Richardson v. Penfold

• Decision Date: 30 December 1986
• Docket Number: No. S 83-472.,S 83-472.
• Parties: Edward L. RICHARDSON, Plaintiff, v. Chuck PENFOLD and Edward Dyer, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

650 F. Supp. 810

Edward L. RICHARDSON, Plaintiff, v. Chuck PENFOLD and Edward Dyer, Defendants.

No. S 83-472.

United States District Court, N.D. Indiana, South Bend Division.

December 30, 1986.

Joseph M. Kalady, Legal Asst., Michigan City, Ind., Adam Bourgeiois, Marcia K. Johnson, Chicago, Ill., J. Moritz Grolimund, Elkhart, Ind., for plaintiff.

David L. Steiner, Michael B. Murphy, Deputy Attys. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ALLEN SHARP, Chief Judge.

I.

The plaintiff, Edward L. Richardson, is an inmate at the Indiana State Prison and filed the complaint in this action purporting to allege claims under Title 42 U.S.C. § 1983 on October 12, 1983. The subject matter jurisdiction of this court is invoked under Title 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(3) and (4). The plaintiff has had and presently has the services of legal counsel in this case. The defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment on October 17, 1986 and the plaintiff filed a Memorandum in Response and an affidavit on December 3, 1986. Oral argument was heard on December 12, 1986. Such motion for summary judgment is now ripe for ruling. The deposition of the plaintiff was taken and has been published and considered.

Three charges are in the complaint. First, the plaintiff alleges that the defendants failed to protect him from sexual assaults by other inmates in January, 1983. The second allegation concerns access to the courts which must be examined in light of Bounds v. Smith, 430 U.S. 817, 97 S.Ct. 1491, 52 L.Ed.2d 72 (1977). The third claim is a very generalized and vague one that this plaintiff is receiving fewer rights and privileges than other inmates without due cause.

The focus of this memorandum is on the alleged failure of these two defendants to protect the plaintiff from sexual assaults while incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison in January 1983. The complaint appears to seek only money damages from each of the defendants under § 1983 and a jury trial has been requested and granted under what this court believes are the mandates of Merritt v. Faulkner, 697 F.2d 761 (7th Cir.1983).

II.

The first question which must be considered is whether the damage claims are foreclosed as against Penfold and Dyer in their official capacities. The Eleventh Amendment of the Constitution of the United States provides:

The Judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.

In 1890 in Hans v. Louisiana, 134 U.S. 1, 10 S.Ct. 504, 33 L.Ed. 842 (1890), the Supreme Court of the United States gave an expansive reading to the Eleventh Amendment which prevails today despite the strong protestation of Justice Brennan. See Papasan, et al. v. Allain, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 2932, 92 L.Ed.2d 209 (1986); Green, et al. v. Mansour, 474 U.S. 64, 106 S.Ct. 423, 88 L.Ed.2d 371 (1985); and Atascadero State Hospital, et al. v. Scanlon, 473 U.S. 234, 105 S.Ct. 3142, 87 L.Ed.2d 171 (1985). There can be no question that damage claims against the State of Indiana are foreclosed under current Eleventh Amendment doctrine. See Pennhurst State School and Hospital v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 104 S.Ct. 900, 79 L.Ed.2d 67 (1984). This court has ruled that the Department of Correction, as an agency and instrumentality of the State of Indiana, has the benefit of Eleventh Amendment immunity. The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has ruled, speaking through the late Justice Stewart, that the Warden of the State Prison is immune from such damage claims in his official capacity. See Crowder v. Lash, 687 F.2d 996 (7th Cir.1982). There is also language in other cases emanating from this circuit that would indicate that these state officials are immune from damage claims in their official capacities. See Rascon v. Hardiman, 803 F.2d 269 (7th Cir. 1986); Coleman v. Frantz, 754 F.2d 719 (7th Cir.1985); and Wellman v. Faulkner, 715 F.2d 269 (7th Cir.1983).

Based on the foregoing, the damage claims as against these two defendants in their respective official capacities are foreclosed by the Eleventh Amendment.

III.

Recently the Supreme Court of the United States took the opportunity to address Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In two cases decided on the same day, the court has expanded the scope of the application of Rule 56. See, Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986); Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). Celotex addressed the initial burdens of the parties under Rule 56, and Anderson addressed the standards in which the record is to be analyzed within the stricture of Rule 56.

