Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03261/USCOURTS-ca8-03-03261-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Paul Leo Amundson
Appellee
Sally Boyd
Appellant
Robert Dooley
Appellant
Alvin King
Appellee
Lisa McFletcher
Appellant
Bryan Richard Nei
Appellee
Paul Soyars
Not Party

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 03-3261

___________

Bryan Richard Nei; Alvin King; *

Paul Leo Amundson, *

*

Plaintiffs-Appellees, *

*

v. *

*

Robert Dooley, Warden, Mike *

Durfee State Prison, Springfield, SD; * Appeal from the United States

Lisa McFletcher, Unit Manager, * District Court for the District

Mike Durfee State Prison; Sally * of South Dakota.

Boyd, Head of Special Security at *

Mike Durfee State Prison, all in * [PUBLISHED]

their individual capacities and not *

their official capacities; *

*

Defendants-Appellants, *

*

Paul Soyars, *

*

Defendant. *

___________

Submitted: June 18, 2004

Filed: June 25, 2004

___________

Before MORRIS SHEPPARD ARNOLD, FAGG, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

___________

Appellate Case: 03-3261 Page: 1 Date Filed: 06/25/2004 Entry ID: 1781232 
*

The Honorable Karen E. Schreier, United States District Judge for the District

of South Dakota. 

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PER CURIAM.

Bryan Richard Nei, Alvin King, and Paul Leo Amundson, current or former

inmates at the Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield, South Dakota, brought this

civil rights action against the warden, Robert Dooley, and other prison officials, Unit

Manager Lisa McFletcher and Special Security Head Sally Boyd. The inmates

claimed the prison officials violated their Eighth Amendment rights by failing to

protect them from an HIV-positive inmate, Paul Soyars, who assaulted and threatened

to infect his fellow inmates. The inmates also asserted McFletcher and Boyd

retaliated against Nei and King for bringing the lawsuit by placing them in

segregation, and against Nei, King, and Amundson by denying them access to the

prison law library. The district court*

 denied the prison officials’ motion for summary

judgment based on qualified immunity. The prison officials appeal.

We explain the relevant facts in the light most favorable to the inmates, who

opposed the officials’ motion for summary judgment. Pagels v. Morrison, 335 F.3d

736, 738 (8th Cir. 2003). While incarcerated at the Mike Durfee State Prison, Soyars

admitted to inmates and prison staff that he was infected with AIDS. He often

threatened inmates that he would infect them with the virus. While cleaning the

prison restrooms, Soyars urinated on the floor, spit in the sinks and water fountains,

and smeared fecal matter on the floor. In early April of 2000, King approached

McFletcher to report he disapproved of the way Soyars “cleaned” the bathroom, and

he did not want to live with someone who threatened to expose people to AIDS.

Soyars and King got into a fight afterwards. Soyars spit in King’s face. Soyars cut

his lip, and his blood came into contact with an open wound on King’s hand. A few

days later, Soyars got into a fight with another inmate and threatened to infect the

inmate with AIDS. King and Nei told Boyd and McFletcher about Soyars’s threats,

fights, and how he would “clean” the restrooms. Nei and King asked the officials to

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remove Soyars from the prison. Because prison officials took no action, King filed

a grievance later that month asking for Soyars removal. The same day, King obtained

signatures from several inmates to initiate a class action lawsuit. Boyd and

McFletcher accused King and Nei of initiating an illegal petition drive. Four days

later, King received a response from his grievance stating that prison policy

prohibited the segregation of infected inmates outside the population. The next day,

King filed an appeal. On May 1, King filed a federal complaint asking that Soyars

be removed from the prison. McFletcher received an anonymous note the same day,

stating Soyars was improperly cleaning the toilets, Soyars claimed he was HIV

positive, and Soyars had threatened the note’s author. McFletcher concluded either

Nei or King wrote the note, and reported to Boyd, who was told by Soyars that he was

HIV positive. The next day, during a fight, Soyars pushed Nei and threatened to infect

him with AIDS. Some of Soyars’s blood went into Nei’s mouth, on his body, and on

his clothing. Two days later, after the prison received a file stamped copy of the

complaint in this action, King and Nei were placed in segregation. Nei filed a

grievance asking why he had been placed in the hole. The prison responded he was

under investigation and would be in segregation until the investigation was

completed. King filed an appeal demanding a explanation for his placement in the

hole. King and Nei were released from the hole the next day. In mid June, Soyars got

into a fights with Amundson, during which Soyars threatened infection, and a fight

with another inmate involving bloodshed. Prison staff were advised of the fights. In

late October, Boyd sent an e-mail to other prison officials acknowledging that Soyars

admitted he is HIV positive to staff, and during an October fight, Soyars started to

bleed, so the other inmate involved would be tested for AIDS because of possible

blood exchange. Beginning in the fall of 2000, King, Nei, and Amundson requested

access to the inmate law library to research and draft documents for their written

complaint. Boyd and McFletcher denied them access. In December, the inmates

again requested access to draft a response to the inmates’ answer. Boyd and

McFletcher again denied them access to the law library. 

