Webb v. Lawrence County

• Decision Date: 14 May 1998
• Docket Number: No. 96-2096,96-2096
• Citation: 144 F.3d 1131
• Parties: Douglas D. WEBB, Appellant, v. LAWRENCE COUNTY, South Dakota; Charles Crotty, in his individual capacity and official capacity as Lawrence County Sheriff, Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 1131

144 F.3d 1131

Douglas D. WEBB, Appellant, v. LAWRENCE COUNTY, South Dakota; Charles Crotty, in his individual capacity and official capacity as Lawrence County Sheriff, Appellees.

No. 96-2096.

United States Court of Appeals Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Dec. 10, 1996.

Decided May 14, 1998.

Steven James Morgans, Rapid City, SD, argued (Steven C. Beardsley, Rapid City, SD, on the brief), for Appellant.

Thomas E. Brady, Spearfish, SD, argued, for Appellees.

Before McMILLIAN, JOHN R. GIBSON and MAGILL, Circuit Judges.

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge.

Douglas D. Webb appeals from a final order entered in the District Court ¹ for the District of South Dakota granting summary judgment in favor of defendants Lawrence County, Charles Crotty, the sheriff of Lawrence County, and John Doe and Jim Doe, employees of the sheriff's department (collectively defendants), on his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 prisoner civil rights claim alleging an Eighth Amendment violation and dismissing his pendent state negligence claim. Webb v. Lawrence County, 950 F.Supp. 960 (D.S.D.1996) (memorandum opinion and order). For reversal, Webb argues the district court erred in (1) holding defendants were not deliberately indifferent to his safety as a matter of law (count I) and (2) dismissing his state negligence claim on the ground of sovereign immunity (count II). For the reasons discussed below, we affirm the judgment of the district court.

The district court had subject matter jurisdiction of this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action under 28 U.S.C. § 1343. The district court also had supplemental jurisdiction over the pendent state negligence claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1367. (In addition, there was an independent jurisdictional basis--diversity of citizenship under 28 U.S.C. § 1332--for the state negligence claim.) The notice of appeal was timely filed pursuant to Fed. R.App. P. 4(a)(1), and this court has appellate jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

The following statement of facts is taken in large part from the memorandum opinion and order of the district court. Webb and an accomplice committed various crimes in South Dakota and Wyoming. After Webb was apprehended, he spent several months in jail in Wyoming, and in October 1993 he was transferred to the Lawrence County jail to face the pending South Dakota charges. He was placed in maximum security. At the time Webb was 19 years old, about 5'4" tall and weighed about 120 pounds. Defendants did not place him in one of two minimum security sections in the jail because they wanted to separate him from his accomplice (the accomplice had been placed in one of two minimum security sections) and because the other minimum security section was full. Initially, Webb shared a cell with another inmate. Then Webb moved into a cell with Greg Wyman, another maximum security inmate. Apparently Webb's first cellmate was leaving the jail and Webb did not want to share a cell with incoming federal prisoners. Defendants knew that Wyman had been convicted of sex offenses, specifically, rape and sexual contact with a minor.

At night the maximum security cells are locked down. During the day the inmates can move around in the commons area. There is an emergency alarm button located in the commons area, but the alarm is not accessible when the cells are locked down at night. There is also a security surveillance camera in the maximum security section, but the camera does not provide a view inside the individual cells. Defendants stated that jailers checked the cells every 30 minutes; however, Webb stated that jailers only came into the cell block once a day.

Webb alleged that Wyman sexually assaulted him repeatedly. Webb did not tell anyone about the assaults because he believed Wyman had a knife and he was afraid Wyman would retaliate against him. After four days, Webb managed to leave a note in the cell bars just before lockdown informing the jailers that he had been sexually assaulted. Webb did not notify the jailers sooner because he could not think of a way to give them the note without alerting Wyman. Thirty minutes after discovering the note, the jailers moved Webb out of the cell.

In December 1994 Webb filed this civil rights action in federal district court against defendants alleging violations of his constitutional rights and state tort law. He alleged defendants demonstrated a reckless disregard for his constitutional rights by failing to protect him from inmate violence in violation of the Eighth Amendment (count I). He alleged defendants transferred him to Wyman's cell even though they knew Wyman was a sexual predator, failed to properly supervise the cell block, failed to develop adequate protection or policies to minimize or eliminate inmate sexual assaults, failed to stop double-celling inmates, and failed to adequately classify and segregate inmates. In his pendent state tort claim, ² Webb alleged essentially the same acts and omissions as those alleged in his constitutional claim. He specifically alleged that defendants failed to adequately protect him from inmate sexual assault, despite his obvious vulnerability to such assault because of his youth, physical size, and status as a new admittee to the jail.

Defendants filed a motion for summary judgment on count I and a motion to dismiss count II for failure to state a claim. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the constitutional claim (count I) because Webb failed to present any evidence that defendants had reason to suspect that inmates in the jail faced a substantial risk of sexual assault from other inmates. 950 F.Supp. at 965 (noting that although inmate rape and assault is pervasive in nation's prison system, pervasiveness is not sufficient to put defendants on notice of excessive risk of serious harm in absence of evidence or allegations that inmate rape was common occurrence in this jail). The district court also dismissed the state negligence claim (count II) because defendants were protected by sovereign immunity. Id. at 967. The district court held that the county had not waived sovereign immunity by purchasing liability insurance. Id. The district court also held that federal law did not preempt the sovereign immunity defense and that sovereign immunity did not deny a judicial remedy in violation of the state constitution's open courts provision, S.D. Const. art. VI, § 20, because Webb could file a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights action. 950 F.Supp. at 967. This appeal followed.

EIGHTH AMENDMENT CLAIM

Webb first argues the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendants on his constitutional claim (count I) because there was no evidence that defendants were deliberately indifferent to his safety as a matter of law. He argues that there was circumstantial evidence of a substantial risk of serious harm because defendants knew that Wyman was a sexual predator who obviously posed a substantial risk of serious harm especially to young and physically slight inmates. Webb argues defendants disregarded that obvious risk and thus failed to protect him from inmate assault. We disagree.

We review the grant of summary judgment de novo. The question before the district court, and this court on appeal, is whether the record, when viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, shows 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). The moving party bears the initial burden of identifying "those portions of 'the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any,' which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 Webb's constitutional claim is based on an alleged violation of his Eighth Amendment rights.

                L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (quoting Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c)).  Once the moving party has met this burden, the non-moving party cannot simply rest on mere denials or allegations in the pleadings;  rather, the non-movant "must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial."  Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(e);  Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. at 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548.   Although we view the facts in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, in order to defeat a motion for summary judgment, the non-movant cannot simply create a factual dispute;  rather, there must be a genuine dispute over those facts that could actually affect the outcome of the lawsuit
                

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution proscribes the infliction of "cruel and unusual punishments." The Supreme Court counsels that this amendment imposes upon prison officials the duty to "provide humane conditions of confinement." That duty, among other things, requires those officials to take reasonable measures to "protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners." The Eighth Amendment imposes this duty because being subjected to violent assaults is not "part of the penalty that criminal offenders pay for their offenses."

In order to prevail on an Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect claim, [an inmate] must make two showings. First, [the inmate] must demonstrate that [he or she is] "incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm." The second requirement concerns the state of mind of the prison official who is being sued. It mandates that the [inmate] show that the official "knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and [the official] must also draw the inference." This subjective requirement is necessary because "only the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain implicates the Eighth Amendment."

Jensen v. Clarke, 73 F.3d 808, 810 (8th Cir.1996) (citi...