Vinning-El v. Long

• Decision Date: 27 March 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-1673.,06-1673.
• Parties: Mondrea VINNING-EL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Scott LONG, Correctional Officer, David Reid, Correctional Officer, and John Doe, Sergeant and Lieutenant, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

482 F.3d 923

Mondrea VINNING-EL, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Scott LONG, Correctional Officer, David Reid, Correctional Officer, and John Doe, Sergeant and Lieutenant, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 06-1673.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Submitted January 17, 2007.^*

Decided March 27, 2007.

Mondrea Vinning-El (submitted), Mt. Sterling, IL, pro se.

Timothy McPike, Office of the Attorney General Civil Appeals Division, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Before BAUER, RIPPLE and WOOD, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM.

Illinois prisoner Mondrea Vinning-El brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claiming as relevant here that guards Scott Long and David Reid violated his Eighth Amendment rights by subjecting him to inhumane conditions of confinement in the disciplinary-segregation unit at Menard Correctional Center.¹ The district court granted summary judgment for the defendants based on their defense of qualified immunity, and Vinning-El appeals. We reverse the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

We recite the facts in the light most favorable to Vinning-El. After a fight with his cellmate on August 10, 2001, Vinning-El was stripped of his clothing and placed in a cell in the disciplinary-segregation unit. He was not permitted to take any personal property with him. The floor of the cell was covered with water, the sink and toilet did not work, and the walls were smeared with blood and feces. Vinning-El was forced to remain in the cell without a mattress, sheets, toilet paper, towels, shoes, soap, toothpaste, or any personal property, for six days. (Long and Reid contest the duration of his stay based on prison records that indicate Vinning-El was in the cell for three days only, but Vinning-El contends that those records are inaccurate.) Vinning-El alleges in his verified complaint that Long and Reid "perpetuated" the conditions.

On appeal Long and Reid now concede they were wrong to argue—and the district court was wrong to conclude—that reasonable prison guards could not have known in August 2001 that the conditions in the Menard segregation unit violated the Eighth Amendment. We agree with their concession since it was clearly established well before 2001 that the conditions Vinning-El describes, if true, deprived him of the "minimal civilized measure of life's necessities." See Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 347, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981). Any number of opinions overturning grants of summary judgment and remanding for trial on similar allegations confirm this proposition. See, e.g., Johnson v. Pelker, 891 F.2d 136, 139-40 (7th Cir.1989) (prisoner held for three days in segregation cell allegedly smeared with human feces and having no running water); Jackson v. Duckworth, 955 F.2d 21, 22 (7th Cir.1992) (prisoner held in cell that allegedly was filthy and smelled of human waste, lacked adequate heating, contained dirty bedding, and had "rusted out" toilets, no toilet paper, and black worms in the drinking water); Isby v. Clark, 100 F.3d 502, 505-06 (7th Cir.1996) (prisoner held in segregation cell that allegedly was "filthy, with dried blood, feces, urine and food on the walls"); see also Gillis v. Litscher, 468 F.3d 488, 493 (7th Cir.2006) (explaining that prisons must provide "reasonably adequate ventilation, sanitation, bedding, hygienic materials, and utilities" (quotation marks and citation omitted)); DeSpain v. Uphoff, 264 F.3d 965, 974 (10th Cir.2001) (concluding that exposure to human waste, even for 36 hours, would constitute sufficiently serious deprivation to violate Eighth Amendment).

Long and Reid argue, nevertheless, that we should uphold the grant of summary judgment because, in their view, Vinning-El failed to produce evidence that they were subjectively aware of the conditions in his cell. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (holding that Eighth Amendment claim is established if plaintiff proves that defendant was deliberately indifferent to an objectively serious condition). The defendants made this same argument in the district court, and we may affirm the judgment based on any ground found in the record. Hull v. Stoughton Trailers, LLC, 445 F.3d 949, 951 (7th Cir.2006). Our review is de novo, and we construe all facts in the light most favorable to Vinning-El, drawing all reasonable inferences in his favor. Gillis, 468 F.3d at 492. We will affirm only if there is no genuine issue of material fact and the defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Gillis, 468 F.3d at 492.

We start...