Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01659/USCOURTS-ca7-15-01659-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Brian Herron
Appellant
Douglas Meyer
Appellee

Document Text:

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 15-1659

BRIAN HERRON,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

DOUGLAS MEYER,

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division.

No. 2:13-cv-109-JMS-WGH — Jane E. Magnus-Stinson, Judge.

____________________

SUBMITTED MARCH 18, 2016 — DECIDED APRIL 25, 2016

____________________

Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit 

Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. In this Bivens suit, Brian Herron, a disabled federal prisoner, accuses guard Douglas 

Meyer of transferring him to a cell that the guard knew was 

likely to cause him injury. Meyer did this, Herron alleges, 

because he disliked the fact that Herron had filed grievances 

and had refused to share a cell with an inmate who he 

thought endangered him. Herron maintains that Meyer vioCase: 15-1659 Document: 22 Filed: 04/25/2016 Pages: 7
2 No. 15-1659

lated the First and Eighth Amendments. The district court 

dismissed the First Amendment theory and held that the 

guard is entitled to qualified immunity on the Eighth 

Amendment theory. 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20865 (S.D. Ind. 

Feb. 20, 2014) at *7–9 (First Amendment); 2015 U.S. Dist. 

LEXIS 28263 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 9, 2015) (Eighth Amendment).

We report the facts of record in the light most favorable 

to Herron. A former gang member, he is serving long sentences for bank robbery and other crimes. Before his transfer 

to the prison at Terre Haute, where the events we narrate 

occurred, he had been attacked by other inmates at a different prison and left permanently disabled. He is confined to a 

wheelchair and is incontinent, though usually he has a brief 

time to make it to a toilet before soiling himself. When arriving at Terre Haute, Herron was assigned to a cell designed 

for wheelchair-bound inmates. Among other features, the 

cell has grab bars that inmates can use to transfer safely from 

a wheelchair to a bed or toilet; it also has a shower that the 

occupant can use to clean up if he does not make it to the toilet in time.

Herron originally believed that the persons who injured 

him did so as part of gang warfare, but he was told by some 

inmates at Terre Haute that he had been targeted because 

they believed him to be a pedophile. Herron checked and 

found that, indeed, his prison records contained references 

to the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, 42 

U.S.C. §§ 16901–91, even though his convictions are for other 

crimes. He filed a grievance asking the prison to correct his 

records and a request under the Privacy Act asking the Bureau of Prisons to do so. The Bureau made the change, but 

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No. 15-1659 3

the news may not have reached the prison until after the 

events we narrate.

On being told that some other inmates, believing him to 

be a child molester, were planning to attack him anew, he 

asked to be placed in segregation. The prison complied. The 

segregation unit has wheelchair-accessible cells, and Herron 

was assigned to one. Another inmate joined him a few days 

later (it was a two-person cell), and within the month attacked him over his “Walsh Act stuff.” The attacker was removed, and Herron again had the cell to himself.

Before the month was out, Meyer arrived with a new 

cellmate for Herron. The two prisoners discussed whether 

they could tolerate each other, and when the newcomer told 

Herron that he was being moved because he had just attacked his former cellmate, Herron objected. Meyer took the 

other prisoner away, then came back and took Herron away. 

Meyer demanded of Herron to know “what your problem 

is” and, when Herron replied that he just wanted to be safe, 

Meyer replied: “Well, don’t you have a Walsh Act assignment? We didn’t put it on you here at Terre Haute, so quit 

filing.” Visibly angry, Meyer continued: “you are not going 

to sit in my [special housing unit] living high on the hog. I 

have something in store for you.”

Having said that, Meyer and some other guards carried

Herron to a non-wheelchair-accessible cell. It lacked grab 

bars, it lacked a shower, and it had a concrete bed that a 

wheelchair-bound inmate would find hard to use. Herron 

protested, but Meyer replied that he would be in that cell for 

“the next couple of days or so” and warned Herron not to 

“hit the duress button unless it was a life-threatening situation.” When Herron next needed to use the toilet, he asked 

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guards for help. They refused. Without the aid of grab bars, 

Herron fell when trying to get out of his wheelchair and 

struck his head. He was found lying helpless with his head 

near the toilet. He was taken to a hospital and treated for injuries that included a laceration to his temple, a contusion to 

one shoulder, and a sprained spine.

The district court analyzed Herron’s Eighth Amendment 

theory as if he were contending that the Constitution requires grab bars for all wheelchair-bound inmates, all the 

time. Finding that it does not—and adding that Meyer likely 

anticipated that other guards would help Herron use the toilet in his new cell—the court concluded that Meyer is entitled to qualified immunity.

Some of Herron’s argument reads like an appeal to the 

medical-care principle of Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), 

and Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994). But Herron, who 

was proceeding without the assistance of counsel, should 

not be held to a lawyer’s standard of articulating (and being 

bound by) a legal theory. His grievance more naturally 

sounds like a contention that Meyer decided to hand out onthe-spot punishment to an inmate who filed too many grievances and objected to potential cellmates.

