McDuffie v. Estelle

• Decision Date: 15 July 1991
• Docket Number: No. 90-2573,90-2573
• Citation: 935 F.2d 682
• Parties: Huey P. McDUFFIE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. W.J. ESTELLE, Jr., et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 682

935 F.2d 682

Huey P. McDUFFIE, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. W.J. ESTELLE, Jr., et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 90-2573.

United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit.

July 15, 1991.

Adrian L. Young, Asst. Atty. Gen., Demetri Anastasiadis, Jim Mattox, Atty. Gen., Austin, Tex., for defendants-appellants.

Gregg C. Laswell, Andrews & Kurth, Houston, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Before BROWN, JOHNSON, and WIENER, Circuit Judges.

JOHN R. BROWN, Circuit Judge:

Huey McDuffie, an inmate at the Ellis Unit of the Texas Department of Corrections (TDC) in June 1976, brought this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 and related statutes for a beating he alleges that he suffered at the hands of fellow inmates acting under the tacit authority of the TDC, and for subsequent disciplinary actions including punishment of solitary confinement. Based upon these events, he asserts that his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and his Fourteenth Amendment due process rights were violated by the Director of TDC and other TDC officials responsible for the Ellis Unit "building tender" system and for charging and disciplining him for his participation in the incident. ¹ The defendant officials filed a motion for summary judgment dismissal based on qualified immunity, which the district court rejected. We affirm the court's determination that the Eighth Amendment aspect of the case survives a qualified immunity claim, but reverse the court's finding that the relevant defendants are not immune from McDuffie's Fourteenth Amendment claim.

How It All Began

McDuffie alleges that on June 9, 1976, he was severely beaten by two fellow inmates of the Ellis Unit of TDC. He maintains that the individuals who beat him, Johnson and Skinner, were "building tenders"--inmates acting as auxiliary guards in a supervisory capacity over other inmates ostensibly to assist the civilian security forces in controlling the prison. After the altercation, McDuffie was immediately placed in administrative segregation on the orders of defendant L.A. Steele, the Major of Correctional Officers at the Ellis Unit. Three days later, on June 12, 1976, he was brought before the Ellis Unit Disciplinary Committee (the Committee), consisting of Steele, and M.C. Lightsey and Eli Rushing, Assistant Wardens at the Ellis Unit. The Committee found him guilty of offenses related to the incident and sentenced him to 15 days solitary confinement. McDuffie alleges that neither Johnson nor Skinner was disciplined for his part in the June 9 altercation.

In December 1976, McDuffie brought this action seeking compensatory and punitive damages for violations of his constitutional rights. The complaint named (i) W.J. Estelle, Director of TDC, R.M. Cousins, Ellis Unit Warden, and Steele (hereafter "building tender officials" or "building tender defendants") for Eighth Amendment violations associated with the building tender system; and (ii) Estelle, Steele, Lightsey, and Rushing (hereafter "Committee officials" or "Committee defendants") for Fourteenth Amendment violations arising out of the Committee's proceedings. In 1981 all of the defendant officials filed motions to dismiss and for summary judgment, which were denied on July 28, 1983. After further discovery, the same defendants brought similar motions based on qualified immunity, which were denied by court rulings entered in September 1989 and May 1990. The defendant officials bring this otherwise interlocutory appeal pursuant to Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 525-28, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2814-16, 86 L.Ed.2d 411, 423-26 (1985) (denial of a claim of qualified immunity is appealable "final decision" under 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1291).

All of the officials argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity against McDuffie's constitutional claims for damages. McDuffie counters that the celebrated case of Ruiz v. Estelle, 503 F.Supp. 1265 (S.D.Tex.1980), ² which found that TDC was ridden with abuse and enjoined common practices in violation of prisoners' constitutional rights, forecloses the defendants' qualified immunity defense.

Standard of Review

All of the defendant officials may assert good-faith qualified immunity from retrospective relief when sued in their individual capacity, as they are in this case. Procunier v. Navarette, 434 U.S. 555, 561, 98 S.Ct. 855, 859, 55 L.Ed.2d 24, 30 (1978); McCord v. Maggio, 927 F.2d 844, 847 (5th Cir.1991). It is well established that "[t]his immunity is defeated if the official[s] took the complained-of action[s] 'with the malicious intention to cause a deprivation of rights,' or the official[s] violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights 'of which a reasonable person would have known.' " McCord, 927 F.2d at 847 (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396, 409, 410 (1982)). This case proceeds under the second factor--violation of clearly established law.

