Pinto v. Nettleship
| Decision Date | 21 June 1984 |
| Docket Number | No. 83-1875,83-1875 |
| Citation | 737 F.2d 130 |
| Parties | Ramon Rondon PINTO, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. Carlos Jimenez NETTLESHIP, etc., et al., Defendants, Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
David Rive-Rivera, Hato Rey, P.R., with whom Calderon, Rosa-Silva & Vargas, Hato Rey, P.R., was on brief, for appellants.
Gerardo Mariani, Asst. Sol. Gen., and Howard Charles, Atty., San Juan, P.R., with whom Miguel Pagan, Deputy Sol. Gen., was on brief, for appellees.
Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, COFFIN, Circuit Judge, and BONSAL, * Senior District Judge.
This is an appeal from the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant Victor Maldonado in a damages action brought under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983. Plaintiffs are the parents of Ramon Rondon Carmona, who was killed in Bayamon Regional Jail in Puerto Rico. The decedent, a pretrial detainee, was killed by an unknown inmate on December 12, 1981, the second day of his detention. Plaintiffs brought this action on October 26, 1982, against Carlos Jimenez Nettleship, Director of Prisons of the Administration of Correction of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appellee Victor Maldonado, the Superintendent of the Bayamon Regional Jail. The relief they sought was compensation for their son's death.
In the complaint, plaintiffs alleged, in part, as follows:
7. At said penal institution there was an extreme condition of overcrowding, lack of vigilance and protection of inmates due to lack of sufficient prison guards.
8. Defendant, Victor Maldonado, as Superintendent of the Bayamon Regional Jail, was physically incapable of providing protection to the life of any inmate in his institution.
9. The decedent's death and the plaintiffs' consequential damages were caused by the denial of adequate protection to decedent, by the imposition of cruel and unusual punishment, and by the failure of the defendants and each of them to guarantee plaintiffs' decedent his constitutional rights and physical protection to which he was entitled.
10. The acts of the defendants and each of them herein, do not constitute an isolated incident, but are part of a concerted pattern of action by the defendants and all of them, in failing to guarantee the prisoners in custody of the Administration of Correction of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico their constitutional rights and their physical protection.
The district court dismissed without prejudice the complaint against Carlos Jimenez Nettleship for failure to have made timely service upon him. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 4(j). That ruling has not been appealed. The other defendant, Victor Maldonado, moved for summary judgment, contending the plaintiffs had not indicated any personal acts in which he had engaged that violated the decedent's constitutional rights. Maldonado also claimed qualified immunity. After an exchange of interrogatories and answers, and after the taking of Maldonado's deposition, plaintiffs filed an opposition to the motion for summary judgment. On October 13, 1983, the district court granted summary judgment on the ground that plaintiffs had failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact regarding Maldonado's personal responsibility for the decedent's death and because plaintiffs' allegations of administrative negligence failed to state a claim under section 1983.
When reviewing a summary judgment, we will uphold the district court if, taking the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, there is no genuine issue of fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Santoni v. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., 677 F.2d 174, 177 (1st Cir.1982). We conclude the district court was correct in granting summary judgment for defendant Maldonado.
The complaint alleges that Maldonado violated the decedent's eighth amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. Since there is no respondeat superior liability under section 1983, Kostka v. Hogg, 560 F.2d 37, 40 (1st Cir.1977), liability in damages can only be imposed upon officials who were involved personally in the deprivation of constitutional rights. Triplett v. Azordegan, 570 F.2d 819, 823 (8th Cir.1978); Duchesne v. Sugarman, 566 F.2d 817, 830 (2d Cir.1977); Vinnedge v. Gibbs, 550 F.2d 926, 928 (4th Cir.1977). The requisite personal involvement of a prison official may be established by showing that the official knew of a prisoner's personal danger yet failed to provide protection:
When a supervisory official is placed on actual notice of a prisoner's need for physical protection or medical care, "administrative negligence can rise to the level of deliberate indifference to or reckless disregard for that prisoner's safety."
Layne v. Vinzant, 657 F.2d 468, 471 (1st Cir.1981) (quoting West v. Rowe, 448 F.Supp. 58, 60 (N.D.Ill.1978)). See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104, 97 S.Ct. 285, 291, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). In conjunction with his motion for summary judgment, defendant Maldonado filed an affidavit expressly denying having personal knowledge that the decedent had any special need for protection. Plaintiffs did not by counteraffidavit or otherwise thereafter point to "specific facts" contesting this point. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e).
Rather, plaintiffs rely now upon the argument that the "extreme condition of overcrowding, lack of vigilance and protection of inmates due to lack of sufficient prison guards" resulted in decedent's death. Maldonado, in answering plaintiffs' interrogatories, admitted that the jail was designed for 650 prisoners, but was actually housing 1,285 prisoners in December 1981. The trouble with this theory of liability is that all the record materials suggest that the numbers of prisoners and guards were beyond the control of Maldonado. Indeed, plaintiffs themselves allege in the complaint that Maldonado "was physically incapable of providing protection to the life of any inmate in his institution." It is undisputed that the number of guards was controlled by the Puerto Rico Corrections Administration, not Maldonado. Maldonado asserts that he did his best to obtain more guards, pointing to letters in the record in which he repeatedly requested additional guards from the Corrections Administration during 1980-81. Maldonado also lacked authority to control the prisoner population by refusing to accept prisoners sent to the jail. See P.R.Laws Ann. tit. 33, Secs. 4365, 4366 (1980). As evidence of his efforts to do what he could, he introduced detailed records of prisoners transferred to other institutions during 1981 to relieve the overcrowding at Bayamon Jail. Plaintiffs offered nothing to suggest that Maldonado could have done more. 1 We note, in addition, that a year before decedent's murder, the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico found comprehensively that the entire Puerto Rico prison...
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