May v. Sheahan

• Citation: 226 F.3d 876
• Decision Date: 08 September 2000
• Docket Number: No. 99-3140,99-3140
• Parties: (7th Cir. 2000) Gregory May, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael F. Sheahan, Defendant-Appellant
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)

Page 876

226 F.3d 876 (7th Cir. 2000)

Gregory May, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael F. Sheahan, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 99-3140

In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Argued June 2, 2000

Decided September 8, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 99 C 0395--David H. Coar, Judge. [Copyrighted Material Omitted] Before Flaum, Chief Judge, and Evans and Williams, Circuit Judges.

Williams, Circuit Judge.

Pretrial detainee Gregory May brought suit against Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan and unnamed Sheriff's Department employees, alleging that the conditions of confinement faced by detainees taken to Cook County Hospital are unconstitutional in several respects, as well as illegal under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Sheahan moved to dismiss May's suit in the district court on a variety of grounds, including qualified immunity. The district court concluded that Sheahan has qualified immunity from May's ADA claim, but otherwise denied Sheahan's motion to dismiss. Sheahan has filed this interlocutory appeal to challenge the district court's rejection of his qualified immunity defense with respect to May's surviving claims. We affirm.

I

In early January 1999, Gregory May was arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Unable to post bond, May was held at Cook County Jail in the custody of Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan, who oversees the jail. Seven days later, May, who suffers from AIDS, was taken by ambulance to Cook County Hospital. At the hospital, May claims he was subject to various Sheriff's Department policies that violated his rights.

One such policy allegedly requires hospital detainees to be shackled, hand and foot, to their beds despite the 24-hour presence of an armed guard. May claims that as a result of this policy he has been shackled to his bed 24 hours-a-day, which has caused him physical and emotional pain and has impeded his ability to assist in his own defense. Another policy supposedly provides that hospital detainees will not be taken to assigned court dates and will not be otherwise accommodated (by telephone or video conference, for example). Pursuant to this policy, May claims that he has been unable to present a motion to reduce his bond or attend any court appearances. Still other policies allegedly restrict or deny hospital detainees access to their lawyers, visitors, legal materials, telephones, typewriters or computers, books and magazines, and recreational activities. According to May, because of these policies he has been denied access to his attorney, has been unable to receive visitors, has been prevented from assisting in his own defense, and has had limited or no access to various ordinary amenities of confinement in Cook County Jail.

Based on these allegations, May asserted four claims against Sheriff Sheahan: (1) that the different treatment afforded jail detainees and hospital detainees violates his constitutional right to equal protection; (2) that Sheahan's restrictive hospital detainee policies violate his constitutional right of access to the courts; (3) that Sheahan's policy of shackling all hospital detainees to their beds around the clock violates his constitutional right to freedom from bodily restraint; and (4) that Sheahan's restrictive hospital detainee policies violate the ADA. Sheahan filed a motion to dismiss May's complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), arguing, among other things, that qualified immunity protected him from liability. The district court granted Sheahan's motion with respect to May's ADA claim against Sheahan in his individual capacity on qualified immunity grounds, but denied the motion in all other respects. Exercising his right to take an interlocutory appeal from an order rejecting a qualified immunity defense, see Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 524-30 (1985), Sheahan now appeals the district court's qualified immunity rulings on May's three constitutional claims.

II

Before we come to the merits of Sheahan's appeal, we must address a jurisdictional question. The order Sheahan appeals decided a motion to dismiss directed at May's Amended Complaint. While this appeal was pending, however, May twice further amended his complaint, both times with the district court's permission, so that his Third Amended Complaint now appears to be the operative complaint in the district court.¹ If these subsequent amended complaints have, in fact, superseded May's original Amended Complaint, the present appeal would be moot because there would no longer be a live dispute over whether Sheahan is entitled to qualified immunity based on the allegations in the Amended Complaint. Cf. Chan v. Wodnicki, 67 F.3d 137, 140 (7th Cir. 1995) (fact that trial occurred rendered pre-trial appeal moot); 13A Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure sec. 3533.10, at 436 (2d ed. 1984). Thus, this appeal would have to be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction. See Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 67-74 (1997); Wright et al., supra, sec. 3533.10, at 436.

