Walker v. Shansky

• Decision Date: 01 July 1994
• Docket Number: Nos. 90-2732,91-1870,s. 90-2732
• Citation: 28 F.3d 666
• Parties: Dwayne WALKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Dr. Ronald SHANSKY, Dr. Gandhy, Dr. R. Shroff, and Dr. Mark Carise, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 666

28 F.3d 666

Dwayne WALKER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Dr. Ronald SHANSKY, Dr. Gandhy, Dr. R. Shroff, and Dr. Mark

Carise, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

Nos. 90-2732, 91-1870.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Feb. 23, 1994.

Decided July 1, 1994.

Jerold S. Solovy, David C. Bohan, Andrew M. Jacobs (argued), Jenner & Block, Chicago, IL, John J. Kurowski, Kurowski & Courtney, Swansea, IL, for plaintiff-appellant.

Susan Frederick Rhodes, Asst. Atty. Gen. (argued), Karen Michels Caille, Asst. Atty. Gen., Civ. Appeals Div., Chicago, IL, for defendants-appellees.

Before FAIRCHILD, CUMMINGS, and BAUER, Circuit Judges.

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

Dwayne Walker, a prisoner in Centralia (Illinois) Correctional Center, filed two lawsuits against various medical and prison officials, alleging that his constitutional rights were violated by two forced injections of tranquilizing drugs and by his assignment to long-term segregation. In the first lawsuit, the defendants prevailed on summary judgment. After dismissing four defendants from the second lawsuit, the court below entered summary judgment against Walker and in favor of the remaining defendants. The two cases have been consolidated for purposes of appeal. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

During the relevant period, Walker was an inmate at the Centralia Correctional Center ("Centralia"). Walker suffers from several physical ailments, including hemophilia, avascular necrosis of the right hip, and a partially fused right ankle. Doctors have also diagnosed Walker as suffering from a borderline personality disorder which causes psychotic episodes and intermittent explosive behavior. As a result of his mental illness, Walker tried to dictate the terms of his medical treatment. He often refused to be treated as the physicians prescribed and instead requested large dosages of highly addictive pain medication. Attempts to control his outbursts through counseling and psychotherapy proved unavailing. Prison officials maintain that because of his medical problems, Walker was kept in isolation, segregated from the general prison population.

On April 8, 1988, in protest of what was, in his view, inadequate medical attention, Walker persisted in cursing and threatening prison staff and doctors. When medical personnel attempted to attend to him in his cell, Walker refused treatment. Walker then began urinating and defecating on the floor of the cell and smearing his feces on the walls and floor. Unamused by this artistic display, prison officials subdued Walker, strapped him into a wheelchair, and took him to the prison medical unit where he was introduced to Dr. Pravin Gandhy, a consulting psychiatrist at Centralia. Still in leather restraints, Walker continued to behave abusively and to thrash about. In Dr. Gandhy's opinion, Walker's behavior posed a threat to others and, due to his condition as a hemophiliac, to Walker himself. Dr. Gandhy recommended to Centralia Medical Director, Dr. Rajendra Shroff and to Centralia Warden, J. Ronald Haws that Walker be administered an injection of Haldol as a means of averting imminent injury. ¹ Dr. Gandhy also informed Dr. Shroff and Haws that Walker was incapable of consenting to the medication. Based on Dr. Gandhy's recommendations, in which Dr. Shroff concurred, Haws signed an Emergency Waiver of Consent Form as required under Illinois law. ² Subsequently, Walker was administered a dose of Haldol along with a dose of Cogentin to counter any side effects. In his first lawsuit (Walker I ), Walker alleged that this administration of Haldol was a violation of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment and that the failure to properly conform with the dictates of 730 ILCS 5/3-6-2(e) was a violation of due process under the Fourteenth Amendment.

