Kulkay v. Roy

• Decision Date: 02 February 2017
• Docket Number: No. 16-1801,16-1801
• Parties: Steven KULKAY, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Tom ROY, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections; the Minnesota Department of Corrections; the State of Minnesota; Jeremy Schwartz, in his official and individual capacities; Alice Remillard, in her official and individual capacities; John Doe, in his official and individual capacities; Richard Doe, in his official and individual capacities, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

847 F.3d 637

Steven KULKAY, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.Tom ROY, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Corrections; the Minnesota Department of Corrections; the State of Minnesota; Jeremy Schwartz, in his official and individual capacities; Alice Remillard, in her official and individual capacities; John Doe, in his official and individual capacities; Richard Doe, in his official and individual capacities, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 16-1801

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: November 17, 2016

Filed: February 2, 2017

Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellant was Michael Kemp, of Saint Paul, MN. The following attorney(s) appeared on the appellant brief; John Mark Catron, of Saint Paul, MN., Nathaniel Arthur Dahl, of Saint Paul, MN.

Counsel who presented argument on behalf of the appellee was Eric Brown, AAG, of Saint Paul, MN.

Before BENTON and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges, and EBINGER,¹ District Judge.

EBINGER, District Judge.

Former inmate Steven Kulkay injured himself while using industrial equipment in the workshop of a Minnesota correctional facility. Kulkay sued the Minnesota Department of Corrections and related parties alleging violations of his civil rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as negligence of prison employees. The district court² dismissed all of Kulkay's claims. On appeal, Kulkay argues the district court erred in dismissing his Eighth Amendment claims against the individual defendants. We affirm.

I.

We accept as true the material allegations in the complaint and present the facts in the light most favorable to Kulkay. See Hager v. Ark. Dep't of Health , 735 F.3d 1009, 1013 (8th Cir. 2013).

In 2013, Kulkay was incarcerated at the Faribault, Minnesota, correctional facility. Officials assigned him to work in the prison's industrial workshop. After one- and-a-half months in the workshop, Kulkay was directed to operate the beam saw. The beam saw is a large, stationary machine that uses computers to automatically move and cut wood beams. After a worker loads a beam onto the saw's work table, sensors detect the beam's size and location. The machine moves the beam into position and circular blades extend to make the desired cuts. The operator is not required to manually start or stop the blade. The beam saw in the Faribault workshop was designed to utilize plastic safety guards to protect the operator from the blades. Kulkay alleges Faribault officials never installed the safety guards while he was an inmate and the parts sat unused in the workshop.

By August 2013, Kulkay had worked in the workshop for two-and-a-half months and with the beam saw for one month. He received instruction on how to operate the saw from an inmate with experience on the saw; he did not receive any formal safety training from officials. Kulkay had never used or seen a beam saw before his assignment to the workshop. On August 5, 2013, Kulkay severed three of his fingers and part of a fourth while operating the saw. Doctors were unable to reattach the severed fingers.

Kulkay brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against several institutional and individual defendants for violating his civil rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The defendants include the State of Minnesota; the Minnesota Department of Corrections; Tom Roy, the commissioner of the Department of Corrections; Alice Remillard, the safety director at the Faribault facility; Jeremy Schwartz, the supervising safety officer in charge of the facility's workshop; and two unknown prison employees. Kulkay also brought negligence claims against the State of Minnesota and its Department of Corrections based on vicarious liability.

The defendants jointly filed a motion to dismiss under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). The magistrate judge issued a Report and Recommendation (R&R) concluding the defendants' motion should be granted. The R&R determined a number of Kulkay's claims were barred by Eleventh Amendment immunity, his Fourteenth Amendment claims could be brought only under the Eighth Amendment, and his Eighth Amendment claims failed because the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. Kulkay objected only to the recommendation that his Eighth Amendment claims against the individual defendants be dismissed. The district court adopted the R&R in its entirety and held Kulkay's complaint failed to state a claim under the Eighth Amendment on the basis of qualified immunity. Kulkay appeals.

II.