It would violate the Due Process Clause or the Eighth 

Amendment, if not both, for a guard to clobber an inmate 

with a truncheon in order to penalize a request to correct 

prison records. Punishment is limited to that authorized by 

the judgment of conviction and the ordinary conditions of 

confinement, plus discipline that must be preceded by procedural safeguards. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539 

(1974). The facts narrated by Herron suggest that Meyer, 

knowing that a blow was out of the question, decided to 

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No. 15-1659 5

achieve the same effect by moving Herron to a cell where he 

was likely to suffer an injury. And given the clearly established law that guards may not administer their personal 

brand of punishment, see Hudson v McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 6–7 

(1992); Gilbert v. Cook, 512 F.3d 899 (7th Cir. 2008), it follows 

that guards are not entitled to qualified immunity when they 

seize on what seems to them a clever way of achieving the 

same result.

Meyer insists that he was implementing a policy of moving every inmate who objects to a new cellmate, in order to 

prevent inmates from reserving one-person cells. Meyer says

that he expected guards near Herron’s new cell to assist him 

when necessary and believed that no harm would come to 

him. He told the district court that he did not say anything 

similar to the language Herron imputes to him—and that 

Herron, far from objecting to the new cell, consented to the 

placement. If the jury believes this, then Meyer will prevail. 

But on motion for summary judgment we must take Herron’s view of matters, and if a jury believes Herron and concludes that Meyer moved him to a new cell hoping that he 

would be injured, then Herron is entitled to damages.

Herron maintains that Meyer violated the Free Speech 

Clause (or perhaps the Petition Clause) of the First Amendment, in addition to the Due Process and Cruel and Unusual 

Punishments Clauses. Piling up the legal theories would not 

add to the remedies, and the instructions in a case such as 

this should not tell the jurors about different legal theories. 

Jurors should be told what facts they need to find in order to 

support a decision for one side rather than another—and we 

have already explained that, if the jury finds the facts in HerCase: 15-1659 Document: 22 Filed: 04/25/2016 Pages: 7
6 No. 15-1659

ron’s favor, then he wins. This makes it unnecessary to say 

much more about the First Amendment theory.

The district court dismissed the First Amendment theory 

on the pleadings after observing that, although inmates have 

a right to speak, they do not have a right to one-person cells. 

Justice Holmes would have approved. He once remarked: 

“The petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.” 

McAuliffe v. New Bedford, 155 Mass. 216, 220 (1892). Modern 

doctrine asks, however, whether a price has been attached to 

protected speech. Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club

PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 721, 741–43 (2011); Board of County 

Commissioners v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668, 673–75 (1996).

Herron and the district court refer to this as a “retaliation” theory, but we avoid that word. All penalties for 

speech could be called retaliatory, so the word does not add 

anything and has some potential to confuse matters, as it did 

in Fairley v. Andrews, 578 F.3d 518, 525 (7th Cir. 2009).

If Meyer set out to punish Herron for his grievances, then 

a price has been attached to speech. The district court 

thought otherwise in part because Herron had not attached 

his grievances to the complaint, but that was not necessary; a 

complaint narrates a claim and need not supply the proof. 

That comes later. Pratt v. Tarr, 464 F.3d 730, 732–33 (7th Cir. 

2006). And if, as we doubt, an amendment to the complaint 

was required, the district court should have allowed it rather 

than dismissing the claim. See, e.g., Runnion v. Girl Scouts of 

Greater Chicago, 786 F.3d 510, 519–23 (7th Cir. 2015).

Whether a penalty has been attached to protected speech 

is potentially more difficult. Many decisions assume that esCase: 15-1659 Document: 22 Filed: 04/25/2016 Pages: 7
No. 15-1659 7

sentially everything a prisoner says in the grievance system—if not everything a prisoner says to a guard—is protected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., DeWalt v. Carter, 

224 F.3d 607, 618 (7th Cir. 2000); Pearson v. Welborn, 471 F.3d 

732, 741 (7th Cir. 2006). These decisions do not discuss a parallel line of cases about grievances that public workers make 

about the conditions of their employment. That line of cases 

attempts to distinguish statements on topics of public importance (protected) from personal gripes (unprotected) and 

statements that disrupt the workplace (also unprotected). 

Compare Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), with Rankin 

v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987); see Pickering v. Board of Education, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). The decisions in the prisongrievance line do not explain why the First Amendment offers greater protection to prisoners than to public employees. 

We do not get into that here, because the subject has not 

been addressed in the briefs. It is enough to flag the subject 

as worth attention, either in some future litigation or in this 

case if, contrary to our expectations, the First Amendment 

theory turns out to matter.

The judgment of the district court is vacated, and the case 

is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this 

opinion.

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