Walker's second lawsuit (Walker II ) stemmed largely from events which transpired on August 10, 1988. On that day, Walker again began to engage in destructive and abusive behavior within his cell, hurling feces at prison officials and going so far as to start a flood in his cell. Wary of the damage which physical restraint might inflict on a hemophiliac and because the prior Haldol injection had been successful in subduing Walker, Dr. Gandhy recommended that another dosage be administered. Dr. Gandhy again requested that an Emergency Consent Waiver be granted. Haws obliged and Walker was administered another dose of Haldol and Cogentin. As in Walker I, Walker alleged that his constitutional rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments were violated by the forced administration of Haldol. In addition, Walker asserted that his placement in segregation for the ten months he was at Centralia was also a violation of his Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment rights.

In both Walker I and Walker II, the parties waived their rights to proceed before a United States District Judge, agreeing instead to entry of judgment by United States Magistrate Judge Gerald Cohn. Finding that both administrations of Haldol were compelled by medical emergencies and that placement of Walker in segregation was justified by his health, Magistrate Judge Cohn entered summary judgment in favor of the defendants.

II.

On appeal, Walker makes three arguments for reversal of the decisions below. He first contends that his Eighth Amendment claims based on the Haldol injections were erroneously resolved because there was a genuine issue of fact as to whether a medical emergency existed before each injection and as to whether Walker suffered from a borderline personality disorder. Second, he claims that his cause of action in Walker II presented a genuine dispute of fact as to whether the defendants made medical findings adequate to satisfy the Due Process Clause. Lastly, as he alleged in the proceedings below, Walker contends that the nature and duration of his confinement in segregation was unconstitutional under the Eighth Amendment. We consider, as a threshold matter, the issue of qualified immunity.

A. Qualified Immunity

In response to the claims arising from the Haldol injections, the defendants raise the defense of qualified immunity which protects government officers from liability for damages if their actions do not violate "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). The crucial inquiry under this standard is whether the contours of the alleged right were sufficiently clear at the time of the conduct so that a "reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). Before we proceed to the merits of Walker's action, we must determine whether in 1988, prisoners had a constitutional right to be free from the forced administration of antipsychotic drugs. "Whether a constitutional right is clearly established is a question of law we review de novo." Sherman v. Four County Counseling Center, 987 F.2d 397, 400 (7th Cir.1993).

Our decisions in Sullivan v. Flannigan, 8 F.3d 591, 596 (7th Cir.1993) and Williams v. Anderson, 959 F.2d 1411, 1416 (7th Cir.1992) provide significant guidance on the question of qualified immunity. In both cases, inmates at the Menard Correctional Center, brought Sec. 1983 actions against members of the prison's medical staff, claiming that their due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment had been violated by the forced administration of Haldol. We concluded that not until Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990), did the Supreme Court clearly establish the process to which a prisoner was constitutionally entitled before antipsychotic drugs could be administered. We held that for conduct occurring before the Supreme Court's decision in Harper, the defendants in both cases were, therefore, immune from a due process claim for damages. Sullivan, 8 F.3d at 596; Williams, 959 F.2d at 1416. Because the conduct in this case also arose before Harper was decided, the defendants are entitled to assert their qualified immunity and Walker's due process claim must fail.

A prisoner's Eighth Amendment rights concerning the forced injection of antipsychotic drugs were more defined. Since the Supreme Court's decision in Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), it had been clearly established that medical treatment of prisoners would amount to cruel and unusual punishment if the conduct demonstrated a "deliberate indifference" to the prisoner's condition and an "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain." Id. at 104-05, 97 S.Ct. at 291. This standard has been in place, relatively unchanged, since the Court's decision in Estelle. See, e.g., Kelley v. McGinnis, 899 F.2d 612, 616 (7th Cir.1990). Because the law here was clearly established, the defendants cannot avail themselves of the qualified immunity defense against alleged violations of the Eighth Amendment.

Having found that the defendants are entitled to the qualified immunity defense only on the due process claim, we proceed to review the two remaining Eighth Amendment claims to determine whether their disposition on summary judgment was appropriate.

B. Eighth Amendment Violations

We review a decision granting summary judgment de novo. Sherman v. Four County Counseling Center, 987 F.2d 397, 400 (7th Cir.1993). Summary judgment is appropriate when the record, viewed in a light most favorable to the nonmoving party, reveals that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). Once a party has moved for summary judgment, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party to show through specific evidence that a triable issue of fact remains on issues which the nonmovant bears the burden...