Jermosen v. Smith
| Decision Date | 01 October 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 1631,D,1631 |
| Citation | 945 F.2d 547 |
| Parties | Donald R. JERMOSEN, Plaintiff-Appellee-Cross-Appellant, v. Harold J. SMITH, Superintendent of A.C.F.; Thomas A. Coughlin, III, Commissioner of C.F. of N.Y.; Charles James, D.S.S. of Attica Correctional Facility; D. DiBello, Correction Officer of Attica C.F.; G.D. Schrier, Correction Officer of A.C.F.; P. Stringhan, Sgt. of Attica Correctional Facility; Aelred Lippold, Lt. Adjustment Committee Chairman of A.C.F.; J. Bank, Correction Officer of A.C.F.; P.L. Pawlowski, Correction Officer, Defendants, Aelred Lippold, Lt. Adjustment Committee Chairman of A.C.F., Defendant-Appellant-Cross-Appellee, Harold J. Smith, Superintendent of A.C.F., Thomas A. Coughlin, III, Commissioner of A.C.F. of New York, Charles James, D.S.S. of Attica Correctional Facility, Defendants-Cross-Appellees. ockets 91-2064, 91-2072. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Frank K. Walsh, Asst. Atty. Gen. of the State of N.Y. , for defendant-appellant-cross-appellee.
Eric M. Shelton, Buffalo, N.Y., for plaintiff-appellee-cross-appellant.
Before OAKES, Chief Judge, and PRATT and ALTIMARI, Circuit Judges.
Defendant - appellant - cross - appellee Aelred Lippold appeals and plaintiff-appellee-cross-appellant Donald R. Jermosen cross-appeals from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (John T. Elfvin, Judge ), granting Jermosen's motion for judgment non obstante veredicto ("j.n.o.v.") in part, and denying it in part, following a jury trial. In 1982, Jermosen, an inmate at the Attica Correctional Facility ("Attica"), was subjected to one week of keeplock, i.e., confinement to his cell, following a disciplinary hearing at which the presiding body, the Attica Adjustment Committee, concluded that Jermosen had engaged in misconduct. Subsequently, Jermosen initiated an action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against nine prison officials, including Lippold and defendants-cross-appellees Harold J. Smith, Thomas A. Coughlin, III and Charles James, who Jermosen claimed had subjected him to seven days of keeplock without affording him the procedural protections guaranteed by the due process clause.
The district court rejected the defendants' claims of qualified immunity and subsequently submitted to a jury the issue of defendants' liability for the alleged deprivation of Jermosen's rights. The jury found that Smith, Coughlin and James were not liable, but concluded that Lippold had violated Jermosen's rights. However, upon determining that Jermosen had not suffered any injury, the jury declined to award Jermosen any damages. Jermosen then made a motion for j.n.o.v. which the district court denied in part and granted in part. The court upheld the jury's verdict with regard to liability, but concluded that Jermosen was entitled to nominal damages. The court subsequently awarded Jermosen attorney's fees.
On appeal, Lippold contends that the district court erred by concluding that he and the other defendants were not entitled to assert qualified immunity from suit. Lippold argues that at the time of Jermosen's hearing it was not clearly established that prison officials were required to afford an inmate various procedural safeguards before subjecting that inmate to the penalty of one week of keeplock.
For the reasons set forth below, we reverse the judgment of the district court.
On February 19, 1982, plaintiff-appellee Donald R. Jermosen, who was then an inmate Believing that Jermosen's conduct violated various prison rules, Officer DiBello filed with the Attica superintendent a misbehavior report detailing Jermosen's offenses. Subsequently, the deputy superintendent forwarded the report to the Attica Adjustment Committee for consideration of the misbehavior charges. At that time, when such charges were levied against an inmate, it was prison policy for the Adjustment Committee, over which defendant-appellant Aelred Lippold presided, to conduct hearings at which the inmate would appear and relate his version of the events at issue. Upon reviewing the charges and the evidence, the Adjustment Committee would then decide whether the conduct constituted a violation of the prison rules and, if so, would impose a sanction. In February 1982, when the incident in question occurred, the Adjustment Committee was permitted to sanction misbehavior by, inter alia, keeplocking an inmate for up to seven days.
