Cameron v. Thornburgh

• Decision Date: 22 January 1993
• Docket Number: No. 91-5055,91-5055
• Citation: 983 F.2d 253
• Parties: James CAMERON, Appellant, v. Richard THORNBURGH, Attorney General, et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 253

983 F.2d 253

299 U.S.App.D.C. 228

James CAMERON, Appellant, v. Richard THORNBURGH, Attorney General, et al.

No. 91-5055.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Sept. 24, 1992.

Decided Jan. 22, 1993.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (89cv1404).

Wendy L. Trugman, with whom Brian Hufford was on the brief, for appellant.

Richard N. Reback, Asst. U.S. Atty., with whom Jay B. Stephens, U.S. Atty., John D. Bates and R. Craig Lawrence, Asst. U.S. Attys., were on the brief, for appellees.

Before: WALD, SILBERMAN, and RANDOLPH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge SILBERMAN.

SILBERMAN, Circuit Judge:

James Cameron appeals from the dismissal, on qualified immunity grounds, of his Bivens action against federal prison officials. While he was an inmate at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, Cameron filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia claiming that the warden at Terre Haute and other federal officials, including then Attorney General Richard Thornburgh, had violated his Eighth Amendment rights by failing to provide him the low-sodium diet that had been prescribed as treatment for his heart disease. Applying the test outlined in Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815-19, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2736-39, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the district court determined that a right under the Eighth Amendment to a medically prescribed diet was not clearly established and that the defendants therefore had qualified immunity from suit. We do not address the qualified immunity question because we dispose of the case on analytically antecedent grounds. We hold that venue was improper in the District of Columbia and that, as to appellees Thornburgh and Quinlan, Cameron did not state a claim. We affirm the dismissal in part and transfer the remainder of the case to the Southern District of Indiana.

I.

In 1988, James Cameron was an inmate at the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana (Terre Haute). In October of that year, Cameron, who had a history of heart disease, suffered a massive heart attack that required his hospitalization and permanently damaged his heart. On December 23, 1988, shortly after Cameron returned to Terre Haute from the hospital, the prison physician, Dr. Paul Rauwolf, sent a memorandum to a prison official requesting that Cameron be reassigned to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth "since his severe cardiac disease requires a low-salt diet and this is not available in this institution." ¹ Dr. Rauwolf, only five days later, sent another memorandum, again urging that Cameron be transferred because Terre Haute could not provide him a low-salt diet. Although the warden at Terre Haute did request a transfer, the Regional Director of the Bureau of Prisons denied the request and recommended instead that Cameron be given counseling on self-selecting a low-sodium diet. Cameron subsequently did receive such counseling from a dietician at Terre Haute.

On March 21, 1989, Dr. Rauwolf upped the ante by ordering that Cameron be put on a one gram low-sodium diet. Because that diet was not available at Terre Haute, the Health Service Unit sent a memorandum to Cameron's prison unit manager saying that Cameron would have to be transferred to receive the diet Dr. Rauwolf required.

After Cameron made several administrative requests for a transfer, he filed a pro se complaint on May 17, 1989 in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Cameron claimed that prison officials were violating his Eighth Amendment rights, as declared in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 103-06, 97 S.Ct. 285, 290-92, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), by refusing to provide him with a medically prescribed low-sodium diet. He named as defendants the new warden of Terre Haute, Thomas Kindt; the Director of the North Central Regional Office of the Bureau of Prisons, Larry Dubois; the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, J. Michael Quinlan; and the Attorney General of the United States, Richard Thornburgh. Construed liberally, Cameron's complaint included an action against the defendants in their official capacities for injunctive relief, a Bivens action against the defendants in their individual capacities for damages, see Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), and an action for damages against the appellees in their official capacities.

On June 10, 1989, officials at Terre Haute transferred appellant to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri. There he received a complete examination by several physicians, including a cardiologist. The physicians at Springfield determined that Cameron should be returned to Terre Haute, although there is some dispute concerning whether they actually determined that he would be able to self-select an appropriate diet there.