Based on the decision of the Court in Celotex, it is clear that a non-moving party may not rest on its pleadings to avoid summary judgment. Celotex, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. at 2554. The initial burden is on the moving party to demonstrate "`with or without supporting affidavits'" the absence of a genuine issue of material fact, and that judgment as a matter of law should be granted in the moving party's favor. Id. 106 S.Ct. at 2553. Once the moving party has met the initial burden, the opposing party must "go beyond the pleadings" and "designate `specific facts showing that there is a genuine material issue for trial.'" Id. Further, in Anderson, the Court held that what facts are material in a specific case shall be determined by the substantive law controlling that case or issue. Anderson, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. at 2510. In addition, the Court went on to interpret Rule 56 as requiring that the courts analyze summary judgment motions utilizing the standard of proof relevant to that case or issue. Id. 106 S.Ct. at 2512-2513.

IV.

There is a long line of authority in this court and elsewhere requiring personal involvement as an essential prerequisite to a claim against an individual defendant under § 1983. See Monell v. the Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) and a line of cases in this circuit beginning with Adams v. Pate, 445 F.2d 105 (7th Cir.1971), running through an appeal from this court in Wellman v. Faulkner, 715 F.2d at 275, and most recently in Rascon v. Hardiman, supra.

The Supreme Court has espoused a measure of conduct in two cases which must be shown before a constitutional infringement protected by 42 U.S.C. § 1983 is implicated. Second, and more importantly, the Court emphasized that only those rights directly derived from the Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and its other Amendments will be protected by 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Daniels v. Williams, ___ U.S. ___, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986), the Court reviewed the § 1983 complaint of an inmate who argued that his liberty interest of freedom from bodily injury "without due process of law" within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment had been abridged when the jail staff left a pillow case on the jail floor which the plaintiff slipped on resulting in physical injury. At 106 S.Ct. 664, the Court cited its prior holding in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S. 527, 101 S.Ct. 1908, 68 L.Ed.2d 420 (1981), wherein it held that all that needs to be shown in a § 1983 suit is that a constitutional deprivation occurred and that there is no requirement of a showing of the defendant's "state of mind". The Court concluded that the intentional loss of a liberty, a right, property, or the sustaining of a personal injury which is a result of negligent action does not rise to a level which is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment:

To hold that injury caused by such conduct is a deprivation within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment would trivialize the centuries old principle of due process of law.

106 S.Ct. at 665. The Court, at 106 S.Ct. 666, made it clear that only those rights which are traditionally derived from an uncluttered and pristine reading of the Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and its other Amendments will trigger Fourteenth Amendment protection:

Our Constitution deals with the large concerns of the governors and the governed, but it does not purport to supplant traditional tort law in laying down rules of conduct to regulate liability for injuries that attend living together in society. We have previously rejected reasoning that "would make of the Fourteenth Amendment a font of tort law to be superimposed upon whatever systems may already be administered by the States," Paul v. Davis, 424 U.S. 693, 701, 96 S.Ct. 1155, 1160, 47 L.Ed.2d 405 (1976), quoted in Parratt v. Taylor, 451 U.S., at 544, 101 S.Ct., at 1917.

The Court in Daniels concluded that the actions of the defendants in leaving a pillow case on the floor did not rise to the level of conduct which implicates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment:

Where a government official's act causing injury to life, liberty or property is merely negligent "no procedure for compensation is constitutionally required." Parratt, 451 U.S. at 548 101 S.Ct. at 1919 (POWELL, J., concurring in result) (footnote omitted).

106 S.Ct. at 666. The Court emphasized its narrow interpretation of those subject matters which can legitimately claim ancestry in the Constitution:

That injuries inflicted by governmental negligence are not addressed by the United States Constitution is not to say that they may not raise significant legal concerns and lead to the creation of protectable legal interests. The enactment of tort claim statutes, for example, reflect the view that injuries caused by such negligence shall generally be redressed. It is no reflection on either the breadth of the United States Constitution or the importance of traditional tort law to say that they do not address the same concerns. (footnotes omitted).

106 S.Ct. Ct. at 666.

In Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 106 S.Ct. 668, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986), another prison...