Walker v. Schult

• Decision Date: 29 May 2020
• Docket Number: 9:11-CV-287 (DJS)
• Citation: 463 F.Supp.3d 323
• Parties: Ellis WALKER, Plaintiff, v. Deborah SCHULT, Russell Perdue, and Jackii Sepanek, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

463 F.Supp.3d 323

Ellis WALKER, Plaintiff,

v.Deborah SCHULT, Russell Perdue, and Jackii Sepanek, Defendants.

9:11-CV-287 (DJS)

United States District Court, N.D. New York.

Signed May 29, 2020

OF COUNSEL: LEAH FRIEDMAN, ESQ., WILLIAM O. RECKLER, ESQ., BLAKE T. DENTON, ESQ., SHARON M. CASOLA, ESQ., GREGORY S. MORTENSON, ESQ., MEGAN A. BEHRMAN, ESQ., SINDHU BODDU, ESQ., AMANDA C. MEINHOLD, ESQ., LATHAM & WATKINS, LLP, Attorneys for Plaintiff, 885 Third Avenue, Suite 1000, New York, NY 10022.

OF COUNSEL: JAMES G. BARTOLOTTO, ESQ., KELLY E. HEIDRICH, ESQ., U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Specialized Tort Litigation, Attorneys for Defendants, 1425 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005.

OF COUNSEL: JEAN M. CUNNINGHAM, ESQ., U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Civil Division, Attorneys for Defendants, P.O. Box 7146, Ben Franklin Station, Washington, DC 20044.

POST-TRIAL DECISION AND ORDER

Daniel J. Stewart, U.S. Magistrate Judge

This Bivens action was tried before the Court in January 2020. On January 29, 2020, the Jury returned a verdict in favor of Plaintiff and against two of the Defendants, Dr. Deborah Schult and Jackii Sepanek,¹ who were, respectively, the Warden and a Counselor at the Federal Correctional Institution located at Ray Brook, New York, where Plaintiff was confined as an inmate. Dkt. No. 271. The Jury concluded that Plaintiff's conditions of confinement in Cell 127 at the Mohawk B Housing Unit, where Plaintiff was housed for 880 days, posed a substantial risk of serious damage to Plaintiff's health or safety, or that these conditions denied him the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities or basic human needs. Id. The Jury further concluded that Plaintiff had established that both Warden Schult and Counselor Sepanek were deliberately indifferent to the conditions that Plaintiff faced in his cell, and that their deliberate indifference was a proximate cause of injuries to Plaintiff. Id. Plaintiff was awarded $20,000 in compensatory damages. Id.

At the close of Plaintiff's proof, counsel for Defendants made a Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's claim pursuant to FED. R. CIV. P. 50. Dkt. Nos. 273 through 273-6, Trial Transcript ("Tr."), at pp. 994-1002.² Consistent with accepted practice in the Second Circuit, the Court reserved decision and permitted the case to go to the Jury. See , e.g. , Vasquez v. New York City Dep't of Educ. , 2015 WL 3619432, at *3 (S.D.N.Y. June 10, 2015) ("District courts generally reserve judgment and submit the case to the jury so that, in the event the court of appeals reverses the judgment as a matter of law, the need for a second trial will be avoided.") (internal quotation omitted); Tr. at p. 1002. That Motion was then renewed by Defendants at the close of all the proof and the Court once again reserved. Tr. at pp. 1096-1099. The case then went to verdict with the Jury.

Defendants’ Rule 50 Motion has three components. First, Defendants maintain that a Bivens prison condition case such as this is not recognized by the Supreme Court as actionable. Second, even if such a Bivens claim may proceed, Defendants maintain that an Eighth Amendment violation was not established by the facts presented at trial by Plaintiff. Finally, Defendants argue that, based upon the facts and the law, both Warden Schult and Counselor Sepanek are entitled to the defense of qualified immunity. See generally , Dkt. No. 200, Defs.’ Trial Brief; Dkt. No. 216, Defs.’ Renewed Mot. For S.J.; Tr. at pp. 994-1002, 1096-1099; & Dkt. No. 275, Defs.’ Post-Trial Letter Brief at pp. 1-17. In the event that the Court rules that Plaintiff's claim should stand, and that one or both of the Defendants are denied qualified immunity, Defendants move under Rule 59(e) to reduce the $20,000 award of the Jury to $1.00, based upon Plaintiff's failure to prove any physical injury as a result of the unconstitutional conduct. Defs.’ Post-Trial Letter Brief at pp. 17-19.

