Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-2_04-cv-02873/USCOURTS-azd-2_04-cv-02873-11/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Federal Question: Other Civil Rights

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The request for oral argument is denied because the parties have thoroughly discussed

the law and evidence and oral argument will not aid the Court’s decisional process. See

Mahon v. Credit Bur. of Placer County, Inc., 171 F.3d 1197, 1200 (9th Cir. 1999).

WO

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

Pearl Wilson, Personal Representative of

the Estate of Phillip Wilson, deceased;

and Terry and Pearl Wilson, surviving

parents of Phillip Wilson, 

Plaintiffs, 

vs.

Maricopa County, a public entity;

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, a

division of Maricopa County; Joseph M.

Arpaio, Maricopa County Sheriff, and

Ava Arpaio, his wife; Maria Leon and

John Doe Leon, her husband; Mark W.

Stump and Jane Doe Stump, his wife;

Rocky Medina and Jane Doe Medina, his

wife; and Mickie Curtis and Jane Doe

Curtis, his wife, 

Defendants.

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No. CV-04-2873-PHX-DGC

(Court of Appeals No. 06-17191)

ORDER

Defendant Arpaio has field a motion to stay this litigation on the basis of his

interlocutory appeal. Dkt. #300. Plaintiffs have responded with a motion asking the Court

to certify the appeal as frivolous. Dkt. #302. The Court will deny the Sheriff’s motion and

grant Plaintiffs’ motion.1

Case 2:04-cv-02873-DGC Document 311 Filed 12/19/06 Page 1 of 9
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I. Background.

Phillip Wilson was an inmate at a Maricopa County jail known as “Tent City.”

On July 22, 2003, Wilson was assaulted by other inmates and later died from his injuries.

Plaintiffs allege that Sheriff Arpaio is personally liable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating

Wilson’s Eighth Amendment rights and under state law for operating Tent City in a grossly

negligent manner. Dkt. #1.

On November 9, 2006, the Court denied summary judgment on Plaintiff’s § 1983 and

gross negligence claims against Sheriff Arpaio. Dkt. #296 at 3-12. The Court also denied

the Sheriff’s claim of qualified immunity, concluding that the Sheriff was not entitled to

immunity from suit under the three-part test set forth in Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001).

Dkt. #296 at 11-12. The Sheriff has appealed this qualified immunity ruling pursuant to 28

U.S.C. § 1291. Dkt. #297. 

II. Discussion.

Sheriff Arpaio requests that the Court stay the entire case pending the outcome of his

appeal because he “will be irreparably harmed if this matter proceeds through the pre-trial

process, and through trial, before he has a chance to prosecute his appeal.” Dkt. #300 at 1-2.

Plaintiffs argue that the Sheriff’s appeal is frivolous, and ask the Court to certify it as such

and proceed to trial on all remaining claims. Dkt. #302. The Sheriff counters that his appeal

has merit, arguing that the Court erred in ruling (1) that the law was clearly established,

(2) that a jury question exists on what a reasonable sheriff would think, and (3) that the

inquiry involves whether he would have been “mistaken about the law.” Dkt. #305 at 2. The

Court will address these arguments in turn.

A. Clearly Established Right.

The Court concluded in the summary judgment order that the right allegedly violated

was clearly established at the time of the assault. Dkt. #296 at 12 (citing Farmer v. Brennan,

511 U.S. 825, 832-33 (1994), and Flanders v. Maricopa County, 54 P.3d 837, ¶ 50 (Ariz. Ct.

App. 2002)). Sheriff Arpaio contends that the Court’s statement of the clearly established

right was “way too general.” Dkt. #305 at 2-3. The Court disagrees.

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See also Velez v. Johnson, 395 F.3d 732, 736 (7th Cir. 2005) (“There can be no

debate” that an inmate’s “right to be from deliberate indifference to rape and assault” by

other inmates is “clearly established”); Walsh v. Mellas, 837 F.2d 789, 801 (7th Cir. 1988)

(“[T]he parameters of the ‘right’ that the defendants violated are sufficiently clear in light of

prior decisional law.”) (citing Spence v. Staras, 507 F.2d 554, 557 (7th Cir. 1974) (“The

defendants, being responsible for the decedent’s care and safekeeping, had a duty to protect

him from attacks by fellow inmates.”)); Buckner v. Hollins, 983 F.2d 119, 123 (8th Cir.

