Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-06-03843/USCOURTS-ca8-06-03843-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 06-3843

___________

Matthew P. Fuller, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* District of South Dakota.

Jeff Bloomberg, Secretary of *

Corrections, SDDOC; Doug Weber, * [UNPUBLISHED]

Warden, SDSP; Owen Spurrel, *

Associate Warden; Robert Rae, *

Unit Manager, SDSP; Dr. Regier, *

fnu, SDDH; G.D. Zike, Sr., Physician *

Assistant; Summers, fnu, Correctional *

Counselor, SDSP; Johnson, fnu, *

Correction Official, SDSP; Mary *

Burggraaf, Administrative Remedy *

Coordinator, SDSP; Justin, lnu, *

Mental Health Therapist, SDSP; *

Glen Dean, Mailroom Clerk, SDSP; *

Tracy Summers, Nurse, SDDH; *

Daughters, fnu, Corrections *

Counselor, SDSP; Any John or *

Jane Does, Correctional Officials, *

SDSP; Any John or Jane Does, *

Medical Officials, SDDH, *

*

Appellees. *

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Submitted: October 19, 2007

Filed: November 7, 2007

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Appellate Case: 06-3843 Page: 1 Date Filed: 11/07/2007 Entry ID: 3370398
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Before MURPHY, SMITH, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

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PER CURIAM.

Matthew P. Fuller appeals the district court’s preservice dismissal of his civilrights action and the denial of his Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) motion. We

affirm in part and remand in part. 

Fuller brought a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action claiming Eighth and First Amendment

violations. He alleged that he contracted Hepatitis C from a razor while incarcerated

at the South Dakota State Penitentiary (SDSP), that numerous SDSP officials were

deliberately indifferent by permitting cross-contamination between inmates’ razors,

that defendants failed to provide him with information regarding Hepatitis C, and that

the prison mail room rejected his incoming personal mail, specifically two packages

from his parents containing photocopied pages of information about Hepatitis C.

Upon de novo review, see Moore v. Sims, 200 F.3d 1170, 1171 (8th Cir. 2000)

(per curiam) (28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B) dismissal); Cooper v. Schriro, 189 F.3d 781,

783 (8th Cir. 1999) (per curiam) (28 U.S.C. § 1915A dismissal), we affirm the

dismissal of the deliberate-indifference claims. First, the SDSP policies that Fuller

alleged were in place--requiring prison staff to wear gloves when handling inmates’

razors and to place each inmate’s razors into a disinfected bin marked with the

inmate’s name and cell number--belie his assertion that defendants knew of but

deliberately disregarded an excessive health risk associated with razors. See Farmer

v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837-38 (1994) (deliberate-indifference standard in

conditions-of-confinement cases); cf. Butler v. Fletcher, 465 F.3d 340, 345-46 (8th

Cir. 2006) (where evidence demonstrated that County implemented policies

addressing serious health risk that tuberculosis poses to pretrial detainees, district

court properly dismissed deliberate-indifference claim against sheriff, even if sheriff

might have taken other reasonable measures to abate risk), cert. denied, 127 S. Ct.

Appellate Case: 06-3843 Page: 2 Date Filed: 11/07/2007 Entry ID: 3370398
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2128 (2007). Second, Fuller admitted in his complaint that only eight days after his

diagnosis, an officer gave him some information about the disease, and the complaint

attachments show that eleven days after the diagnosis the warden informed Fuller how

he could retrieve additional information. 

The district court did not address Fuller’s claim about his incoming personal

mail, even after Fuller brought this omission to the court’s attention in his Rule 59(e)

motion. Because a prisoner’s constitutional right to send and receive mail may be

restricted only to advance legitimate penological interests, see Phelps v. U.S. Fed.

Gov’t, 15 F.3d 735, 740 (8th Cir. 1994), we believe that the allegations sufficiently

stated a First Amendment claim to avoid preservice dismissal. 

Accordingly, we affirm the dismissal of the Eighth Amendment deliberateindifference claims. We remand the First Amendment mail claim for further

proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion. 

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