Harrington v. Grayson

• Citation: 764 F. Supp. 464
• Decision Date: 30 April 1991
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 90-CV-70336-DT.
• Parties: Willie Gene HARRINGTON, Plaintiff, v. Henry N. GRAYSON, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

764 F. Supp. 464

Willie Gene HARRINGTON, Plaintiff, v. Henry N. GRAYSON, et al., Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 90-CV-70336-DT.

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, S.D.

April 30, 1991.

Willie Gene Harrington, in pro. per.

Frank Kelley, Atty. Gen., and Deborah K. Isom, Asst. Atty. Gen., Corrections Div., Lansing, Mich., for defendants.

ORDER

JULIAN ABELE COOK, Jr., Chief Judge.

The instant matter arises from the alleged inadequate medical treatment that the Plaintiff, Willie Gene Harrington, received at certain state correctional facilities within the State of Michigan. On November 15, 1989, Harrington was treated for a recurring problem with the large toe on his right foot by the medical staff at the Health Care Unit of the Charles Egeler Correctional Facility (Egeler Facility). Nearly two weeks later (November 27, 1989), Harrington, despite having a scheduled appointment, was refused admission to the Duane Waters Hospital (Hospital) because he was not wearing state issued shoes. It appears that sometime during the morning of November 27th, co-Defendant, Henry N. Grayson, Warden of the Egeler Facility, had instructed his staff members to prohibit prisoners from wearing their personal shoes into the hospital.¹

In January 1990, Harrington was treated by Dr. John Voulgaris at the Hospital who prescribed "softer" shoes as one method of easing his pain. Thereafter, Harrington's family and Voulgaris each sought to obtain "softer" shoes for him.² Although the shoes that had been ordered by his family arrived at the Egeler Facility in early 1990, Harrington did not receive them. In August 1990, after being transferred to the Lakeland Correctional Facility, Harrington was finally given the shoes that had been sent to him by his family.

On February 7, 1990, Harrington initiated this lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, in which he asserted that Grayson's conduct had violated his rights under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Thereafter, Grayson filed a motion for summary judgment, contending that he is entitled to absolute immunity under the Eleventh Amendment because he had acted in his official capacity during all of the times relevant to these proceedings.³

On February 22, 1991, Magistrate Judge Steven Pepe issued a Report and Recommendation in which he concluded that the Eleventh Amendment only protected Grayson in his official capacity and recommended that his motion for summary judgment be denied. Subsequently, Grayson submitted timely objections. For the reasons that have been set forth below, this Court will accept the recommendation of Magistrate Judge Pepe and adopt his Report by reference.

I.

42 U.S.C. § 1983 reads, in pertinent part, Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured....

Originally passed in 1871 as part of the Ku Klux Klan Act, § 1983 did not garner much legal attention until the decision by the Supreme Court in Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 81 S.Ct. 473, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1960). Since that time, this statute has become one of the primary sources of relief for those individuals who seek redress for violations of their constitutional rights. See, e.g., M. Schwartz and J. Kirklin, Section 1983 Litigation: Claims, Defenses, and Fees, (1986).⁴

In the thirty years that have elapsed since Monroe, the Supreme Court has had many opportunities to delineate the framework of the § 1983 cause of action. See, e.g., Monell v. New York City Dep't of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978); Rendell-Baker v. Kohn, 457 U.S. 830, 102 S.Ct. 2764, 73 L.Ed.2d 418 (1982); Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984); Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986). Recently, in Will v. Michigan Dep't of State Police, 491 U.S. 58, 109 S.Ct. 2304, 105 L.Ed.2d 45 (1989), the Supreme Court determined yet another contour of the § 1983 action. In Will, the Court concluded that, for the purposes of § 1983, "neither a State nor its officials acting in their official capacities are "persons"...." 491 U.S. at 71, 109 S.Ct. at 2312.

Since Will, two decisions by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals have cast doubt upon the ability of a plaintiff to sue a state actor in his individual or personal capacity under § 1983. First, in Rice v. Ohio Dep't of Transp., 887 F.2d 716 (6th Cir.1989) and then in Cowan v. University of Louisville School of Medicine, 900 F.2d 936 (6th Cir. 1990), Will has been cited as support for the proposition that damage suits, in which the aggrieved party seeks redress from a state actor in his individual capacity, are unavailable under § 1983. In the instant matter, it is this interpretation that Grayson encourages this Court to accept.

