Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-95-04022/USCOURTS-ca10-95-04022-0/pdf.json

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

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PUBLISH 

. FILED Vnited State~ Court or Appeals 

Teatll Circuit 

AUG 1 6 1996 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

MIKE LEE GRIMSLEY, 

Plaintiff- Appellee, 

vs. 

TERRY MACKAY, Inmate; WILLARD 

EAST, Officer; UTAH DEPARTMENT 

OF CORRECTIONS; GARY DELAND, 

Executive Director, Utah Department of 

Corrections, 

Defendants, 

vs. 

DON TAYLOR, Lieutenant, Officer Utah 

State Department of Corrections; JOE 

HUGHES, Officer; JOHN IRONS, 

Officer; KEN HOGGAN; CHAD 

TAYLOR; GERALD COOK; FRED 

VANDER VEUR; TOM T. HOUSE, 

Defendants - Appellants. 

PATRICK FISHER 

Oerk 

Nos. 95-4022 

95-4078 

(Consolidated) 

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH 

(D.C. No. 90-CV-1030-W) 

Appellate Case: 95-4022 Document: 01019279726 Date Filed: 08/16/1996 Page: 1 
Frank D. Mylar, Assistant Attorney General, State of Utah (Jan Graham, Attorney 

General, State of Utah, and Elizabeth King, Assistant Attorney General, State of Utah, 

with him on the briefs), Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendants-Appellants. 

Brian M. Barnard (Joro Walker, with him on the briefs), of the Utah Legal Clinic, Salt 

Lake City, Utah, for Plaintiff-Appellee. 

Before KELLY, LOGAN and ENGEL, 1 Circuit Judges. 

KELLY, Circuit Judge. 

Several past and present officers and administrators of the Utah State Department 

of Corrections ("Defendants") appeal from the magistrate judge's orders awarding 

damages in favor of Plaintiff Mike Grimsley in his civil rights action against Defendants, 

42 U.S.C. § 1983. The parties consented to disposition ofthis case by the magistrate 

judge. See 28 U.S.C. § 636(c)(l). We therefore review the magistrate judge's decision 

without intervening consideration by the district court, 28 U.S.C. §§ 636(c)(3), and 

reverse. 

Jurisdiction 

This case began when Mr. Grimsley filed two suits under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, one 

against the Defendants House, VanDer Veur and Cook ("Administrators") and one 

against Defendants Don Taylor, Hughes, Irons, Hoggan and Chad Taylor ("Officers"). 

1

The Honorable Albert J. Engel, Senior United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, 

sitting by designation. 

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The magistrate judge consolidated the two cases, after which the cases proceeded as one, 

with Administrators and Officers treated as one group of defendants and all further 

docketing appearing under one case number. Defendants filed their first notice of appeal 

on January 25, 1995, Aplt. App. 187, after the magistrate judge entered his findings of 

fact and conclusions of law, Aplt. App. 80. Defendants' notice of appeal ripened on 

February 8, 1995 when the magistrate judge entered judgment on the findings and 

conclusions. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(2). The February 8, 1995 judgment included an 

award of attorney fees. Although Defendants are deemed to have timely filed their notice 

of appeal, they failed to "specifY the party or parties taking the appeal" as required by 

Fed. R. App. P. 3(c), but rather listed "TERRY MACKAY, et al." as the Appellants. 

Aplt. App. 187. Mr. MacKay was a settling defendant, not a party to the appeal. We then 

ordered the parties to address whether the court properly had jurisdiction over all 

defendants. 

Defendants' attorneys dismissed this jurisdictional concern as a "non-issue." Aplt. 

Mem. Br. at 2. We do not view Defendants' right to appeal, nearly lost by the failure to 

heed our rules, as a non-issue. Fortunately for Defendants, they have perfected their right 

to appeal, albeit accidentally and notwithstanding the later filed notices of appeal 

purporting to cover the relevant judgments. 

The Supreme Court has recognized that courts may find compliance with Rule 3 

"if the litigant's action is the functional equivalent of what the rule requires." Torres v. 