1993) (“The Eighth Amendment right of an inmate to be free from cruel and unusual

punishment is well established, as [is] . . . a prison official’s Section 1983 liability for failure

to protect a prisoner from foreseeable attack or otherwise to guarantee his or her safety.”);

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The Court did not base its decision on a general Eighth Amendment right to be free

from cruel and unusual punishment. Rather, the Court held that Phillip Wilson had the

specific Eighth Amendment right to be free from a jail official’s deliberate indifference to

inmate-on-inmate assaults. Dkt. #296 at 12. This right is clearly established. See Farmer,

511 U.S. at 833 (“Having incarcerated ‘persons with demonstrated proclivities for antisocial

criminal, and often violent, conduct, having stripped them of virtually every means of selfprotection and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the government and its officials are not

free to let the state of nature take its course.”) (citation and alterations omitted); Hudson v.

Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27 (1984) (“Inmates have necessarily shown a lapse in ability to

control and conform their behavior to the legitimate standards of society by the normal

impulses of self-restraint; they have shown an inability to regulate their conduct in a way that

reflects either a respect for law or an appreciation of the rights of others. . . . Within this

volatile ‘community,’ prison administrators . . . are under an obligation to take reasonable

measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates themselves.”); Hydrick v. Hunter, 466 F.3d

676, 698 (9th Cir. 2006) (“Plaintiffs’ right to be protected and confined in a safe institution

[is] clearly established.”); Robinson v. Prunty, 249 F.3d 862, 866 (9th Cir. 2001) (“At the

time Robinson was attacked in the Calipatria prison yard in 1996, the law regarding prison

officials’ duty to take reasonable measures to protect inmates from violence at the hands of

other prisoners was ‘clearly established.’”); Flanders, 54 P.3d ¶ 50 (“Farmer acknowledged

the ‘settled’ proposition that a prison official’s deliberate indifference to a substantial risk

of serious harm to an inmate violates the Eighth Amendment.”).2

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Reece v. Groose, 60 F.3d 487, 491 (8th Cir. 1995) (“[P]rison officials [have a duty] to take

reasonable measures to abate substantial risks of serious harm, of which they are aware. . . .

That is the ‘clearly established constitutional right’ in this case.”).

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Sheriff Arpaio cites Stovall v. McAtee, 35 F. Supp. 2d 1125 (S.D. Ind. 1997), for the

proposition that “‘[t]he law’ that needs to be clearly established at the relevant time requires

a much more specific focus on the facts [he] faced at the time of the Wilson incident.”

Dkt. #305 at 3. The district court in Stovall held that the burden of identifying the clearly

established right “is most often met by referring the court to prior cases finding violations

of the Constitution under similar circumstances.” 35 F. Supp. 2d at 1128-29. The Supreme

Court has made clear, however, that “officials can still be on notice that their conduct violates

established law even in novel factual circumstances.” Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 741

(2002) (citing United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259 (1997)). True, “[t]he contours of the

right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is

doing violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). But this does

not mean “that an official action is protected by qualified immunity unless the very action

in question has previously been held unlawful[.]” Id. (citing Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S.

511, 535 n. 12 (1985)). “Precedent directly on point is not necessary to demonstrate that a

right is clearly established. Rather, if the unlawfulness is apparent in light of preexisting law,

then the standard is met. In addition, even if there is no closely analogous case law, a right

can be clearly established on the basis of common sense.” Giebel v. Sylvester, 244 F.3d

1182, 1189 (9th Cir. 2001) (citations and alterations omitted). This principle has been

recognized by numerous Ninth Circuit cases. See San Jose Charter of the Hells Angels

Motorcycle Club v. City of San Jose, 402 F.3d 962, 975 (9th Cir. 2005) (“There need not be

prior authority dealing with this precise factual situation in order to deny [the officer]

qualified immunity for his actions”); Deorle v. Rutherford, 272 F.3d 1272, 1285-86 (9th Cir.

2001) (“Although there is no prior case prohibiting the use of this specific type of force in

precisely the circumstances here involved, that is insufficient to entitle Rutherford to

qualified immunity: notwithstanding the absence of direct precedent, the law may be, as it

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See also City of San Jose, 402 F.3d at 970-71 (“‘To the extent that the defendants’

arguments quibble with the district court’s view of the facts, we do not consider them. We

view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs.’”) (citation omitted); Wilkins

v. City of Oakland, 350 F.3d 949, 951 (9th Cir. 2003) (“Where disputed facts exist, we will

determine if the denial of qualified immunity was proper by assuming that the version of

events offered by the non-moving party is correct.”); Martinez v. Stanford, 323 F.3d 1178,

1184 (9th Cir. 2003) (“The district court erred in its analysis of the reasonableness inquiry

of the second Saucier prong because it failed to view the evidence in the light most favorable

to the plaintiff, and instead resolved all material disputes in favor of the officers[.]”) (citation

omitted).

