Young v. Martin

• Decision Date: 08 September 2015
• Docket Number: No. 13–4057.,13–4057.
• Citation: 801 F.3d 172
• Parties: Leonard G. YOUNG, Jr., Appellant, v. Jeffrey MARTIN, Deputy Superintendent Greene SCI, in his official and individual capacity; Louis S. Folino, Superintendent Greene SCI, in his official and individual capacity; Major Lorinda Winfield; Captain Anthony Gumbarevic, in his official and individual capacity; CO # 1 Moody, in his official and individual capacity.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

801 F.3d 172

Leonard G. YOUNG, Jr., Appellant

v.Jeffrey MARTIN, DeputySuperintendentGreene SCI, in his official and individual capacity; Louis S. Folino, SuperintendentGreene SCI, in his official and individual capacity; Major Lorinda Winfield; CaptainAnthony Gumbarevic, in his official and individual capacity; CO # 1 Moody, in his official and individual capacity.

No. 13–4057.

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued: Oct. 29, 2014.

Filed: Sept. 8, 2015.

Elizabeth F. Collura, Robert J. Ridge, (Argued), Clark Hill, Pittsburgh, PA, Counsel for Appellant.

Sandra A. Kozlowski, Kemal A. Mericli, (Argued)Office of Attorney General of Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, PA, Counsel for Appellees.

Before: McKEE, Chief Judge, GREENAWAY, JR., and KRAUSE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

KRAUSE, Circuit Judge.

Leonard G. Young, Jr., a Pennsylvania prisoner with a long history of mental illness, filed suit alleging that Appellees–Defendants¹ violated his Eighth Amendment rights by securing him in a four-point restraint chair, naked, for fourteen hours, although he did not pose a threat to himself or others.Because we agree with Young that the District Court erred as a matter of law in granting summary judgment against him, we will vacate the judgment and remand for further proceedings.

I.Factual Background

For over six years, Young has been held in solitary confinement, housed in either the Restrictive Housing Unit (“RHU”) or the mental health unit of different Pennsylvania prisons because of his extensive disciplinary history and history of mental illness.Since childhood, Young has been diagnosed with various forms of mental illness, including bipolar disorder and schizoaffective disorder.However, since his detention over these past several years in solitary confinement, consisting of isolation for 23 hours per day and one hour of recreation time in a solitary pen on weekdays, Young's symptoms of mental illness have intensified, including visual and auditory hallucinations, paranoid thoughts, throwing and smearing his own feces, episodes of self-harm, and suicidal impulses.Indeed, since living in these conditions of prolonged isolation, his numerous suicide attempts have included efforts to hang himself and to break his own neck by banging his head against the wall.

On the evening of September 20, 2009, while Young was confined in the RHU at State Correctional Institution (“SCI”)-Greene, his cell door was mistakenly unlocked and left open by a Corrections Officer (“CO”) in the control room.He exited his cell, walked up the stairs to the second tier of the RHU, and seated himself on an internal ledge above the law library.What next transpired was captured in the ordinary course by prison surveillance cameras and handheld video cameras operated by COs.²

When other inmates saw Young on the roof they began calling to him from their cells.In the meantime, Lieutenant Kirby and a group of COs gathered on the floor below Young.From his perch, Young shouted that he was protesting for prisoners' rights and for the return of some of his property.Two COs watching Young from the balcony chatted with each other and laughed as he talked.Young remained crouched on the roof voicing his complaints for approximately seven minutes before following the COs' orders to step back onto the second tier and to close himself inside the shower.Once there, he again complied with orders, placed his hands behind his back, and pushed his forearms through the shower tray slot so the COs could handcuff and then remove him, secured, from the shower.As the COs escorted him to the stairs, Young passively refused to walk by laying down on the ground.His ankles then were shackled and the COs carried him down the stairs.Young again passively refused to walk when they reached the bottom of the staircase.At no time throughout this incident did Young verbally threaten or attempt to physically engage any of the COs.

After the COs carried Young to a nearby corridor and placed him face down on the ground with his hands and ankles cuffed, four COs stood over him and further restrained his limbs.Young remained motionless on the ground and did not struggle during this process.However, rather than asking Young to submit to a routine strip search and although he had not spit on anyone, the COs placed a spit mask on him and cut off Young's clothes to perform a prone strip search.³Young complained but did not physically resist the search; no contraband was found.

