Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca6-08-02286/USCOURTS-ca6-08-02286-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sherilyn Butler
Appellant
Ned Mingus
Appellee

Document Text:

*

 The Honorable Sandra Day O’Connor, Associate Justice (Ret.) of the Supreme Court of the

United States, sitting by designation.

RECOMMENDED FOR FULL-TEXT PUBLICATION

Pursuant to Sixth Circuit Rule 206

File Name: 10a0001p.06

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT _________________

NED MINGUS,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

SHERILYN BUTLER,

Defendant-Appellant.

X

-

-

-

-

>

,

-

-

-

N

No. 08-2286

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Michigan at Detroit.

No. 05-73842—Marianne O. Battani, District Judge.

Submitted: October 13, 2009

Decided and Filed: January 5, 2010 

Before: O’CONNOR, Associate Justice;*

 GILMAN and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.

_________________

COUNSEL

ON BRIEF: John L. Thurber, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY

GENERAL, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellant. Ned Mingus, Jackson, Michigan, pro se.

_________________

OPINION

_________________

JULIA SMITH GIBBONS, Circuit Judge. Defendant-appellant Sherilyn Butler

appeals the district court’s interlocutory orders denying her summary judgment on

grounds of qualified immunity from suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Eleventh

Amendment immunity from suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”),

42 U.S.C. § 12131 et seq., and denying her summary judgment on plaintiff-appellee Ned

1

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 1
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 2

Mingus’s Fourteenth Amendment equal protection claim. For the following reasons,

we AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part, REMAND for further proceedings, and

DENY Mingus’s motion for appointment of counsel.

I.

Mingus is a prisoner confined at the G. Robert Cotton Correctional Facility

(“Correctional Facility”) in Jackson, Michigan. Butler, a registered nurse, was the

Health Unit Manager at the Correctional Facility in 2002, the relevant year for the

allegations underlying this case.

In May 2003, Mingus, who suffers from macular degeneration and other physical

infirmities, filed a civil rights complaint against Butler and eight other defendants,

alleging violations of the Eighth Amendment, the ADA, and state law. The complaint

was based on the defendants’ alleged deliberate indifference to and negligent treatment

of Mingus’s various medical conditions and denial of his requests for a single-occupancy

room with key-operated locks. The district court, adopting the magistrate judge’s Report

and Recommendation, granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ dispositive

motions. Specifically, it denied Butler qualified immunity on Mingus’s Eighth

Amendment claim and rejected her sovereign immunity defense to an ADA suit in her

official capacity. Report and Recommendation at 23, Mingus v. Antonini, 5:03-cv60095-MOB-RSW (E.D. Mich. Feb. 22, 2005). The parties subsequently stipulated to

dismissal without prejudice because the complaint contained unexhausted claims.

In October 2005, Mingus filed suit against Butler under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for

violations of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and under the ADA. He sought

declaratory relief, a prospective injunction requiring the Correctional Facility to provide

him with a single-occupancy room, and damages. The exhibits attached to the complaint

document Mingus’s medical history, communications with Butler and her subordinates,

and his appeals through the administrative process. On March 2, 2002, Mingus wrote

to Butler, notifying her that because he could not see his locks, he was unable to protect

his property. In that letter, he remarked, “I am not helpless, and I see the larger world

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 2
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 3

well enough to fend for myself. It’s the little stuff and things a few feet away I can’t

see.” He complained of other inmates, especially able-bodied ones, receiving singleoccupancy rooms when he did not. In her medical notes, one of Butler’s subordinates

wrote that “inmate doesn’t meet criteria for single man cell” and recommended that

Mingus receive key-operated locks. In late March 2002, Mingus again wrote to Butler

regarding his circumstances, indicating his intent to grieve her decision and clarifying

that his “complaint is not just that I can’t see my locks, because I’m vulnerable in many

other ways.” In response, one of Butler’s subordinates again wrote in her medical notes,

“Correspondence from inmate stating he is upset he cannot have single room. . . . Inmate

does not meet criteria for single man room. Discussed this situation with Ms. Butler

. . . .” Throughout the administrative grievance process, Mingus continued to assert that

he feared that he could not protect himself from other inmates and that their “predation

is the direct result of my disability.”

On February 21, 2008, Butler moved for summary judgment on all counts of the

complaint. She moved on six grounds: (1) Title II of the ADA does not permit suits for

damages against a state official in her individual capacity; (2) Title II of the ADA does

not permit suits for damages against a state official in her official capacity if they are

based on a theory of equal protection; (3) the Eleventh Amendment bars § 1983 suits for

damages against a state official in her official capacity; (4) she was entitled to qualified

immunity on Mingus’s Eighth Amendment theory; (5) Mingus’s Fourteenth Amendment

claims fail under rational basis review; and (6) Mingus could not make a showing of

irreparable harm necessary to warrant injunctive relief because he received his keyoperated locks.

