leave to amend on the ground that the statute of limitations had run prior to the filing of Black's original complaint, and hence an amended complaint could not be timely, and on the alternative ground that the proposed new defendants would have qualified immunity. Black challenges these rulings on appeal. For the reasons stated below, we affirm the dismissal as to Coughlin but conclude that Black should have been permitted to amend his complaint.

I. BACKGROUND

The pertinent events are not substantially in dispute and were described by the district court as follows. In the spring of 1990, while incarcerated at Southport Correctional Facility, Black was charged with violating a prison regulation. The charge was tried in a prison disciplinary hearing before Lieutenant D. Ryan, who found Black guilty and sentenced him to 180 days' confinement in the facility's Special Housing Unit ("SHU"). In May 1990, Ryan's ruling was affirmed by reviewing officer Donald Selsky, Director of DOCS's Office of Special Housing and Inmate Disciplinary Programs.

After the sentence was affirmed, Black commenced an Article 78 proceeding in state court, alleging that there were procedural defects in the hearing before Ryan. In May 1991, the state court reversed the disciplinary ruling and vacated Black's sentence. By that time, however, Black had already served his 180-day sentence in SHU.

Black commenced the present action in June 1993 against Coughlin, seeking damages for his disciplinary confinement in violation of his due process rights. Coughlin initially moved pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 12(b)(6) to dismiss the complaint on the ground that Black's sentence had already been vacated. The district court denied the motion on the basis of this Court's then-recent decision in Walker v. Bates, 23 F.3d 652 (2d Cir.1994), cert. denied, --- U.S. ---- Following the denial of his motion, Coughlin filed his answer to the complaint, alleging that he had not been personally involved in the administrative hearing or appeal and could not be held liable for the acts of those who presided over those proceedings. He thereafter moved for summary judgment on the ground that his lack of personal involvement was undisputed. In the meantime, in August 1994, Black moved to amend his complaint and add Ryan and Selsky as defendants, stating that, since filing his complaint, he had learned that the officers who presided over his hearing and his appeal should have been named as defendants. Coughlin opposed Black's motion, contending (a) that Black had been aware of the identities of Ryan and Selsky at the time the original complaint was filed and that an amended complaint naming them would be barred by the three-year statute of limitations, and (b) that Selsky had absolute immunity from Black's claim.

115 S.Ct. 2608, 132 L.Ed.2d 852 (1995), which held that if a prisoner was placed in punitive confinement as a result of a procedurally defective hearing, his eventual success in an administrative appeal does not bar his claim under § 1983 for damages resulting from that confinement.

In a Decision and Order dated March 14, 1995 ("Decision"), the district court granted Coughlin's motion for summary judgment on the ground that Black had not come forward with any evidence of Coughlin's personal involvement. The court denied Black's motion to amend and add Ryan and Selsky, citing both statute-of-limitations and qualified-immunity grounds. As to the former, the court noted that the disciplinary sentence was administratively affirmed on May 29, 1990, that the original complaint was filed on June 10, 1993, and that the applicable statute of limitations is three years. Stating that a claim accrues under federal law when the plaintiff " 'knows or has reason to know' of the injury on which his action is based," Decision at 4 (quoting Morse v. University of Vermont, 973 F.2d 122, 125 (2d Cir.1992)), and that "with regard to accrual of discrimination claims ... 'the proper focus is on the time of the discriminatory act, not the point at which the consequences of the act become painful,' " Decision at 4 (quoting Chardon v. Fernandez, 454 U.S. 6, 8, 102 S.Ct. 28, 29, 70 L.Ed.2d 6 (1981) (per curiam) (emphasis in Chardon )), the district court held that Black's claim accrued "at the time of his hearing and at the review of that hearing," Decision at 4, "not at the time of the Article 78 reversal," id.

As an alternative basis for dismissal, the court stated that even if it were to grant leave to amend,

the added defendants, Selsky and Ryan, would be entitled to qualified immunity. See Cleavinger v. Saxner, 474 U.S. 193, 206, 106 S.Ct. 496, 503, 88 L.Ed.2d 507 (1985) (as to Ryan); Walker v. Bates, 23 F.3d 652, 656 (2d Cir.1994) (as to Ryan); Young v. Selsky, 41 F.3d 47, 54 (2d Cir.1994) (as to Selsky).

Decision at 4-5.

Judgment was entered dismissing the action, and this appeal followed. We affirm in part, and vacate and remand in part.

II. DISCUSSION

We see no error in the dismissal of the claim against Coughlin for lack of personal involvement, since a defendant in a § 1983 action may not be held liable for damages for constitutional violations merely because he held a high position of authority. See, e.g., Wright v. Smith, 21 F.3d 496, 501 (2d Cir.1994); Leonhard v. United States, 633 F.2d 599, 621 n. 30 (2d Cir.1980) (claim based on respondeat superior not cognizable under § 1983), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 908, 101 S.Ct. 1975, 68 L.Ed.2d 295 (1981). We have construed personal involvement for these purposes to mean direct participation, or failure to remedy the alleged wrong after learning of it, or creation of a policy or custom under which unconstitutional practices occurred, or gross negligence in managing subordinates. See Wright v. Smith, 21 F.3d at 501.

Black's reliance on Patterson v. Coughlin, 905 F.2d 564 (2d Cir.1990), for the proposition that Coughlin automatically has personal involvement in administrative appeals such as Black's is misplaced. In Patterson, there was a finding that Coughlin had in fact been We disagree, however, with the district court's denial of leave to amend to add Ryan and Selsky, who were personally involved in Black's disciplinary proceedings. Though the district court correctly noted that Black's claim is governed by a three-year statute of limitations, the court incorrectly ruled that the claim accrued on the date of Selsky's affirmance of the disciplinary ruling, rather than on the date of the state court's reversal of the disciplinary rulings. In Heck v. Humphrey, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383 (1994) ("Heck "), the Supreme Court ruled that a § 1983 claim which, if successful, would necessarily invalidate the plaintiff's conviction does not accrue until there has been some vindication of the asserted right, for example by way of reversal on direct appeal from the conviction or by the granting of relief on collateral attack. Analogizing to common-law actions for malicious prosecution, the Heck Court stated that "a § 1983 cause of action for damages attributable to an unconstitutional conviction or sentence does not accrue until the conviction or sentence has been invalidated." --- U.S....