In August 1989 appellees moved to dismiss Cameron's complaint on the grounds that venue was improper in the District of Columbia, that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over all appellees except Attorney General Thornburgh, that appellant had failed to state a claim, and that appellees were entitled to qualified immunity. These motions were pending for over a year. In December 1990, without conceding that Cameron was unable to self-select an appropriate diet at Terre Haute, prison officials decided to transfer Cameron to the penitentiary at Leavenworth where a special three gram low-sodium diet could be provided. Appellant thereupon moved to stay the trial date and to stay any decision on the motion to dismiss to allow him to move for leave to amend his complaint to add new defendants.

The district court denied appellant's motions to stay and dismissed the complaint on January 9, 1991. The court dismissed as moot Cameron's claim for injunctive relief because the Bureau of Prisons had already determined to transfer Cameron to Leavenworth. Cameron v. Thornburgh, No. 89-1404, Mem.Op. at 3 (D.D.C. Jan. 9, 1991). To the extent that the pro se complaint stated claims for money damages against appellees in their official capacities, the court dismissed the claims for lack of jurisdiction because Cameron had not exhausted his remedies under the Federal Tort Claims Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1346(b), §§ 2671-2680 (1988). Deciding that Cameron had had ample time to amend his complaint in the 10 months since he had obtained counsel, the court denied Cameron's motion to stay to allow him to amend his complaint. Finally, the court concluded that appellees were entitled to qualified immunity and dismissed Cameron's claim against them in their individual capacities. Applying the analysis outlined in Harlow v Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815-19, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2736-39, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), the district judge determined that the right to a medically prescribed diet was not clearly established and thus that appellees were protected by qualified immunity.

Cameron asserts that the district court erred in determining that the appellees were protected by qualified immunity. The right of a prisoner under the Eighth Amendment to be provided a medically prescribed diet, he contends, was clearly established in 1989. Cameron also claims that the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion to stay to allow him to amend his complaint and add new defendants. Appellees, of course, defend the district court's conclusion, but they also renew their claims of improper venue and lack of personal jurisdiction and argue that the district court's decision to dismiss could and should be affirmed on those alternate grounds.

II.

Courts in this circuit must examine challenges to personal jurisdiction and venue carefully to guard against the danger that a plaintiff might manufacture venue in the District of Columbia. By naming high government officials as defendants, a plaintiff could bring a suit here that properly should be pursued elsewhere. As our recitation of the facts above should make clear, this was an unusual case to bring in the District of Columbia. As far as it appears from the appellant's original complaint and his brief on appeal, all acts and omissions related to his complaint occurred in Indiana or at the prison medical center in Springfield, Missouri. Similarly, the two appellees most directly connected to Cameron's case, Kindt and Dubois, were in Indiana and Kansas, respectively. Only the inclusion of appellees Quinlan and Thornburgh gives this case any connection to the District of Columbia at all.

Although the district court did address appellees' challenges to venue and personal jurisdiction before proceeding to the question of qualified immunity, we think the court erred in finding venue proper in the District of Columbia. Focusing on appellant's claim for an injunction, the court concluded that venue was proper under 28 U.S.C. § 1391(e) and that the court had personal jurisdiction under the nationwide service of process provision of the same section and "case law interpreting the statute to provide for personal jurisdiction over suits for injunctive relief against defendants in their official capacities." Mem. Op. at 3. See Briggs v. Goodwin, 569 F.2d 1, 7-10 (D.C.Cir.1977), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Stafford v. Briggs, 444 U.S. 527, 100 S.Ct. 774, 63 L.Ed.2d 1 (1980); see also Driver v. Helms, 577 F.2d 147, 155 (1st Cir.1978), rev'd on other grounds sub nom. Stafford v. Briggs, 444 U.S. 527, 100 S.Ct. 774, 63 L.Ed.2d 1 (1980). ² Under the Supreme Court's holding in Stafford v. Briggs, 444 U.S. 527, 100 S.Ct. 774, 63 L.Ed.2d 1 (1980), however, § 1391(e) applies only to suits against government officers in their official capacities, not to Bivens actions. See id. at 542-43, 100 S.Ct. at 783-84. The Stafford Court determined that in enacting the section, Congress intended primarily to allow...