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was here, clearly established.”); Carnell v. Grimm, 74 F.3d 977, 979-80 (9th Cir. 1996)

(“The defendants argue that the right in question was phrased too broadly . . . . We do not

agree. . . . [I]f the issue needed to be defined more narrowly, it would allow ‘Appellants, and

future defendants, to define away all potential claims.’”) (quoting Kelley v. Borg, 60 F.3d

664, 667 (9th Cir. 1995)); Wood v. Ostrander, 879 F.2d 583, 592 (9th Cir. 1989) (“Ostrander

seemingly suggests that this case can be disposed of if it does not bear a strict factual

similarity to previous cases finding liability. However, this crabbed view of the [qualified]

immunity principle cannot withstand analysis.”); see also Muhammad v. San Joaquin County

Jail, No. CIV S-02-0006 LKK CMK P, 2006 WL 1282944, at *6 (E.D. Cal. May 10, 2006)

(“When identifying the right allegedly violated by defendants, a court must define the right

more narrowly than the constitutional provision guaranteeing the right, but more broadly than

the factual circumstances surrounding the alleged violation. For instance, a statement that

the Eighth Amendment guarantees medical care without deliberate indifference to serious

medical needs is a narrow statement of the right for conducting the clearly established

inquiry.”) (citing Watkins v. City of Oakland, 145 F.3d 1087, 1093 (9th Cir. 1998)).

The salient question, then, is whether the state of the law in July 2003 would have

provided a reasonable sheriff in Defendant Arpaio’s position with fair warning that his

conduct was unconstitutional. See Saucier, 533 U.S. at 206; City of San Jose, 402 F.3d at

975; Devereaux v. Abbey, 263 1070, 1075 (9th Cir. 2001) (en banc). When answering this

question, the Court must construe the evidence in Plaintiffs’ favor. See Saucier, 533 U.S. at

201.3

 So construed, the evidence shows that Sheriff Arpaio was deliberately indifferent to

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the risk of inmate-on-inmate assaults at Tent City. 

Plaintiffs presented evidence that Sheriff Arpaio has for many years been aware that

conditions at Tent City were likely to create a substantial risk of serious harm to inmates.

Dkt. #240 ¶¶ 80, 187. These conditions include a lack of security inherent in the use of tents,

inadequate staffing, officers abandoning their posts and making off-yard shift changes,

intentionally harsh inmate living conditions, and a lack of officer training. Dkt. #238

¶¶ 60-67, 77, 85-88, 140, 145; Dkt. #240 ¶¶ 81-82, 89-95, 110, 112-19, 184, 188. These

problems were known to the Sheriff through a variety of sources, including consultant

reports, concerns expressed by a County risk manager, and a prior state court case in which

the County and Sheriff Arpaio were held liable under § 1983 for an inmate assault at Tent

City. Dkt. #238 ¶¶ 60, 63-67, 86-88, 140; see Flanders, 54 P.3d 837 (affirming a jury verdict

against Sheriff Arpaio and holding that the lack of supervision and security measures at Tent

City supported the jury’s finding of deliberate indifference).

In summary, Phillip Wilson had the clearly established Eighth Amendment right to

be free from a jail official’s deliberate indifference to inmate-on-inmate assaults, and the

evidence presented by Plaintiffs, viewed in the light most favorable to Plaintiffs, shows that

Sheriff Arpaio was deliberately indifferent to this very risk. 

B. Denial of Qualified Immunity on Summary Judgment.

The Sheriff argues that “the inquiry of whether a reasonable sheriff could believe that

[the Sheriff’s] conduct was lawful was an objective inquiry for the Court, not a subjective

one for the jury.” Dkt. #305 at 9 (citing Act Up!/Portland v. Bagley, 988 F.2d 686, 873 (9th

Cir. 1993) (emphasis in original)). Although it is true that questions of qualified immunity

should be resolved as a matter of law when the facts are clear, disputed issues of material fact

concerning the knowledge and conduct of the officers in question prevent such a legal

resolution: “Where the officers’ entitlement to qualified immunity depends on the resolution

of disputed issues of fact in their favor, and against the non-moving party, summary

judgment is not appropriate.” Wilkins, 350 F.3d at 956; see Act Up!, 988 F.2d at 873; see

Marks v. Clarke, 102 F.3d 1012, 1026 (9th Cir. 1997). The inquiry in such a case “is not a

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If the Sheriff is arguing that he is entitled to immunity even when the evidence is

construed in Plaintiffs’ favor, the Court rejects this argument. As noted above, Plaintiffs

have produced facts suggesting that Defendant Arpaio was deliberately indifferent to the

safety of inmates at Tent City. Moreover, where “the law is clearly established, the

immunity defense ‘ordinarily should fail, since a reasonably competent public official should

know the law governing his conduct.’” Hydrick, 466 F.3d at 702.

