Knox v. McGinnis

• Decision Date: 20 July 1993
• Docket Number: No. 91-3527,91-3527
• Citation: 998 F.2d 1405
• Parties: Paul KNOX, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth L. McGINNIS and Thomas Roth, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 1405

998 F.2d 1405

Paul KNOX, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth L. McGINNIS and Thomas Roth, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 91-3527.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Nov. 12, 1992.

Decided July 20, 1993.

Todd A. Smith, Corboy & Demetrio, David A. Novoselsky (argued), Novoselsky & Associates, Chicago, IL, for plaintiff-appellant.

Jan E. Hughes, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civ. Appeals Div., Chicago, IL (argued), for defendants-appellees.

Before MANION and ROVNER, Circuit Judges, and REYNOLDS, Senior District Judge. ^*

ILANA DIAMOND ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

In this prisoner civil rights action, Paul Knox alleges that officials at Stateville Correctional Center ("Stateville") subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth amendment when they restrained him with a mechanism comprised of a waist chain, handcuffs, and a "black box." Prison officials used this restraint on Knox and on all other segregation prisoners when they were transported outside the segregation unit. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants Kenneth L. McGinnis and Thomas Roth ¹ on a number of alternative grounds. See Knox v. McGinnis, 783 F.Supp. 349 (N.D.Ill.1991). We affirm.

I. FACTS

Knox is an inmate at Stateville. On February 21, 1990, prison officials discovered four homemade knives, two of which were approximately twenty inches long, two metal bar pieces, a metal file, and several pieces of sandpaper in Knox' cell in a hollowed-out section of a board that was used as a bookshelf. Although he alone had occupied the cell for the preceding four to five months, Knox maintained that the contraband did not belong to him. A disciplinary report issued against Knox, and he ultimately was found guilty of possessing dangerous contraband. Prison officials accordingly revoked one year of Knox' statutory "good time" and transferred him to the segregation unit.

As a "segregation" prisoner, Knox was required to wear handcuffs, a waist chain, and a black box whenever he left the segregation unit either to receive visitors or to visit the prison hospital or law library. ² The black box and waist chain were not used when Knox was in his cell, when he was taken to the shower, or during meals. The "black box" is a hard plastic box placed over the lock apparatus that runs between the prisoner's handcuffs. The box does not cover the hands, but is situated between them. ³ A chain runs through the box and encircles the prisoner's waist. The chain is tightened and then locked in back so that the prisoner's hands, restrained by handcuffs and the black box, are pulled against his stomach. The black box is used on all segregation prisoners to prevent them from picking the locks on their handcuffs.

Knox remained in segregation from March 1 to October 1, 1990, and was subject to use of the black box during that period. ⁴ He has since returned to the general prison population.

Knox maintains that the black box caused him severe discomfort and physical injury. The device required that his arms remain in close proximity to one another and to his chest, making it impossible for him to bring his arms or hands together. This posture caused the handcuffs to cut into Knox' wrists whenever he moved his arms. The device left indentations on Knox' wrists and sometimes caused bleeding. ⁵ Knox also experienced persistent pain in his hands and numbness in his thumb. He still occasionally has pain in his left hand that prevents him from making a fist. Although Knox took Tylenol for the pain, he did not seek any other medical treatment. He did request that prison or hospital officials loosen or remove the device once he arrived at the hospital or visiting room, but those requests were refused.

The district court concluded that defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on Knox' damages claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 because use of the black box on a segregation prisoner did not violate a clearly established right under the eighth amendment. Knox, 783 F.Supp. at 351-52. ⁶ The district court alternatively found that Knox' damages claims must fail because neither defendant had been personally involved in the allegedly wrongful conduct. Id. at 352. As for Knox' claim for injunctive relief, the district court questioned whether Knox had standing to assert such a claim because, having been released from segregation and returned to the general prison population, Knox no longer was subject to use of the black box. Id. at 352-53. In any event, even if Knox had standing, the district court found that he had failed to establish an eighth amendment violation. Id. at 353.