Under this standard, our inquiry necessarily entails consideration of the factual allegations that make up McDuffie's claim for relief. It turns, however, on the question "whether the legal norms allegedly violated by the defendant were clearly established at the time of the challenged actions or ... under the defendant's version of the facts ... whether the law clearly proscribed the actions the defendant claims he took." Mitchell, 472 U.S. at 528, 105 S.Ct. at 2816, 86 L.Ed.2d at 426; see also Thompson v. City of Starkville, 901 F.2d 456, 459 (5th Cir.1990). This inquiry is a purely legal one. Therefore, we review the district court's summary judgment denial of the defendants' qualified immunity claims de novo. Id.

Constitutional Violations

(i) Effect of Ruiz

McDuffie asserts that his constitutional rights were violated in two ways: (i) he suffered an injury as a direct result of the maintenance of the Ellis Unit "building tender" system in violation of his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment; and (ii) he was subjected to disciplinary proceedings which deprived him of certain procedural rights and unfairly punished him for his involvement in the incident with the building tenders, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause.

McDuffie contends that Ruiz collaterally estops the defendant officials from relitigating the issue of whether the defendants' conduct violated clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person should have known, the first prerequisite to finding a state official liable for Sec. 1983 violations. See Harlow, 457 U.S. at 818, 102 S.Ct. at 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d at 410. Consequently, he argues, relitigation of the issues by way of the defendant officials' plea of qualified immunity should be foreclosed. We agree that Ruiz has preclusive effect on the building tender portion of this case. Because of the different character of Ruiz, however, we cannot give the same effect to its findings with respect to the disciplinary proceeding practices here at issue. ³

In order to apply the federal law of collateral estoppel, a court must examine whether (i) the issue at stake is identical to the one involved in the prior litigation, (ii) the determination of the issue in the prior litigation was a critical, necessary part of the judgment in that earlier action, and (iii) special circumstances exist which would render preclusion inappropriate or unfair. Montana v. United States, 440 U.S. 147, 154, 99 S.Ct. 970, 974, 59 L.Ed.2d 210, 217 (1979); Hicks v. Quaker Oats Co., 662 F.2d 1158, 1166 (5th Cir.1981). McDuffie's offensive use of collateral estoppel is authorized by the Supreme Court's decision in Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 99 S.Ct. 645, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979). While complete identity of the parties in the two suits is not required, Allen v. McCurry, 449 U.S. 90, 94-95, 101 S.Ct. 411, 414-15, 66 L.Ed.2d 308, 313 (1980), one "special circumstance" which would counsel against the application of offensive collateral estoppel would operate when the defendant did not have an incentive to litigate the issue vigorously in the prior proceeding. Id. 439 U.S. at 332, 99 S.Ct. at 652, 58 L.Ed.2d at 562.

There is direct precedent for our application of collateral estoppel from Bogard v. Cook, 586 F.2d 399 (5th Cir.1978), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 883, 100 S.Ct. 173, 62 L.Ed.2d 113 (1979), a Sec. 1983 damages action where we held that Gates v. Collier, 501 F.2d 1291 (5th Cir.1974), aff'g 349 F.Supp. 881 (N.D.Miss.1972), in which this Court granted a group of prisoners injunctive and declaratory relief from prison practices quite similar to the activities enjoined in Ruiz, "precluded relitigation of the constitutionality of conditions and practices" at the Mississippi prison involved in those cases. Another analogous scenario can be found in Williams v. Bennett, 689 F.2d 1370 (11th Cir.1982), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 932, 104 S.Ct. 335, 78 L.Ed.2d 305 (1983). In that Sec. 1983 case, the Eleventh Circuit held that prison officials were collaterally estopped, on account of prior litigation in which the prison's practices were ruled unconstitutional, ⁴ from relitigating the issue of whether conditions and practices in the prison violated the inmate plaintiff's Eighth Amendment rights. Id. at 1382. See also Crowder v. Lash, 687 F.2d 996, 1011 (7th Cir.1982) (Indiana State Prison inmate may in subsequent damages action make collateral estoppel use of prior litigation involving prison).

In Ruiz, affirmed by this Court with modifications of certain remedial provisions, ⁵ the parties actually litigated, and the district court necessarily decided, the two precise constitutional issues before us. These issues were also critical, necessary ingredients in that case. See 503 F.Supp. at 1303-07, 1358.

A remaining element is that the defendant have an incentive to vigorously defend...