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Qualified immunity protects government officials from lawsuits for their

performance of discretionary functions unless their conduct violates a clearly

established constitutional right of which a reasonable person would have known. Id.

at 739-40. The Eighth Amendment requires prison officials to take reasonable

measures to guarantee the safety of inmates and to protect them from violence by

other prisoners. Id. at 740. To prevail on their Eighth Amendment failure-to-protect

claim, the inmates must show they are incarcerated under conditions posing a

substantial risk of serious harm and the prison officials subjectively knew of and

disregarded that safety risk. Id.; Smith v. Arkansas Dep’t of Correction, 103 F.3d

637, 644 (8th Cir. 1996). 

In this case, the district court concluded the inmates had articulated facts that

would establish they were incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of

harm to them of contracting the AIDS virus. The district court also concluded that

although Boyd and McFletcher denied they knew Soyars was infected with AIDS, the

inmates provided affidavits suggesting otherwise. Indeed, in Boyd’s October e-mail,

she stated Soyars readily admitted he was HIV positive to staff and documented that

while fighting with another inmate, Soyars began to bleed. The district court found

that at the very least, Boyd and McFletcher knew Soyars might have AIDS. The court

concluded that, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the inmates, there

was sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that Boyd and McFletcher knew

Soyars was infected with AIDS, that Soyars was threatening to infect other inmates

and was engaging in assaultive behavior towards other inmates, and that Boyd and

McFletcher failed to respond to that risk reasonably. As for the warden, the district

court found that because he read and responded to the grievances, a jury could find

the warden knew Soyars had AIDS, knew Soyars had threatened to infect other

inmates through assault, and failed to respond reasonably to the risk in violation of

the prison’s own policy. 

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The officials argue none of the prison officials had subjective knowledge that

Soyars posed a substantial risk of harm to each inmate. Viewing the facts in the light

most favorable to the inmates, we disagree. There was evidence that Soyars fought

with King, Nei, and Amundson, and the fights involved fluid exchange, threats of

infection, or both. Besides, “[w]e must accept the summary judgment facts as

described by the district court because evidentiary determinations are not presently

appealable.” Moran v. Clark, 359 F.3d 1058, 1060 (8th Cir. 2004). The officials also

contend they acted reasonably as a matter of law and thus did not violate the inmates’

Eighth Amendment rights. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the

inmates, we conclude the officials did not respond to the threat of harm in an

objectively reasonable way. Indeed, the officials did little to address the situation for

months after being made aware of the circumstances.

As for the inmates’ claim that they were retaliated against for filing their

lawsuit by being denied access to the prison law library, the officials contend the

district court should have construed the claim as one of denied access to the courts,

requiring proof of actual injury, rather than one of retaliation. We disagree. “Conduct

that retaliates against the exercise of a constitutionally protected right is actionable,

even if the conduct would have been proper if motivated by a different reason.” Cody

v. Weber, 256 F.3d 764, 770-71 (8th Cir. 2001). To be actionable, the retaliatory

conduct itself need not be unconstitutional because the constitutional violation lies

in the intent to impede access to the courts. Id. The district court applied the proper

standard to the inmates’ retaliation claim based on denial of access to the law library.

Regarding the inmates’ claim that the officials retaliated against the inmates

for filing their lawsuit by placing them in segregation, the officials argue they merely

transferred the inmates, and did so to investigate whether they were soliciting

signatures in violation of prison rules, rather than in retaliation for filing their lawsuit.

Because the inmates’ allegations create a genuine issue of material fact about whether

the officials retaliated against them, the district court properly denied summary

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judgment on this claim. Id. We reject the officials’ argument that the issue of fact

triggers application of the retaliatory transfer standard rather than the retaliatory

discipline standard. See Goff v. Burton, 7 F.3d 734, 736-39 (8th Cir. 1993)

(comparing claims of retaliatory transfer of inmate to a different, maximum security

facility and claim of retaliatory discipline). 

Having carefully considered all of the officials’ assertions, we affirm the

district court’s denial of qualified immunity.

______________________________

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