at Attica, was involved in an "incident" in the prison mess hall and, as a result, was cited for a violation of the prison rules. More specifically, during breakfast, Jermosen disobeyed a prison guard's order not to return to the "chowline" for a second cup of milk. Once the guard, Officer DiBello, precluded Jermosen from obtaining the second cup, Jermosen began creating a disturbance among the other inmates by uttering vulgarities to the guard. Immediately after the incident, Jermosen was returned to his cell where he was keeplocked
Three days after the incident occurred, Jermosen was brought before the Adjustment Committee. According to the facts adduced at trial, Jermosen told the Committee his version of the events and then was asked to step outside. The Committee then deliberated and determined that Jermosen did actually engage in the misbehavior of which Officer DiBello complained. After reviewing Jermosen's institutional record, the Committee informed Jermosen that he was to be keeplocked for a total of seven days and that his privileges were to be denied for an additional seven days. The Committee failed to give Jermosen a written statement of the evidence upon which it relied in making its decision.
Subsequently, Jermosen, acting pro se, commenced the underlying action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that nine prison officials, including Lippold, had violated his right to due process of law. Specifically, Jermosen claimed that the defendant officials had failed to provide him with written notice of the charges against him, as well as an opportunity to call witnesses at the Adjustment Committee hearing and a written report of the findings and evidence relied on by the Committee. Accordingly, he claimed that the defendants did not afford him the procedural protections to which he was entitled under Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539, 94 S.Ct. 2963, 41 L.Ed.2d 935 (1974), and its progeny.
In response, the defendant prison officials asserted qualified immunity from suit and moved for summary judgment. The district court denied defendants' motion upon concluding that it was clearly established at the time the Adjustment Committee conducted its hearing that officials could not impose a seven-day keeplock penalty on an inmate without affording him the procedural protections enumerated in Wolff. Subsequently, the defendants renewed their summary judgment motion, which the district court once again rejected.
On December 5, 1988, the district court appointed counsel for Jermosen. Thereafter, Jermosen voluntarily discontinued his claims against two of the defendant officers, Schrier and Stringhan. Furthermore, because defendant Bank was never properly served, Jermosen did not proceed against him at trial.
A two-day jury trial before Judge Elfvin was held on March 7 and March 8, 1990. At the conclusion of the plaintiff's case, the court dismissed the complaint against defendant Officers DiBello and Pawlowski. Consequently, four defendants--Lippold, Coughlin, Smith and James--remained in the case. The jury's findings, in the form of detailed interrogatories, exonerated all of these defendants except Lippold. With respect to Lippold, the jury concluded that, Jermosen moved for j.n.o.v. against the three defendants who had been cleared of liability. Additionally, he sought an award of nominal damages against Lippold. The district court granted Jermosen's motion with respect to Lippold and awarded Jermosen nominal damages of $1. With regard to the other three defendants, the court noted that the jury had specifically concluded that James and Smith were not personally involved in keeplocking Jermosen and that Coughlin was not involved in promulgating the rules that caused Jermosen's "injury." Determining that the jury's findings were supported by the evidence, the court denied Jermosen's motion with respect to Coughlin, Smith and James, and entered judgment in their favor. Additionally, the court granted Jermosen's motion for attorney's fees pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988 (1988).
although he violated Jermosen's rights by failing to afford him the protections required by Wolff, i.e., providing him with a written report of the Adjustment Committee's findings, Lippold's actions did not cause Jermosen any compensable injury. Accordingly, the jury declined to award damages.
Both Lippold and Jermosen now appeal from this judgment.
The central issue on appeal is whether the district court erred in concluding that the defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity. "A government official performing a discretionary function is entitled to qualified immunity provided his or her 'conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.' " Natale v. Town of Ridgefield, 927 F.2d 101, 104 (2d Cir.1991) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)). Lippold contends that at the time of Jermosen's disciplinary hearing, it had not been clearly established that the procedural protections enunciated in Wolff applied to Adjustment Committee proceedings in which keeplock could be imposed for a maximum of seven days. Accordingly, Lippold argues that he and the other officers involved did not violate...
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