II. ANALYSIS

A. Lack of a Response to the Summary Judgment Motion.

Knox initially challenges the district court's refusal to accept his tardy response to defendants' summary judgment motion. Although his response was due by September 5, 1991, and although the district court ruled on September 30, 1991, Knox argues that the district court should have accepted his response to the summary judgment motion when it was filed on October 2, 1991. ⁷ Knox contends that his inability to respond enabled the district court to assume the truth of defendants' factual assertions and to disregard any factual disputes that he might have raised. See Rules 12(m), (n) of the General Rules of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois; see also Wienco, Inc. v. Katahn Assoc., Inc., 965 F.2d 565, 567 (7th Cir.1992); Appley v. West, 929 F.2d 1176, 1179-80 (7th Cir.1991); Skagen v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 910 F.2d 1498, 1500 (7th Cir.1990).

The district court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to accept the tardy response. See In re Narowetz Mechanical Contractors, Inc., 898 F.2d 1306, 1309-10 (7th Cir.1990). The district court already had issued its opinion when Knox' court-appointed counsel requested permission to file the response. Thus, this is not a situation where the district court refused to accept a submission that was a few days late. This response was almost one month late and was submitted only after the district court had issued its decision. In today's climate of crowded dockets and limited judicial resources, a district court is not required to accept and to consider a response that is submitted after the court has ruled on a motion. See United States v. Kasuboski, 834 F.2d 1345, 1351-52 (7th Cir.1987) (affirming refusal to consider response to motion for summary judgment where both request for extension of time and response itself were submitted after decision on summary judgment motion). Instead, we agree with the district court that Knox waived his right to file a response. ⁸

In any event, we find that consideration of Knox' tardy response would have little impact on our analysis. The district court explained that it did not pursue a response from Knox' counsel before ruling because it found "the legal situation so plain that the case can fairly be dealt with in its present posture." Knox, 783 F.Supp. at 350-51. We agree that Knox suffered no prejudice from his counsel's error, for in granting summary judgment, the district court reviewed the entire transcript of Knox' deposition and based its resolution of the motion on the facts to which Knox himself had testified. See id. at 351 n. 3. Having independently reviewed that transcript, we agree that even when viewed in its most favorable light, Knox' testimony does not create a factual issue that would preclude a grant of summary judgment.

B. Qualified Immunity.

We review a district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the record and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn therefrom in the light most favorable to Knox. Williams v. Anderson, 959 F.2d 1411, 1413 (7th Cir.1992). We must determine whether the record reveals the absence of a genuine issue of material fact such that defendants would be entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.; Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c).

Our analysis of the qualified immunity question begins with Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982), where the Supreme Court held that "government officials performing discretionary functions generally are shielded from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738; see also Williams, 959 F.2d at 1414. Qualified immunity focuses on the "objective legal reasonableness" of defendants' conduct. Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 639, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3038, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987); see also Marshall v. Allen, 984 F.2d 787, 792 (7th Cir.1993). As we have previously explained, "[a]ctions taken by local officials are considered objectively unreasonable only if the right allegedly violated is clearly established in a sufficiently particularized sense at the time of the actions at issue." Hall v. Ryan, 957 F.2d 402, 404 (7th Cir.1992); see also Marshall, 984 F.2d at 792; Azeez v. Fairman, 795 F.2d 1296, 1301 (7th Cir.1986). The qualified immunity defense therefore depends on the state of the law at the time of the alleged constitutional violation. Marshall, 984 F.2d at 792; Williams, 959 F.2d at 1414.

Our task, then, is to determine whether it was clearly established between March 1 and October 1, 1990, that use of the black box restraint on a segregation prisoner who was taken outside the segregation unit would violate the eighth amendment. The district court determined that it would not, noting that prior case law has "looked in the other direction," with the only circuit considering the question finding use of the black box consistent with the Constitution. See Knox, 783 F.Supp. at 351-52 (citing Fulford v. King, 692 F.2d 11 (5th Cir.1982)). ⁹ But Knox argues that immunity should not attach here because the prison officials did not limit themselves to the particular use of the black box condoned in Fulford--that...