Lawrence v. Bowersox

• Citation: 297 F.3d 727
• Decision Date: 22 July 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-1813.,01-1813.
• Parties: Edward V. LAWRENCE; Dennis Kirksey, Plaintiffs/Appellees, v. Michael BOWERSOX; Gloria Gourley; Donna McCondichie; Carl McCory, C.O. II; Defendants/Appellants, James W. Lawrence, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Potosi Correctional Center; Billy Nipper, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and a member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center; Defendants, Thomas Hays, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center; Defendant/Appellant, Arthur Holms, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center; Alton Thompson, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

297 F.3d 727

Edward V. LAWRENCE; Dennis Kirksey, Plaintiffs/Appellees, v. Michael BOWERSOX; Gloria Gourley; Donna McCondichie; Carl McCory, C.O. II; Defendants/Appellants, James W. Lawrence, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Potosi Correctional Center; Billy Nipper, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and a member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center; Defendants, Thomas Hays, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center; Defendant/Appellant, Arthur Holms, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center; Alton Thompson, individually and in his official capacity as a Corrections Officer and member of the Emergency Squad at the Farmington Correctional Center, Defendants.

No. 01-1813.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: December 14, 2001.

Filed: July 22, 2002.

M. Steven Brown, argued, AAG, St. Louis, MO, for appellant.

Daniel O'Keefe, argued, St. Louis, MO (Christian M. Stevens and Jennifer L. Winn, on the brief), for appellee.

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, BEAM, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

BEAM, Circuit Judge.

Prison inmates Edward V. Lawrence and Dennis Kirksey won a $10,002 jury verdict against Corrections Officer Thomas Hays arising out of a pepper spraying incident at the Potosi Correctional Center. The district court¹ denied Hays' motion for judgment as a matter of law. The district court also awarded discovery sanctions in the amount of $8,712.19 against Hays and several other corrections officials for discovery misconduct during the course of this litigation. Finally, the district court granted the inmates' motion for attorneys' fees and costs ($15,000 for fees and $4,397.40 for costs). We affirm the denial of the motion for judgment as a matter of law and the discovery sanctions. We affirm the award of attorneys' fees and costs, but remand for a recalculation of the fees consistent with the requirement that a percentage of the judgment be applied to the fee award pursuant to the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

I. BACKGROUND

A. The Pepper Spraying Incident

On June 10, 1996, a riot broke out in Housing Unit 3B of the Potosi Correctional Center ("PCC"). The riot was quelled quickly, and all inmates were returned to their cells. After the unit was secure, a cell-by-cell search for weapons and contraband was ordered. Special units of corrections officers trained to handle riots, known as Emergency Squads ("E-Squads"), were activated and instructed to impose Temporary Administrative Segregation Confinement ("TASC") on the inmates. When a TASC order is given, each inmate is strip-searched, handcuffed, and his cell is searched for weapons and contraband.

Approximately five hours after the riot, a search team led by Hays arrived at Lawrence and Kirksey's cell. Hays called out, "Niggers get naked." Lawrence responded by asking, "What did you say?" Hays reacted to this question by calling for a movement team, and E-Squad Officer Carl McCory immediately sprayed Lawrence and Kirksey with pepper spray, using a device known as a MK-46. The Superintendent of PCC at the time of the incident, Michael Bowersox, testified that a MK-46 consists of a twelve to fourteen-inch wand attached to a large cannister, and resembles a fire extinguisher. Lawrence and Kirksey, along with the entire interior of their cell, were soaked with pepper spray from the MK-46. After approximately ten minutes of inhaling the chemical agent, Lawrence and Kirksey were removed from their cell and taken to the showers to clean up. Lawrence testified that the incident resulted in intense burning on his skin for several days after the event.

B. Procedural History

In the inmates' Second Amended Complaint, they alleged that their Eighth Amendment rights were violated when: (1) McCory unnecessarily sprayed them with a chemical agent while they were confined in their cell; and (2) corrections officials Bowersox, Hays, Gloria Gourley, Donna McCondichie, James W. Lawrence, Billy Nipper, Arthur Holms, Alton Thompson, Richard Gaines and Terrence Cole were deliberately indifferent to their safety, because these individuals were present when the unnecessary use of force occurred and failed to prevent it; and (3) that all defendants were deliberately indifferent to Lawrence and Kirksey's serious medical needs, because they required them to return to their cell without first cleaning out the chemicals.

