Shropshire v. Duckworth

• Citation: 654 F. Supp. 369
• Decision Date: 03 February 1987
• Docket Number: No. S84-114.,S84-114.
• Parties: James Edward SHROPSHIRE, Plaintiff, v. Jack R. DUCKWORTH, Steward Miller, and Charles Wright, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of Indiana

654 F. Supp. 369

James Edward SHROPSHIRE, Plaintiff, v. Jack R. DUCKWORTH, Steward Miller, and Charles Wright, Defendants.

No. S84-114.

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

February 3, 1987.

James Edward Shropshire, Ind., pro se.

Kermit R. Hillis, Deputy Atty. Gen., Indianapolis, Ind., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

ALLEN SHARP, Chief Judge.

I.

James Edward Shropshire, petitioner, filed this case against Jack R. Duckworth, Steward Miller, and Charles Wright on February 27, 1984, purporting to allege claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and invoking this court's jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1331 and 1343(3) and (4). This case has been through numerous proceedings as the four pages of docket sheets will well illustrate. On December 12, 1986, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment under Rule 56 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and fully complied with the mandates of Lewis v. Faulkner, 689 F.2d 100 (7th Cir.1982).

A.

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. at ___, 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. at ___, 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.

B.

The Supreme Court has recently espoused a measure of conduct in two cases which must be shown before a constitutional infringement protected by 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986), only those rights directly derived from the Constitution, its Bill of Rights, and Amendments will be protected by 42 U.S.C. § 1983. In Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 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 which 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 unintentional 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 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. at 666.

In Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 106 S.Ct. 668, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986), another prison case, the inmate plaintiff filed a § 1983 action against prison administrators alleging that they had abridged his right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment as proscribed by the Eighth Amendment, and his right not to be deprived of personal security without due process of law as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Factually, the plaintiff asserted that he had sent a written message to a prison administrator informing the administrator that he had been physically threatened by a fellow inmate and that he feared assault from the inmate whose name was specified. Prison administrators basically ignored the message. The plaintiff was soon thereafter assaulted by the specified inmate by the use of a fork which resulted in wounds to plaintiff's face, neck, head, and body, and caused a broken nose. While citing its decision in Daniels, supra, the Court again held that the defendant's inattention to the written message did not rise beyond a level of conduct which could be described as negligent. The Court held that even though serious injury resulted from defendants' conduct, the plaintiff was not protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Davidson, 106 S.Ct. at 670.

The plaintiff in Davidson attempted to distinguish and isolate the substantive claim (not to be deprived of personal security) from the procedural claim by arguing that his claim was "purely procedural," thus circumventing the requirement that plaintiff must show conduct beyond negligence. The Court reaffirmed that such an argument must fail because the procedural aspect of the Fourteenth Amendment is only triggered if any underlying substantive right is at issue:

In an effort to limit the potentially broad sweep of his claim, petitioner emphasizes that he "does not ask this Court to read the Constitution as an absolute guarantor of his liberty from assault by the negligence of his jailers." Brief for Petitioner 17. Describing his claim as one of "procedural due process, pure and simple," Id., at 14, all he asks is that New Jersey provide him a remedy. But the Fourteenth Amendment does not require a remedy when there has been no "deprivation" of a protected interest.

Davidson, 106 S.Ct. at 670. The Court in Davidson concluded that the complaint failed because "the protections of the Due Process Clause, whether procedural or substantive, are just not triggered by lack of due care by prison officials." Davidson, 106 S.Ct. at 671.

At least one judge on our Court of Appeals has summarized: "Negligence is not itself actionable. Daniels v. Williams 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986)." Kirchoff v. Flynn, 786 F.2d 320 (7th Cir.1986). See also Bodine v. Elkhart County Election Board, 788 F.2d 1270, 1272 (7th Cir.1986) and Rascon v. Hardiman, et al, 803 F.2d 269 (7th Cir.1986).

II.

A.

This court has before it elaborate information through affidavits and documents that essentially boil down to a fairly simple fact situation in the context of pro se prisoner litigation under § 1983. For other published legal history regarding this plaintiff see Shropshire v. State, 501 N.E.2d 445 (Ind.1986), and Resnover, Shropshire et al. v. State, 267 Ind. 597, 372 N.E.2d 457 (1978). The plaintiff was transferred to the Indiana State Prison from the Indiana Reformatory about February 9, 1981. The transfer is now admitted to have been nondisciplinary. When plaintiff arrived at the Indiana State Prison it was at first erroneously believed that such transfer had been disciplinary but when copies of the transfer authority arrived in the unit later on the same day, it was determined that the transfer was not disciplinary and he, the plaintiff, was immediately removed from disciplinary status. The...