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Oakland Scavenger Co., 487 U.S. 312, 316-17 (1988). Amended Rule 3( c) allows for a 

notice of appeal to be effective, even if all parties to the appeal are not named, if "it is 

objectively clear that a party intended to appeal." Fed. R. App. P. 3, advisory committee 

note, (1993 Amendment, note to subdivision (c)). Even prior to the amendment, we have 

held that documents other than the notice of appeal filed within the appropriate period, 

such as a docketing statement, may cure defects in the notice of appeal. See Ayala v. 

United States, 980 F .2d 1342, 1344 (1Oth Cir. 1992). In this case, Defendants filed a 

docketing statement on February 15, 1995, which was within the time allotted to file an 

appeal from the February 8, 1995 judgment. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(l). The docketing 

statement lists as the parties filing the appeal "Officers, Don Taylor, John Irons, Joe 

Hughes, Ken Hoggan, and Chad Taylor; and Administrators, Gerald Cook, Tom House 

and Fred VanDerVeur," leaving no doubt as to which parties intended to appeal and 

curing the defect in the notice of appeal. The premature notice of appeal ripened upon 

filing of the judgment and was supplemented by the docketing statement. Therefore, we 

have jurisdiction over the February 8, 1995 judgment. 

The district court's amended judgment, entered March 8, 1995, merely awards 

Plaintiff post-judgment interest accruing from September 14, 1994 and in no way alters 

our jurisdiction over the case. Post-judgment interest automatically accrues from the date 

of judgment even absent an express statutory provision so providing or express inclusion 

in the judgment itself. See 28 U.S.C. § 1961(a); Christian v. Joseph, 15 F.3d 296,298 

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Appellate Case: 95-4022 Document: 01019279726 Date Filed: 08/16/1996 Page: 4 
(3rd Cir. 1994). We urge all who venture into the federal courts to carefully familiarize 

themselves with our rules lest they embarrass themselves and jeopardize the claims of 

their clients. 

Background 

On February 18, 1990, prison guards at the Utah State Prison in Draper, Utah, 

released a prisoner named MacKay from his cell into the common area of the maximum 

security unit in order to mop up water. Plaintiff Grimsley, also an inmate in the 

maximum security unit, had flooded the unit by causing his sink and toilet to overflow 

beyond the parameters of his cell. Shortly after MacKay's release into the common area, 

Officer Irons noticed MacKay banging the mop wringer, ordered MacKay to return to his 

cell and called for assistance to Officers Hughes and Hoggan, who arrived shortly 

thereafter. Prison regulations prohibited Officers Hughes and Hoggan from forcibly 

engaging MacKay until a team of at least three and preferably five officers had 

assembled. See Aplee. Supp. App. 249 (FG 25/02.04(A)(4)(a)). Prison regulations also 

prohibited Officer Irons and Officer Chad Taylor, control room officers, from leaving 

their respective control rooms unattended in order to assist Hughes and Hoggan subdue 

MacKay. Aplt. App. at 209, 304. Officer Hughes telephoned Officer Don Taylor, who 

was the duty officer in charge of the prison that day. While Officer Don Taylor was 

rushing to the scene, MacKay approached Plaintiffs cell and began banging the mop 

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Appellate Case: 95-4022 Document: 01019279726 Date Filed: 08/16/1996 Page: 5 
wringer against the cell door. When the wringer was destroyed, MacKay retrieved a 

metal-edged "squeegee" and began banging it against the window of Plaintiffs cell door. 

Believing himself immune from any physical danger, Plaintiff taunted and jeered 

MacKay. The window on Plaintiffs door soon shattered and MacKay threw the 

squeegee into Plaintiffs cell. Plaintiff continued to taunt MacKay, who proceeded to 

retrieve the long wooden handle of a scrub brush, return to Plaintiffs cell and throw the 

handle through the broken window of Plaintiffs cell. Plaintiff and MacKay threw the 

handle back and forth through the window, until MacKay's aim enabled him to strike 

Plaintiff directly in the head, crushing Plaintiffs eye. Plaintiff lost sight in the eye and 

now wears a glass eye. A sufficient number of officers congregated at the scene shortly 

after MacKay injured Plaintiff, but MacKay had already ceased his behavior and returned 

to his cell. 