Plaintiff opposes these Motions. Dkt. No. 111, Pl.’s Mem. of Law in Opp. to Defs.’ Renewed Mot. for S.J.; Dkt. No. 228, Pl.’s Trial Brief; Tr. at pp. 997-1002; & Dkt. No. 276, Pl.’s Post-Trial Letter Brief at pp. 1-11. His position is that the Jury's verdict finding an Eighth Amendment violation was fully supported by competent and admissible evidence; that a Bivens action is properly stated under the authority of Carlson v. Green , 446 U.S. 14, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980) ; and that qualified immunity would not apply as each Defendant was found to have acted with deliberate indifference and, as such, they could not have acted with objective reasonableness. Id. Plaintiff also opposes any reduction in the Jury verdict award and maintains that any claimed limitation under the Prison Litigation Reform Act ("PLRA") has been waived by Defendants’ failure to raise this issue as an affirmative defense in their Answer. Id.

For the reasons that follow, Defendants’ Motions are denied.

I. THE RULE 50 STANDARD

A district court may set aside a jury's verdict pursuant to Rule 50 only where there is such a complete absence of evidence supporting the verdict that the jury's findings could only have been the result of sheer surmise and conjecture, or there is such an overwhelming amount of evidence in favor of the movant that reasonable and fair minded men could not arrive at a verdict against him.

Bucalo v. Shelter Island Union Free Sch. Dist. , 691 F.3d 119, 127-28 (2d Cir. 2012) (internal quotations omitted). When evaluating a motion under Rule 50, courts are required to "consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the party against whom the motion was made and to give that party the benefit of all reasonable inferences that the jury might have drawn in his favor from the evidence." Tolbert v. Queens Coll. , 242 F.3d 58, 70 (2d Cir. 2001) (quoting Smith v. Lightning Bolt Prods., Inc. , 861 F.2d 363, 367 (2d Cir. 1988) ). "The court cannot assess the weight of conflicting evidence, pass on the credibility of the witnesses, or substitute its judgment for that of the jury." Id. In addition, the Court "must disregard all evidence favorable to the moving party that the jury is not required to believe." Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prod., Inc. , 530 U.S. 133, 151, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000). "In assessing defendants’ sufficiency challenge, we review the trial evidence not only in the light most favorable to [Plaintiff], but also mindful that defendants operated under an affirmative duty to protect those held in their custody." Cash v. Cty. of Erie , 654 F.3d 324, 335 (2d Cir. 2011) (internal quotations and citations omitted).

II. BIVENS EIGHTH AMENDMENT PRISON CONDITION CLAIMS

In 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Congress provided a specific damages remedy for plaintiffs whose constitutional rights are violated by state officials. No such statutory remedy was provided for constitutional claims against federal officials acting under color of federal law. Nevertheless, in 1971 in Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents , 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971), the Supreme Court recognized an implied damages action to compensate persons injured by federal officers who violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures. In the following decade, the Supreme Court expressly allowed Bivens -type remedies twice more, in a Fifth Amendment gender discrimination case, Davis v. Passman , 442 U.S. 228, 99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846 (1979), and in an Eighth Amendment Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause case, Carlson v. Green , 446 U.S. 14, 100 S.Ct. 1468, 64 L.Ed.2d 15 (1980). In the forty years since Carlson , the Supreme Court has sharply limited other types of implied damages remedies under the Constitution. See Ziglar v. Abbasi , ––– U.S. ––––, 137 S. Ct. 1843, 1855, 198 L.Ed.2d 290 (2017). Any effort to extend Bivens , Davis , or Carlson , is now considered a "disfavored" judicial activity. Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 675, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009).

The Supreme Court has articulated a two-part test for determining whether a Bivens remedy should be extended: "We first inquire whether the request involves a claim that arises in a ‘new context’ or involves a ‘new category of defendants.’ " Hernandez v. Mesa , ––– U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 735, 743, 206 L.Ed.2d 29 (2020) (quoting Corr. Servs. Corp. v. Malesko , 534 U.S. 61, 68, 122 S.Ct. 515, 151 L.Ed.2d 456 (2001) ). "When we find that a claim arises in a new context, we proceed to the second step and ask whether there are any special factors [that] counse[l] hesitation about granting the extension." Id. (internal quotations and citations omitted). "If there are - that is, if we have reason to pause before applying Bivens in a new context or to a new class of defendants - we reject the request." Id.

In Abbasi , the Supreme Court addressed the threshold question, holding that the "proper test" to determine whether the claim is asserting a Bivens remedy in a new context is to ask whether "the case is different in a meaningful way from previous Bivens cases." Ziglar v. Abbasi , 137 S. Ct. at 1859. The Court then provided a non-exhaustive list of "differences that are meaningful enough to make a given context a new one":

A case might differ in a meaningful way because of [1] the rank of the officers involved; [2] the constitutional right at issue; [3] the generality or specificity of the official action; [4] the extent of judicial guidance as to how an officer should respond to the problem or emergency to be confronted; [5] the statutory or other legal mandate under which the officer was operating; [6] the risk of disruptive intrusion by the Judiciary into the functioning of other branches; or [7] the presence of potential special factors that previous Bivens cases did not consider.

Id.

Applying the Abbasi analysis,³ the Court concludes that the present prison condition case does not present a "new context," when considered against both Carlson v. Green , and importantly, the...