Danley v. Allen

Decision Date22 August 2008
Docket NumberNo. 07-12328.,07-12328.
Citation540 F.3d 1298
PartiesKevin DANLEY, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ruby ALLEN, Defendant, Jackie Rikard, Ronnie Willis, Ruby Allyn, Jeff Wood, Steve Woods, Defendants-Appellants.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Daryl L. Masters, Bart Gregory Harmon, Charles Richard Hill, Jr., Webb & Eley, PC, Montgomery, AL, for Defendants-Appellants.

Henry F. Sherrod, III, Henry F. Sherrod, III, PC, Florence, AL, for Danley.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.

Before BLACK and CARNES, Circuit Judges, and RESTANI,* Judge.

CARNES, Circuit Judge:

Kevin Danley was arrested for driving under the influence and was taken to jail. While there he had a disagreement with some of the jailers after he was made to use a dirty toilet without any toilet paper. Because Danley failed to obey one of the jailer's orders during the disagreement, another jailer pepper sprayed him. Although pepper spray is an accepted non-lethal means of controlling unruly inmates, Danley contends that the jailers used too much on him, that he was not allowed to wash it off after he calmed down, and that he was denied adequate medical care following the incident. He says he suffered, and he has sued.

Kevin Danley, who had been locked up in the Lauderdale County Detention Center, filed his lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that he was subjected to excessive force and deliberate indifference, both in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. He named as defendants Ruby Allyn, Jeff Wood, and Steve Woods, who are jailers; Jackie Rikard, the jail administrator; and Ronnie Willis, the sheriff. The central allegations in Danley's complaint are that after he was pepper sprayed at the jail, he was locked in a poorly ventilated cell, prevented from washing off the pepper spray, and denied medical care that he needed as a result of the spraying.

After the district court denied the defendants' motions to dismiss the complaint on qualified immunity grounds, they appealed. We vacated and remanded for further consideration and findings. Danley v. Allen, 480 F.3d 1090, 1092 (11th Cir.2007). The district court made more findings about the evidence, denied the motions to dismiss again, and the defendants have appealed again.

I.

For now, we take the facts alleged in the complaint as true and construe them in the light most favorable to Danley. Pielage v. McConnell, 516 F.3d 1282, 1284 (11th Cir. 2008). In that light the facts are that on July 11, 2004 Danley was arrested for driving under the influence and taken to the Lauderdale County, Alabama Detention Center. Once there he was put in a group cell that had no toilet. After asking the jailers several times to use a toilet, Danley was eventually taken "to a small cell (~5 × 7) that had a toilet in the corner and no water." He complained that the toilet was unsanitary and there was no toilet paper, and he told Allyn he needed some in order to "clean the `nasty' toilet so he could sit down." She refused his request.

After Danley finished using the toilet, jailers Allyn, Wood, and Woods began to take him from the small cell back to the larger group cell. Danley was still upset about the lack of toilet paper and asked them "if he could please have some `fucking' or `damn' toilet paper to wipe himself." Allyn told Danley to watch his language, to shut up, and to get back into the small cell. Danley replied that he was done using the toilet, and Allyn told him that if he did not get back in the small cell "she was going to spray him." Danley then asked Allyn why she was "fucking" with him and what "spray me" meant. Instead of answering the second part of Danley's question, Allyn decided to show him what she meant. She told Wood to pepper spray Danley, and Wood sprayed him "at close range" for three to five seconds.

Wood and Woods then pushed Danley back into the small cell and closed the door. Because Danley had been in the doorway of the cell when he was sprayed, the spray remained not only on him and his clothes but also in the air of the small, poorly ventilated cell. Danley began having trouble breathing, started to hyperventilate, screamed and cried to the three jailers that he could not breathe, and begged to be let out. The effects were so severe that he "feared he was going to die." In response to his pleas for help, the jailers laughed at Danley and made fun of him; among other things, Wood and Woods held their hands to their necks in a "mock-choking" gesture. They also told Danley that "if he did not shut up he would not be let out."