Discussion 

We review a judgment rendered by a magistrate judge pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 

636(c) using the same standard applied to a judgment rendered by a district judge. Estate 

of Toyota of Jefferson. Inc. v. Vallette (Matter of Toyota of Jefferson. Inc.), 14 F.3d 

1088, 1090 (5th Cir. 1994). Thus, we apply the clearly erroneous standard to the 

magistrate judge's findings of fact and review de novo questions oflaw and mixed 

questions of law and fact. I d. A finding of fact is clearly erroneous if it is without 

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factual support in the record, Gant v. Grand Lodge ofTexas, 12 FJd 998, 1004 (lOth Cir. 

1993), cert. denied, 114 S. Ct. 1834 (1994), or, where "there is evidence to support it, [if] 

the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with a definite and firm conviction that a 

mistake has been committed." Hildebrand v. Comm'r oflntemal Revenue, 28 F.3d 1024, 

1026 (lOth Cir. 1994) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co., 333 U.S. 364, 

395 (1948)). 

I. Administrators' Liability 

The Eighth Amendment protects prisoners against cruel and unusual punishment, a 

right interpreted to impose a duty on prison officials to protect prisoners in custody from 

violence at the hands of other prisoners. Farmer v. Brennan, 114 S. Ct. 1970, 1976-77 

( 1994 ). However, in order to successfully assert a § 1983 claim under the Eighth 

Amendment for failure to protect, a plaintiff must show personal involvement or 

participation in the incident. Mitchell v. Maynard, 80 FJd 1433, 1441, (lOth Cir. 1996). 

Supervisor status alone is insufficient to support liability, id.; see also Randle v. Parker, 

48 F .3d 301, 303 (8th Cir. 1995); a supervisor is not liable under § 1983 for the actions of 

a subordinate unless an "affirmative link" exists between the constitutional deprivation 

and either the supervisor's personal participation or his failure to supervise, Butler v. City 

ofNorman, 992 F.2d 1053, 1055 (lOth Cir. 1993). 

The magistrate judge made the following factual findings: Administrator Cook 

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was warden of the Utah State Prison until 1989, at which time he was promoted to 

Director of Institutional Operations; Administrator Cook "specifically discussed in 1989 

the fact that training in the use of non-lethal weapons was needed"; Administrator House 

was deputy warden from 1984-89 but, by the time Mr. Grimsley was injured, he had been 

assigned to direct the department of Adult Probation and Parole and "had no supervisory 

control or responsibility over" any member of the prison staff; Administrators Cook, 

House and Van Der Veur in the past had been responsible for making decisions and 

reviewing all proposed training programs and all training actually provided to the guards; 

in a memo dated October 26, 1989, Administrator Cook acknowledged the need to train 

prison guards in the use of non-lethal weapons; the Administrators knew that fights 

occurred in the prison that could result in bodily injury or death; the regulations partially 

formulated and reviewed by the Administrators prevented an officer not certified in the 

use of non-lethal weapons from deploying such weapons; and "[d]eployment of the water 

hose, the Mark 70 Stun Gun or aerosol mace would have diverted MacKay's attention 

and would have halted MacKay's attack of Grimsley before MacKay injured Grimsley's 

right eye." Aplee. Br. ex. A at 19-23. Based on these factual findings, the magistrate 

judge concluded that Administrators Cook and VanDer Veur's "conduct in not providing 

or ensuring that the officers received training on the use of readily available non-lethal 

weapons," and Administrator House's "conduct in helping draft the regulations requiring 

training ... in the use of non-lethal weapons and then ... disregarding the obligation to 

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Appellate Case: 95-4022 Document: 01019279726 Date Filed: 08/16/1996 Page: 8 
ensure that the officers received appropriate training," both constituted "a reckless and 

callous indifference" to Mr. Grimsley's constitutional rights. Id. at 29-30. 

Accepting the magistrate judge's factual findings as not clearly erroneous, we hold 

that the Administrators' involvement in the incident in which Mr. Grimsley was injured is 

insufficient as a matter of law to support either personal or supervisory liability under § 

1983. See Mitchell, 80 F.3d at 1441. Although the Administrators at various times 

exercised responsibility over the creation and modification of the training programs used 

at the prison in the years preceding the incident, the uncontroverted facts indicate that not 

one of the Administrators was personally involved or ever supervised any of the Officers 

involved in the incident during which Mr. Grimsley was injured. Administrator House 

had ceased working at the prison facility the year preceding the incident and, when he 

returned to the prison in 1990, was assigned to work with Adult Parole and Probation, a 

position devoid of any supervisory or training responsibilities. Aplt. App. at 317-318. 