This court reviews a Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal based on qualified immunity de novo. Hager , 735 F.3d at 1013. We accept the factual allegations in the complaint as true and construe them in favor of the plaintiff. Id. We do not, however, "presume the truth of legal conclusions couched as factual allegations." Id. ; accord Wiles v. Capitol Indem. Corp. , 280 F.3d 868, 870 (8th Cir. 2002) ("[T]he court is free to ignore legal conclusions, unsupported conclusions, unwarranted inferences and sweeping legal conclusions cast in the form of factual allegations.").

To survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, "the complaint must include sufficient factual allegations to provide the grounds on which the claim rests." Drobnak v. Andersen Corp. , 561 F.3d 778, 783 (8th Cir. 2009) (citing Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). The stated claim for relief must be "plausible on its face." Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955. "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Although a plaintiff need not allege facts in painstaking detail, the facts alleged "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level." Twombly , 550 U.S. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955. This standard "demands more than an unadorned, the-defendant-unlawfully-harmed-me accusation." Iqbal , 556 U.S. at 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

On appeal, Kulkay argues the district court erred when it dismissed his Eighth Amendment claims on the basis of qualified immunity. The doctrine of qualified immunity generally shields public and government officials performing discretionary functions from civil liability "insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald , 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). "[D]efendants seeking dismissal under Rule 12(b)(6) based on an assertion of qualified immunity ‘must show that they are entitled to qualified immunity on the face of the complaint.’ " Carter v. Huterson , 831 F.3d 1104, 1107 (8th Cir. 2016) (quoting Bradford v. Huckabee , 394 F.3d 1012, 1015 (8th Cir. 2005) ).

To determine whether a public official is entitled to immunity, courts conduct a two-pronged analysis: "whether the plaintiff has stated a plausible claim for violation of a constitutional or statutory right and whether the right was clearly established at the time of the alleged infraction." Hager , 735 F.3d at 1013. Courts are "permitted to exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first." Pearson v. Callahan , 555 U.S. 223, 236, 129 S.Ct. 808, 172 L.Ed.2d 565 (2009). Because an official is entitled to qualified immunity unless both prongs are satisfied, our analysis will end if either of the two is not met. See id. We first consider whether Kulkay has stated a plausible claim for a constitutional violation.

III.

Kulkay's § 1983 claim alleges the defendants violated the Eighth Amendment's ban on "cruel and unusual punishment." Eighth Amendment protection extends to conditions of incarceration and confinement, including prison work assignments. Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U.S. 825, 833, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) ; Ambrose v. Young , 474 F.3d 1070, 1075 (8th Cir. 2007). An inmate must make two showings—one objective and one subjective—to successfully state an Eighth Amendment claim. Ambrose , 474 F.3d at 1075.

First, the inmate must show the alleged violation is "objectively [and] sufficiently serious." Farmer , 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (citation and quotation marks omitted). An alleged violation is "objectively [and] sufficiently serious" when the inmate "is incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm." Id. (citation and quotation marks omitted); accord Nelson v. Shuffman , 603 F.3d 439, 446 (8th Cir. 2010). We have found this first requirement satisfied in various contexts. See, e.g. , Nelson , 603 F.3d at 447 (holding an inmate faced a substantial risk of serious harm when officials assigned him to share a room with an inmate known to have sexually assaulted other inmates); Irving v. Dormire , 519 F.3d 441, 445, 448–49 (8th Cir. 2008) (finding a sufficient risk of harm when a correctional officer made verbal death threats to an inmate); Simmons v. Cook , 154 F.3d 805, 807–08 (8th Cir. 1998) (finding a sufficient risk of harm when officials placed two paraplegic inmates in solitary confinement for thirty- two hours without access to food and medical care).

Second, the inmate must show the defendant official acted with a "sufficiently culpable state of mind." Farmer , 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (quoting Wilson v. Seiter , 501 U.S. 294, 297, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991) ). This subjective inquiry is "analyzed in light of the specific claim raised." Irving , 519 F.3d at 446. In a case challenging the conditions of confinement, the requisite state of mind is " ‘deliberate indifference’ to inmate health or safety." Farmer , 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (quoting Wilson , 501 U.S. at 302–03, 111 S.Ct. 2321 ). "An official is deliberately indifferent if he or she actually knows of the substantial...