Hardin v. Straub

• Decision Date: 27 January 1992
• Docket Number: No. 91-1220,91-1220
• Citation: 954 F.2d 1193
• Parties: Tyrone v. HARDIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dennis STRAUB, Defendant-Appellant, Dwayne Sholes and John Doe, # 1-# 11 individually and in their official capacities, jointly and severally, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 1193

954 F.2d 1193

Tyrone v. HARDIN, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dennis STRAUB, Defendant-Appellant Dwayne Sholes and John Doe, # 1-# 11 individually and in their official capacities, jointly and severally Defendants.

No. 91-1220.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued Sept. 17, 1991.

Decided January 27, 1992.

Julie Kunce Field (argued and briefed), Michigan Clinical Law Program, Ann Arbor, Mich., for plaintiff-appellee.

Deborah K. Isom, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued and briefed), Office of the Atty. Gen., Corrections Div., Lansing, Mich., for defendant-appellant Dennis Straub.

Before RYAN, Circuit Judge, WELLFORD, Senior Circuit Judge, and HIGGINS, District Judge. ^*

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Dennis Straub appeals from the district court's order denying, in part, Straub's motion for summary judgment in plaintiff Tyrone V. Hardin's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against Straub. Hardin's suit alleges that Straub, a Michigan state prison official, deprived Hardin, an inmate, of his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court denied summary judgment on the ground that the Eleventh Amendment does not bar a suit by a plaintiff against a state official being sued in his individual capacity for allegedly violating plaintiff's civil rights. Straub presents two issues on appeal:

1. Does the Eleventh Amendment bar a claim against a state official in his individual capacity for violating the due process rights of the plaintiff while exercising responsibility pursuant to official position; and

2. Did the district court have jurisdiction in this case to permit the plaintiff to amend his complaint?

We conclude that the district court correctly held that the Eleventh Amendment does not provide Straub a defense to Hardin's suit. We also hold that the district court properly permitted Hardin to amend his complaint.

I.

A.

On October 24, 1980, Hardin, a parole violator, was transferred from the Kent County Jail to the Michigan Department of Corrections Reception and Guidance Center (R & GC) on the grounds of the State Prison of Southern Michigan (SPSM) in Jackson, Michigan. Upon arriving at R & GC, he was assigned "000" segregation or "toplock" status for the duration of his evaluation period. After three weeks of evaluation, he was interviewed by the Classification Committee, and it classified him to administrative segregation at SPSM, known in SPSM as 5-Block. At this time, Straub was both the Deputy Superintendent and the Classification Director of R & GC, and served on the three-person Classification Committee which assigned plaintiff Hardin to 5-Block.

With the exception of several weeks spent in the Kent County Jail from March through May 1981, Hardin remained in 5-Block, from mid-November 1980 until he was transferred from Jackson to the Marquette Branch Prison on July 15, 1981. Consequently, he was in administrative segregation at Jackson for approximately 180 days.

No hearing was conducted prior to Hardin's initial placement in toplock at R & GC or prior to his classification to 5-Block at SPSM, and no periodic review was conducted of his status during his confinement at SPSM. Hardin complains that this treatment violated the Michigan Administrative Code, which requires that an inmate be afforded an opportunity for a hearing before administrative segregation is imposed and provides for a monthly review of the security status of an inmate in administrative segregation. See Mich.Admin.Code R. 791.4405 (1979). Hardin alleges that this violation of the Administrative Code constituted a deprivation of his due process rights.

B.

Hardin filed his original complaint in 1986. Although initially dismissed on statute of limitations grounds, the United States Supreme Court reversed and ordered that the suit be reinstated. Hardin v. Straub, 490 U.S. 536, 109 S.Ct. 1998, 104 L.Ed.2d 582 (1989). Hardin filed his first amended complaint in 1989, suing Straub in his individual capacity for damages, and in his individual and official capacities for injunctive relief. The complaint alleges that Hardin's confinement in administrative segregation violated his rights under the Eighth Amendment and under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and that Straub is liable for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint alleges that Straub acted maliciously toward Hardin in both the initial assignment to toplock upon Hardin's arrival to R & GC and in the subsequent assignment to 5-Block at SPSM. The complaint requests injunctive relief to prevent Hardin's return to administrative segregation without a hearing and requests damages to compensate for his confinement in administrative segregation.