From January 1989 through March 1992, Administrator Cook was the prison's director of 

institutional operations, a position charged with administering the prison's culinary, 

medical, grievance and other services but with no responsibility to train or supervise 

officers. Id. at 234-37. Administrator Cook's 1989 memo, in which he merely requests 

training for the officers in non-lethal weapons, fails to establish the requisite affirmative 

personal link to impose liability. Administrator Van Der Veur no longer worked at the 

facility by the time Plaintiff was injured, but rather was employed as warden at a different 

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pnson. 

The Administrators in no way personally participated in the incident in which Mr. 

Grimsley was injured. Past input into the formulation of prison regulations or 

acknowledgment of a general need to train guards is a connection far too attenuated to 

support liability under § 1983. Otherwise liability conceivably could be imposed upon 

any administrator who had ever contributed to the officers' training program no matter 

how far removed he is from the prison or the incident in question. At some point, one's 

involvement simply becomes too tenuous to support liability. 

II. The Officers' Liability 

Unlike the Administrators, the Officers were personally involved in the incident in 

which Plaintiff was injured and, if the requisite facts were established, could be held 

liable. See Mitchell, 80 F .3d at 1440-41. The Supreme Court has instructed that to 

establish an Eighth Amendment claim based on a failure to prevent harm, the inmate must 

show that ( 1) he is incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm, 

and (2) prison officials acted with a sufficiently culpable state of mind, known as 

"deliberate indifference." Farmer, 114 S. Ct. at 1977. Under the uncontroverted facts of 

this case, Plaintiffs claim fails to satisfy the first element of the Farmer test. 

Accordingly, we need not discuss whether Mr. Grimsley's claim satisfies the second. 

This case concerns the constitutionality of a response by prison officials to a 

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disturbance caused by unruly inmates MacKay and Plaintiff. The magistrate judge found: 

Defendants knew or should have known that MacKay was capable of breaking a cell door 

window; MacKay was armed and "plaintiff was at great peril" because he was not taking 

appropriate measures to defend himself; Defendants could have deployed the fire hose, 

the Mark 70 Stun Gun or chemical agents to effectively defend Plaintiff; both 

Defendants' and Plaintiffs experts acknowledged that use of non-lethal weapons against 

MacKay would have been appropriate when he was retrieving the scrub brush handle 

before injuring Mr. Grimsley; and MacKay would have ended his rampage and returned 

to his cell had he seen the Mark 70 Stun Gun that might be deployed against him. Aplee. 

Br. ex. A at 13, 16-19. Based on these findings of fact, the magistrate judge concluded 

that the Officers' failure "to take action that would have ended MacKay's attack ... 

amounts to recklessly disregarding the risk of harm to plaintiffs safety;" their "conscious 

decision to withhold protection in the face of an unjustifiably high risk of harm to 

plaintiff, caused plaintiff to suffer the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain;" and 

"MacKay's assault of plaintiff was the direct and foreseeable result of the defendant 

officers ... failure to protect." Id. at 28-29. 

There exists no precise definition of those types of conditions of confinement that 

violate the first prong of the Farmer test by "posing a substantial risk of serious harm." 

Farmer, 114 S. Ct. at 1977. A prisoner must demonstrate that the deprivation was 

sufficiently serious and that "a prison official's act or omission ... result[ed] in the denial 

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of 'the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities."' I d. (quoting Rhodes v. Chapman, 

452 U.S. 337, 347 (1981)). This is an objective standard. Such conditions have been 

found to exist where prison officials disregard repeated warnings of danger to a particular 

prisoner and continually refuse to make the situation safer, for example by either 

separating the prisoner from other inmates who previously have attacked him on multiple 

occasions, see Hayes v. New York City Dep't of Corrections, 84 F.3d 614 (2d Cir. 1996); 

Horton v. Cockrell, 70 F.3d 397, 399 (5th Cir. 1995), or providing adequate safety 

apparatus on an obviously dangerous machine, Bagola v. Kindt, 39 F.3d 779, 780 (7th 

Cir. 1994 ). In such cases, prison officials have a constitutional duty to take reasonable 

measures to protect prisoners against current threats of attack and other "'sufficiently 

imminent dangers' ... likely to cause harm." Horton, 70 F.3d at 401 (quoting Helling v. 