After ten minutes, Danley quieted down. Still, the three jailers left him in "the small, poorly ventilated cell for approximately 20 minutes," doing nothing to help him while he was suffering. Finally, they took him out of the cell and to a shower, where he was allowed to rinse off. His shower, however, was less than two minutes long, which "did not permit him adequate time for effective decontamination." The jailers then returned Danley to the group cell, which like its smaller counterpart was also insufficiently ventilated. Because he had not been permitted to adequately decontaminate himself, pepper spray still clung to Danley and his clothes. Within thirty minutes of being placed in the group cell, Danley's cellmates began complaining that their eyes were burning because of the residue left on him.

Danley also continued to suffer the effects of the pepper spray once he was back in the group cell. He had difficulty breathing, which he complained about to the jailers for the remainder of his time in the jail. His eyes continued to burn and swelled so badly he could hardly see. Danley's symptoms got so bad that in an attempt to relieve his suffering he laid down on the floor to breathe through the crack under the cell door. Although he repeatedly requested medical treatment, the jailers refused to let him see the jail nurse. At one point Danley "almost blacked out because of the breathing difficulties he had been having for the prior twelve-plus hours." According to the allegations in Danley's complaint, the three jailers "intentionally did not comply with jail policy and procedure and manufacturer instructions regarding ventilation and decontamination in order to inflict unnecessary and wanton pain and suffering on" him.

It was not until after another inmate intervened on Danley's behalf that he was taken to another cell that was better ventilated, but he was still not given any medical treatment. Finally, after a total of twelve to thirteen hours of suffering, Danley was released from the jail. He went to his doctor, who treated him for chemical conjunctivitis in his eyes and irritant-induced bronchospasms in his lungs and prescribed him "appropriate medication." Danley's injuries caused him to miss a day of work.

Danley complained about what had happened to him to Rikard, the jail administrator, and to Sheriff Willis. After "reviewing the circumstances" they "ratified and approved" what the three jailers had done to him. According to Danley, before this incident Rikard and Willis knew through "force reports and similar documents, inmate complaints, jailer complaints, attorney complaints, judicial officer complaints, and personal observation" that their jailers regularly punished inmates by denying them adequate ventilation, decontamination, and medical care after they were pepper sprayed. There was a "de facto jail policy" permitting that. And jailers who "engag[ed] in this pattern of abuse," including Allyn, Wood, and Woods, "were not disciplined for their actions or provided with additional training."

After his complaints were ignored by the jail administrator and sheriff, Danley filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 lawsuit. His complaint alleges against Allyn, Wood, and Woods claims of excessive force and deliberate indifference in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. It also seeks to have Rikard and Willis held liable in their individual capacities for those violations under a theory of supervisory liability.

The defendants responded with Rule 12(b)(6) motions to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds, which the district court denied without any explanation. On the defendants' appeal, we vacated the district court's orders denying the motions to dismiss and remanded with instructions for the court "to consider the case in full and to enter reasoned orders which discuss the facts alleged in the ... complaint and detail the legal analysis used by the district court to reach its conclusions regarding the motions to dismiss." Danley, 480 F.3d at 1092.

On remand, the district court again denied the defendants' motions to dismiss Danley's complaint. In its memorandum opinion, the court explained that the decision in Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 112 S.Ct. 995, 117 L.Ed.2d 156 (1992), had "provided more than `fair warning' to all of these defendants that to employ pepper spray as punishment, or for the sadistic pleasure of the sprayers, as distinguished from what is reasonably necessary to maintain prisoner control, is constitutionally prohibited." With respect to Rikard and Willis, the district court stated that "Danley has done a creditable job of alleging facts and circumstances to show that [they] created an atmosphere or practice under which the three hands-on employees operated in, and that can create supervisory liability." The defendants have appealed again.

II.

As to Danley's excessive force claim, jailers Allyn, Wood, and Woods contend that the district court erred by denying their motion to dismiss on qualified immunity grounds. Qualified immunity shields public officials in their individual capacities from some lawsuits against them arising from torts committed while they are performing a discretionary duty. Goebert v. Lee County, 510 F.3d 1312, 1329 (11th Cir.2007). No one disputes that Allyn, Wood, and Woods' interactions with Danley occurred while they were engaged in...

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