The district court granted summary judgment on Count Three in favor of defendants Lawrence, Nipper, Hays, Holms, Thompson, Gaines and Cole, finding that the inmates had failed to produce sufficient evidence to establish that these defendants were involved after the inmates were removed from their cell.

During the trial, the inmates voluntarily dismissed defendants Gourley, McCondichie, Gaines and Cole. In addition, the district court granted defendant Bowersox's motion for judgment as a matter of law.

On the remaining claims, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the inmates on their claim of deliberate indifference against Hays, awarding them nominal damages (one dollar each) and punitive damages totaling $10,000. The jury found in favor of the defendants on all other claims. The district court denied Hays' motion for judgment as a matter of law and awarded appointed counsel $15,000 in attorneys' fees and $4,397.40 for costs.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Hays' Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law

We review a district court's denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law de novo. Van Steenburgh v. Rival Co., 171 F.3d 1155, 1158 (8th Cir.1999). We must look at the evidence in the light most favorable to the inmates, give them the benefit of all reasonable inferences, and assume the jury resolved all evidentiary conflicts in their favor. Id. We will overturn the verdict only if no reasonable juror could have found in favor of the inmates. Id.

The Eighth Amendment requires prison officials to "take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates." Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984). However, not every injury to a prisoner "translates into constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for the victim's safety." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). A prison official is liable for violating the Eighth Amendment in a failure to protect case only when two requirements are met. First, the inmate must show that he is incarcerated under conditions posing an objectively substantial risk of serious harm. Id. Second, the inmate must prove that, subjectively, the prison official was deliberately indifferent to the inmate's health or safety. Id.

Hays claims that his motion for judgment as a matter of law should have been granted because Lawrence and Kirksey failed to prove the objective prong of the Farmer test. Hays does not argue on appeal that he lacked the requisite mental culpability that forms the second prong of the Farmer test. Instead, Hays claims that the inmates suffered only de minimis injuries from the pepper spray, and thus were not subjected to a substantial risk of serious harm. To support this claim, Hays argues that his conduct was analogous to the prison official's conduct in Jones v. Shields, 207 F.3d 491 (8th Cir.2000), where we found that an inmate sprayed with pepper spray did not establish an Eighth Amendment violation. In Jones, an inmate while out of his cell refused a work order and when ordered to his barracks became loud and argumentative. The prison official used pepper spray on the inmate in response to the outburst. Id. at 493. The spray was dispensed in a one-second burst from a small can with a trigger and the inmate testified that the effects of the spray cleared within forty-five minutes. Id. at 494. The court held that the prison official's "administration of [pepper spray] in this prison setting resulted in de minimis injury for Eighth Amendment purposes." Id. at 495.

Jones, however, did not hold that all applications of pepper spray result in de minimis injury. Instead, the Jones court reasoned that a factual inquiry should take place "consider[ing] the extent of the pain inflicted in order to determine whether a constitutional deprivation has occurred." Id. The facts here are quite different than those in Jones. The inmate in Jones refused direct orders from prison officials to return to his barracks and became threatening. Furthermore, the inmate in Jones was not confined to his cell and was much larger than the prison official who used the spray. Id. at 497. Jones concluded that the limited application of pepper spray was a tempered response when faced with a recalcitrant inmate. Id. at 496. Here, on the other hand, Lawrence and Kirksey were confined to their cell and the evidence does not show that they disobeyed orders.

In addition, while the prisoner in Jones was sprayed with a burst from "a small can with a trigger," id. at 494, the evidence at trial established that Lawrence and Kirksey were doused with pepper spray from a MK-46, which, as previously noted, is a large cannister resembling a fire extinguisher with a twelve to fourteen-inch wand attached. The facts in this case do not support Hays' claim that the inmates suffered de minimis injuries. Unlike in Jones, here, the inmates' faces and bodies were soaked in pepper spray as a result of Hays' call for the movement team. In fact, their entire cell was covered with the spray. One of the officers even proclaimed: "that is some bad stuff." Kirksey claimed that he experienced spotting on his lower body for almost two years following the incident. Lawrence testified that he has suffered problems with his skin and eyes following...