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legal inquiry, but rather a question of fact best resolved by the jury.” Wilkins, 350 F.3d at

955.

Here, there are genuine issues of material fact regarding the conditions of confinement

at the time of the assault and what the Sheriff knew and did about them. See Dkt. #296. The

Court could not conclude on the basis of undisputed facts that a reasonable sheriff in

Defendant Arpaio’s position could have made a mistake as to what the law required with

respect to the safety of inmates at Tent City. Id. at 12. The disputed facts must therefore be

resolved by a jury. Wilkins, 350 F.3d at 955; Ortega v. O’Connor, 146 F.3d 1149, 1156 (9th

Cir. 1998).4

C. A Semantic Dispute.

The Court’s summary judgment order stated that if the constitutional right was clearly

established, and yet a reasonable person in the defendant’s position could have made a

mistake regarding “what the law required,” then the defendant would be entitled to qualified

immunity. Dkt. #296 at 12. Sheriff Arpaio claims that this is an incorrect statement of the

law: “The correct inquiry is, given the clearly established law[,] . . . whether a reasonable

officer in [the Sheriff’s] position could have believed that the Sheriff’s conduct was

constitutionally acceptable.” Dkt. #305 at 6-7 (emphasis in original).

This is a distinction without a difference. A reasonable officer who believes that his

“conduct” is constitutionally acceptable (Sheriff Arpaio’s formulation) necessarily believes

that his conduct conforms to “what the law requires” (the Court’s formulation). The question

for qualified immunity purposes is the same – whether such a belief could be objectively

reasonable under the circumstances. The Court’s formulation followed the Supreme Court’s

language in Saucier: “If the officer’s mistake as to what the law requires is reasonable, . . .

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the officer is entitled to [qualified] immunity[.]” 533 U.S. at 205 (emphasis added); see

Motley, 432 F.3d at 1077; Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 819 (1982).

D. Certification.

“Should a district court find that the defendants’ claim of qualified immunity is

frivolous or has been waived, the district court may certify, in writing, that defendants have

forfeited their right to pretrial appeal, and may proceed with trial.” Chuman v. Wright, 960

F.2d 104, 105 (9th Cir. 1992). A qualified immunity claim may be certified as frivolous if

the claim is “‘so baseless that it does not invoke appellate jurisdiction[.]’” Marks, 102 F.3d

at 1017-18 n.8 (quoting Apostol v. Gallion, 870 F.2d 1335, 1339 (7th Cir. 1989)). Stated

differently, an appeal from an order denying qualified immunity on summary judgment is

frivolous where the order “is so plainly correct that nothing can be said on the other side.”

Apostol, 870 F.2d at 1139; see also Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 325 (1989) (stating

that an issue is frivolous on appeal if it has “no arguable basis in fact or law”); Slack v.

McDaniel, 529 U.S. 473, 484 (2000) (stating that a district court may issue a certificate of

appealability only if there has been a showing that “reasonable jurists” would find the

district court’s ruling “debatable or wrong”). 

The Court concludes that Sheriff Arpaio’s interlocutory appeal is frivolous. The right

at issue was clearly established at the time of Phillip Wilson’s assault, and the evidence,

construed in Plaintiffs’ favor, shows that no reasonable sheriff in Defendant Arpaio’s

position could have believed that his conduct was lawful. This matter must proceed to trial.

Sheriff Arpaio’s qualified immunity appeal has no reasonable basis in fact or law. See Frunz

v. City of Tacoma, No. 05-35302, 2006 WL 3313989, at *4 n.10 (9th Cir. Nov. 13, 2006)

(ordering the defendants to show cause why they should not be sanctioned for filing a

frivolous appeal that included a claim of qualified immunity).

IT IS ORDERED:

1. Defendant Arpaio’s motion to stay trial court proceedings (Dkt. #300) is

denied.

2. Plaintiffs’ motion for certification that Defendant Arpaio’s appeal is frivolous

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(Dkt. #302) is granted.

3. Defendant Arpaio’s interlocutory appeal in this case (Dkt. #297) is certified

as frivolous.

4. The schedule set forth in the Court’s Order Setting Final Pretrial Conference

(Dkt. #299) shall remain in place.

5. The Clerk shall send a copy of this order to the Court of Appeals for the Ninth

Circuit (Case No. 06-17191).

DATED this 13th day of December, 2006.

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