Straub responded by moving for summary judgment and for a protective order staying discovery pending disposition of the summary judgment motion. The motion for summary judgment presented four contentions: 1) Hardin failed to show any direct personal involvement by Straub; 2) Hardin's claims are barred by the Eleventh Amendment; 3) Hardin's claim for injunctive relief is moot; 4) Hardin's claim of a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment fails to state a claim upon which relief may be granted. After referring the motions to a magistrate judge for a report and recommendation and taking the magistrate judge's recommendation into consideration, the district court issued its order in January 1991.

The district court rejected in part and accepted in part the first contention of Straub's summary judgment motion, in which Straub argued that he had no personal involvement in the complained of actions. The court held that Straub was not involved in Hardin's initial placement in toplock upon arrival at R & GC. However, the court reached a different conclusion regarding Straub's involvement in Hardin's subsequent classification to 5-Block, deciding that there was a genuine issue of material fact concerning Straub's personal involvement in Hardin's classification.

The district court rejected Hardin's second contention, the Eleventh Amendment immunity argument. The court held that the Eleventh Amendment does not protect Straub, who is being sued in his individual capacity for allegedly violating Hardin's civil rights, because "the complaint presents a claim of deprivation caused by unauthorized acts by defendant as an official's abuse of position, not a deprivation caused by established state procedure."

The district court granted summary judgment for Straub on the other two contentions of his summary judgment motion, the injunctive relief claim and the Eighth Amendment claim. The district court also terminated the protective order staying discovery.

Straub appealed and also moved for a protective order limiting discovery pending his appeal of the denial of summary judgment on the Eleventh Amendment issue. The district court denied the motion, and on March 28, 1991, Straub filed a motion with this court seeking a protective order to stay discovery. By order of May 13, 1991, this court declined to enter the stay.

Following the denial of summary judgment in January 1991, Hardin filed his second amended complaint, adding Dwayne Sholes, Assistant Deputy Warden of SPSM in 1980, and eleven John Doe defendants to his claim.

II.

A.

The only claim surviving the district court's order is Hardin's claim for damages against Straub in Straub's individual capacity. The district court denied summary judgment on this claim for two separate reasons: 1) Straub failed to show lack of personal involvement; and 2) the Eleventh Amendment does not bar the claim.

Straub does not specifically argue, in his submissions before this court, that the district court abused its discretion in rejecting his first argument for summary judgment, that Hardin failed to show sufficient personal involvement on the part of Straub. Nevertheless, we will review the district court's ruling on this point to clarify the factual context of this issue before this court. Generally, we review a district court's factual conclusions in denying a summary judgment motion under the abuse of discretion standard. Pinney Dock & Transp. Co. v. Penn Cent. Corp., 838 F.2d 1445, 1472 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 880, 109 S.Ct. 196, 102 L.Ed.2d 166 (1988).

In his complaint, Hardin alleges that Straub took three distinct actions which denied Hardin his Fourteenth Amendment rights. The first action was the initial assignment of Hardin to toplock upon his arrival at R & GC. The district court granted summary judgment to Straub as to this first action, on the ground that Straub was not personally involved. The district court held: "There is no evidence that defendant was personally involved in this initial placement.... Defendant's assertion that he had no involvement in plaintiff's initial placement is undisputed." Hardin has not appealed this portion of the district court's order. In addition, the record supports the district court's decision. The written procedure of R & GC then in effect, OP-R & GC-30.02, established that residents who experienced difficulties in county jails should be given immediate attention upon arrival to R & GC and may then be segregated. The regulations further established that this determination is the responsibility of either a receiving unit sergeant or a staff member, not the classification director. In his affidavit, Straub specifically noted that he "was not involved in any way in the placement of Hardin in a '000' top-lock cell." We agree with the district court, and hold that Hardin has no claim against Straub based on his initial placement into toplock.

The second action that Hardin alleges Straub took was the classification to 5-Block at SPSM, and the third action was the failure to periodically review Hardin's status. The district court grouped these two actions together when it made its finding. The court noted:

A difficult issue presented is whether defendant's...