McKinney, 113 S. Ct. 2475,2480-81 (1993)). 

In this case, Plaintiff simply cannot show that he was incarcerated under 

conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm. Our review of the entire record 

convinces us that any factual findings to the contrary are without support in the record 

and therefore are clearly erroneous. Gant, 12 F.3d at 1004. Every witness for the 

defendants repeatedly testified that they believed MacKay posed no threat to Plaintiff 

because Plaintiff was safely locked behind the steel door ofhis cell and, moreover, that 

they had never heard of or witnessed any prisoner locked inside a maximum security cell 

sustaining an injury inflicted by an aggressor located outside the cell. See I Supp. R. 234, 

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236; II Supp. R. 538-39; III Supp. R. 692,699-700,713,717,718-19,743-46, 754; VI 

Supp. R. 1250, 1338-39. According to these witnesses, the fact that the window in the 

cell door had been broken out did not increase the likelihood that MacKay would injure 

Plaintiff. I Supp. R. 234; III Supp. R. 744-45; VI Supp. R. 1339. Defendant's expert 

witness concurred in these views, V. Supp. R. 1031-33, 1125, 1133, and further testified 

that he had never seen nor heard of a prisoner using a mop handle as a weapon, id. at 

1119-20. We find that Plaintiff, securely locked by himself in a maximum security cell, 

was not confined under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm 

notwithstanding the fact that an inmate located outside the cell succeeded in inflicting 

injury upon him. 

The evidence further indicates that Plaintiff likewise perceived himself to be 

immune from harm due to his confinement behind the steel barrier of his maximum 

security cell. MacKay's only weapon was a mop handle which, together with the 

diameter of the aperture of the window permitting contact between Plaintiff and MacKay, 

suggests that Plaintiffhad many ways to protect himself from serious harm. He could 

have placed his mattress against the broken window as a shield; retreated into the depths 

of his cell; crawled under his bed; crouched beneath the broken window against the steel 

door to avoid exposure to MacKay; or turned his back to MacKay and covered his head 

and neck area. The evidence shows that instead of protecting himself Plaintiff placed 

himself in a position of danger and even continued to taunt MacKay and poke at MacKay 

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through the broken window. He neithe~ recognized nor anticipated the harm that 

occurred. The fact that MacKay injured Plaintiff, standing alone, is not nearly enough to 

satisfy this first prong of the Farmer test. Any factual findings to the contrary are clearly 

erroneous. 

The prison regulations further suggest that Plaintiffs incarceration in his solitary 

maximum security cell did not constitute conditions posing a substantial risk of serious 

harm. The regulations call for the immediate deployment of nonlethal force in three 

situations: (1) an inmate injuring another inmate while both are in a common cell; (2) an 

inmate injuring another while both are in a common area; and (3) an inmate causing 

damage to the facility while in a common area. Aplee. Supp. App. 252 (FG 25/03.0I(C)). 

The fact that these regulations do not apply to the situation involved in this case, i.e., an 

inmate in the common area attempting to inflict injury on an inmate securely locked in a 

maximum security cell, indicates that such a situation was not perceived to be one that 

posed a substantial risk of injury to an inmate. 

As the magistrate judge correctly noted, various other tactics or responses to the 

disturbance caused by Plaintiff and MacKay, including the deployment of force, may 

have prevented Plaintiffs injury. However, it is immaterial whether the Officers' 

pursued what in retrospect appears to be the most effective response if Plaintiff was not 

incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm. While we are 

sympathetic to Plaintiffs grievous injury, the issue is not whether Defendant Officers 

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r 

would have prevented Plaintiffs injury had they pursued an alternative course of action. 

Because Plaintiffs incarceration did not subject him to a substantial risk of serious harm, 

Defendant Officers' response to the incident in which Plaintiff was injure_d did not violate 

the Eighth Amendment. 

REVERSED. 

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