Such a result, however, depends on whether May's second and third amended complaints supersede his original Amended Complaint, a question that turns on the district court's authority to accept the second and third amended complaints despite the pendency of this appeal. As a general matter, a notice of appeal "divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal." Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58 (1982). Under this rule, the district court retains jurisdiction to act only if the order being appealed or the proceeding before the district court is a discrete matter ancillary to the issues under consideration in the other court. Kusay v. United States, 62 F.3d 192, 193- 94 (7th Cir. 1995).

Applying this rule to interlocutory qualified immunity appeals under Mitchell v. Forsyth, supra, Apostol v. Gallion, 870 F.2d 1335, 1337-38 (7th Cir. 1989), held that a notice of appeal presumptively deprives the district court of jurisdiction to proceed with a trial on the merits of the claims on appeal. The Apostol court concluded that whether a public official asserting immunity should face a trial "is precisely the aspect of the case involved in the appeal" because the ultimate question in a Forsyth appeal is whether a public official should have to undergo the burdens of litigation. 870 F.2d at 1338 (internal quotations omitted). In this appeal, we face the related but unresolved issue of whether a district court retains jurisdiction to allow proceedings short of trial to go forward during the pendency of a proper Forsyth appeal.

To resolve this issue we must determine whether such proceedings are "aspects of the case involved in the appeal." In the years since Apostol, the Supreme Court has made clear that a Forsyth appeal implicates more than just a public official's right to avoid a trial, it also protects a public official from burdensome pretrial proceedings, including, most notably, discovery. Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 305-08 (1996). Thus, there can be no doubt that a Forsyth appeal divests a district court of the authority to order discovery or conduct other burdensome pretrial proceedings.

But what about a district court's authority to accept an amended complaint? It might be argued that the filing of an amended complaint places little or no particular burden on a defendant public official and, thus, does not involve (and is ancillary to) whether the public official should have to undergo the burdens of litigation. Moreover, allowing a district court to accept an amended complaint during the pendency of a Forsyth appeal might better conserve judicial resources on appeal by short-circuiting (that is, making moot) any appeal involving a complaint on which the plaintiff no longer wishes to stand. Under such a rule, successive Forsyth appeals involving successive complaints would be less likely.

Ultimately, however, these arguments are not persuasive. To begin with, an order allowing the plaintiff to file an amended complaint that supersedes the complaint at issue in a pending Forsyth appeal plainly implicates "an aspect of the case involved in the appeal." The question a court of appeals must answer in a Forsyth appeal following the denial of a motion to dismiss is whether the defendant public official is entitled to qualified immunity (and can therefore avoid the burdens of further litigation) based on the allegations in the plaintiff's complaint. Behrens, 516 U.S. at 306-09; Forsyth, 472 U.S. at 526. Allowing a plaintiff to alter the allegations in his or her complaint would have an obvious effect on a pending Forsyth appeal. Thus, unlike certain other interlocutory appeals, a Forsyth appeal is not the sort of discrete and ancillary matter that can be decided in isolation from the remainder of the case against the public official in his or her individual capacity.² Stewart v. Donges, 915 F.2d 572, 576 (10th Cir. 1990).

Moreover, allowing a plaintiff to file an amended complaint while a Forsyth appeal is pending does place a litigation burden on a defendant public official. In response to each amended complaint, the public official will likely want to file an answer and a motion to dismiss, and possibly appeal any unfavorable decision. Having to take these steps compromises a defendant public official's right to avoid the burdens of litigation. Of course, depriving the district court of jurisdiction to accept an amended complaint during a Forsyth appeal will not forever prevent a plaintiff from amending his or her complaint, but it will give the court of appeals the opportunity to both pass on many of the allegations the plaintiff will likely end up relying on and offer guidance to the district court (and the parties) on the legal issues involved in the case. By doing so, the court of...