After the search was complete, Young, naked, cuffed, and compliant, was hoisted to his knees and photographed for several minutes to record any injuries he may have sustained during the incident.While the pictures were taken, Lieutenant Kirby left the scene to obtain the requisite authorization for placing Young in a four-point restraint chair.Young repeatedly asked why he was going to be placed in a restraint chair, but received no answer.⁴When the restraint chair arrived, he was strapped into it, naked, and a smock was placed over his lap.Again, Young did not physically resist the COs but he did object to his treatment.He complained several times that the restraints were too tight and he cried out in pain while being strapped into the chair and again when he was wheeled to a psychiatric observation cell.Young also repeatedly asked that the smock on his lap be adjusted to fully cover his genitals, but the COs refused to comply with his request.

At approximately 8:46 p.m., Young was wheeled into the air-conditioned cell and left naked, except for the smock on his lap.Upon his arrival, a nurse determined that his straps were too tight and loosened them accordingly.As reflected in the reports generated over the time he spent in the psychiatric observation cell, medical personnel continued to monitor Young's condition.Around 11:00 p.m., Young told a nurse that he wanted to move his hands “a bit” and was “talkative and joking [with] staff in no distress” or pain.J.A. 193.Young fell asleep in the chair sometime after 1:20 a.m. and woke up at 5:20 a.m., requesting “a shot in the ass” of pain medication.J.A. 193, 196.He was “cooperative,” agreed to see a psychiatrist and take medication, and lamented the “next time”he would be in the restraint chair because “that's just how it is [with him].”J.A. 196.

Later in the morning, Young was still naked in the chair and became agitated because of his continued restraint.Upset, he told the COs that he would “act out” when released.J.A. 604.Because he was “loud” and “making demands,” prison officials declined to remove him from the restraint chair.J.A. 196.He was finally released a couple hours later once officials were satisfied that he had calmed down.

All told, Young was confined in the restraint chair from approximately 8:46 p.m. to approximately 10:30 a.m. the next morning—a nearly fourteen-hour period that significantly exceeded the two-hour maximum recommended by the chair's manufacturer and the eight-hour maximum, absent special authorization, permitted by the prison's regulations.SeeJ.A. 180.Upon release, Young was shaking uncontrollably and repeatedly complained that he was “cold down to his bones” because of the air conditioning blowing on his naked body for fourteen hours.J.A. 287.His legs were so numb that he could not walk, and he had to be wheeled back to the RHU in the chair.⁵As Defendants' counsel conceded at oral argument, there is no evidence in the record that anyone provided the requisite authorization to exceed the prison's eight-hour maximum.Oral Argument at 44:01–49:49, available at http://www2.ca3.uscourts.gov/oralargument/audio/13–4057Youngv.Martin,ët.al.mp3.

II.Procedural Background

Young initiated suit in March 2010 and, in August 2010, filed an amended complaint, claiming, among other things, that his placement in the restraint chair was purely punitive and constituted excessive force in violation of the Eighth Amendment.The Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that their actions were justified by Young's extensive disciplinary history.In addition, Young filed a motion to stay the proceedings pending the outcome of an investigative report by the Department of Justice(“DOJ”) regarding the treatment of mentally ill prisoners in the Pennsylvania prison system and also requested that the District Court provide him with funding for a mental health expert.

The District Court granted the Defendants' motion for summary judgment, denied Young's motion to stay, and declined to allocate funds for an expert.Focusing on Young's “paramount claim” that “Defendants violated his Eighth Amendment rights by subjecting him to a prolonged period of strict mechanical restraint in the restraint chair,”the District Court concluded that the “Defendants acted professionally and within constitutional parameters in subduing and placing Plaintiff in a restraint chair for about fourteen hours....”Young v. Beard,Civ. No. 10–0284, 2013 WL 5230796, at *8, *11(W.D.Pa.Sept. 17, 2013).Specifically, the District Court found that Young was “agitated” and the Defendants brought him “under control using minimal force” especially since he indicated he would “act out” when released and he was “violence-prone,” mentally ill, and suicidal.Id. at *11.The District Court also found the record lacked evidence that Young suffered “actual harm,” let alone “any risk of ‘serious' harm, considering not only the seriousness of the potential harm and the likelihood that the harm will actually occur, but any evidence that unwilling exposure to that risk violate[d] contemporary standards of decency.”Id. at *12.The District Court therefore concluded that the Defendants did not use excessive force and granted the Defendants' motion for summary judgment.Young timely appealed.

III.Jurisdiction and Standard of Review

The District Court had jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331.⁶We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.We exercise...