II.

In his Report and Recommendation, Magistrate Judge Pepe undergoes an extensive evaluation of (1) Eleventh Amendment caselaw, (2) the decisions in Will, Rice, and Cowan, and (3) current interpretations of § 1983. Based upon this analysis, he concluded:

The Defendant's position in the present case is that state officials, even when sued in their "individual capacity," are still immune from suits as long as they were acting in their official capacity when the alleged constitutional tort was committed. Such a position is clearly contrary to Scheuer v. Rhodes and other case authority.... I firmly believe that the Supreme Court in Will did not overrule Scheuer v. Rhodes, nor would the Sixth Circuit presume to do so.

In his objections, Grayson asserts that the Eleventh Amendment and the concept of sovereign immunity does apply to the situation before this Court. He further contends that the manner in which the Will decision was utilized by the Rice and Cowan courts has not been rejected by other jurisdictions. Moreover, Grayson argues that in the case relied upon by the Magistrate Judge, the Eleventh Amendment was not raised as a defense on the behalf of individuals. Lastly, he submits that the analysis in Scheuer v. Rhodes, 416 U.S. 232, 94 S.Ct. 1683, 40 L.Ed.2d 90 (1974), is applicable only when allegations have been made that an individual has acted outside the scope of his official authority.

III.

The Court does not believe that any controversy exists over the purposes and applicability of the Eleventh Amendment and sovereign immunity. Hence, it will not address Grayson's assertions regarding this issue.

In Rice, after citing Will and concluding that the individual defendants were not persons under § 1983 in their official capacity, the Court of Appeals noted that the complaint alleged that state officials had committed the claimed transgressions in their individual and official capacities. At this point, the Court opined that "the capacity in which the individual defendants were in fact acting is what matters, not the capacity in which they were sued". 887 F.2d at 719. It is this language which Grayson advances as the Sixth Circuit interpretation of Will. However, for several reasons, the Court is not persuaded that the passage in Rice and subsequently cited within the Cowan case has the clear precedential value that Grayson advocates.⁵

First, in each case, the passage at issue appears superfluous to the actual reasoning and analysis of the respective decisions. In Rice, despite the statement, the Court gave its reasons of why recovery was unavailable. In Cowan, after the Court had completed its evaluation of the parties' arguments, the language from Rice is placed at the end of the opinion.

Second, in his objections, Grayson seeks to establish that the cases, which were relied upon by the Magistrate Judge, are distinguishable because none of the defendants raised an Eleventh Amendment immunity defense exclusively. However, there is no indication that any of the defendants in Rice or Cowan solely asserted Eleventh Amendment immunity as the basis of their defense, as Grayson does in this matter. In Rice, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the individual defendants. While the basis of its decision is unclear, it is inconceivable that use of the Eleventh Amendment to bar personal liability would not have (1) been a primary appellate issue, or (2) generated some mention in the opinion.

Similarly, in Cowan, the State raised the defenses of sovereign and qualified immunity. In its decision, the district court used sovereign immunity as the basis for barring suit against the University of Louisville and qualified immunity to protect the individual defendants from liability under § 1983. Thus, the precise issue raised here was not before the panels in Rice and Cowan.

Third, no other circuit has advanced this interpretation of Will. In cases in which the plaintiff has attempted to sue state actors in both their official and individual capacities, and the State has raised both sovereign immunity and qualified immunity defenses, the Court has been unable to locate another jurisdiction in which a district or a circuit court has attempted to interpret Will as barring individual capacity suits. See, Oliver Schools, Inc. v. Cornelius J. Foley, et al., 930 F.2d 248 (2nd Cir.1991) (order of dismissal against individual defendants vacated to allow plaintiff opportunity to amend complaint to assert claims against defendants in their personal capacities); Molinelli v. Tucker, 901 F.2d 13 (2nd Cir.1990) (district court's rejection of Eleventh Amendment immunity defense with respect to individual capacity claims was not reviewed by appellate court.); Melo v. Hafer, 912 F.2d 628 (3rd Cir.1990) (Will and prior Eleventh Amendment case law utilized to determine that claims against state actors sued in their personal capacities are not barred by Eleventh Amendment...