Butler supplemented the administrative record of Mingus’s grievance with a

Prison Policy Directive and “Guidelines” document. The former directed prison health

personnel to “identify reasonable options available in a corrections setting” to

accommodate a prisoner with a “special medical need.” The latter set forth the criteria

the prison used in assigning single-occupancy rooms. Specifically, it listed certain

medical conditions, such as gender identity disorder, “which may require a single person

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 3
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 4

cell.” Although macular degeneration was not listed, the document also allowed that the

“Outpatient Mental Health Team may order a single person cell for reasons other than

those listed above but consistent with their guidelines.”

The magistrate judge recommended dismissal of Mingus’s individual capacity

ADA claim, official capacity § 1983 claim, and request for injunctive relief regarding

the issuance of key-operated locks. However, he permitted the rest of Mingus’s claims

to proceed. Specifically, he reasoned that Title II of the ADA abrogated state sovereign

immunity in official capacity suits under the Supreme Court’s holding in United States

v. Georgia, 546 U.S. 151, 159 (2006). Relying upon the district court’s orders in the

2003 lawsuit, he held that Butler was not entitled to qualified immunity because there

were disputed issues of material fact regarding the scope of her supervisory authority at

the Correctional Facility, her alleged deliberate indifference to Mingus’s medical

conditions, and her possible awareness of the substantial risks that Mingus’s inability to

see created for him and his property. The magistrate judge then ruled that Mingus’s

Fourteenth Amendment claims could proceed because a jury could find that Butler had

no rational basis for denying Mingus a single-occupancy room when, according to

Mingus’s uncontradicted allegation, other similarly disabled prisoners were given such

rooms. Finally, he allowed Mingus to pursue injunctive relief regarding his request for

a single-occupancy room. 

Butler timely objected to the Report and Recommendation and argued that the

magistrate judge misconstrued the holding of Georgia, incorrectly analyzed qualified

immunity, misapplied Fourteenth Amendment rational-basis analysis, and improperly

second-guessed the discretionary decisions of prison administrators by allowing Mingus

to pursue prospective injunctive relief. On September 19, 2008, the district court

rejected all of Butler’s objections and adopted the Report and Recommendation in full

with emphasis on the importance of Georgia. Butler then timely appealed and, before

us, Mingus moved for appointment of counsel.

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 4
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 5

II.

We address, in turn, Butler’s assertions of qualified immunity to Mingus’s Eighth

Amendment claim and Eleventh Amendment immunity to the ADA claim, her appeal

of the district court’s denial of summary judgment on the equal protection claim, and

Mingus’s motion for appointment of counsel.

A. Qualified Immunity

The district court’s denial of a claim of qualified immunity is immediately

appealable under the collateral order doctrine. Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530

(1985). The Supreme Court has “held that 28 U.S.C. § 1291 [cannot] serve as the basis

for appellate jurisdiction for appeals from qualified immunity denials to the extent that

those appeals took issue with the district court’s determination that there existed a

genuine issue of fact for trial.” Gregory v. City of Louisville, 444 F.3d 725, 742 (6th Cir.

2006) (citing Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313 (1995)). Although the district court

found that genuine issues of material fact exist, Butler has conceded the facts in the light

most favorable to Mingus and raises a pure issue of law regarding her alleged deliberate

indifference to Mingus’s needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Harrison v.

Ash, 539 F.3d 510, 516-17 (6th Cir. 2008) (requiring that, to appeal a denial of qualified

immunity, “the defendant must be prepared to overlook any factual dispute and to

concede an interpretation of the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff’s case”).

We review de novo a district court’s denial of summary judgment on qualified immunity

grounds “because the determination of whether qualified immunity is applicable to an

official’s actions is a question of law.” Farm Labor Org. Comm. v. Ohio State Highway

Patrol, 308 F.3d 523, 531 (6th Cir. 2002) (quotation omitted). 

Qualified immunity is “an affirmative defense that must be pleaded by a

defendant official.” Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 815 (1982). Whether a

defendant is entitled to qualified immunity depends upon whether the plaintiff’s

constitutional rights were violated and whether those rights were clearly established.

See, e.g., Dorsey v. Barber, 517 F.3d 389, 394 (6th Cir. 2008). This Court may exercise

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 5
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 6

its “sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity

analysis should be addressed first in light of the circumstances in the particular case at

hand.” Pearson v. Callahan, 129 S. Ct. 808, 818 (2009). We conclude that Mingus’s

constitutional rights were not violated.

In Farmer v. Brennan, the Supreme Court remarked that “having stripped

[inmates] of virtually every means of self-protection and foreclosed their access to

outside aid, the government and its officials are not free to let the state of nature take its

course.” 511 U.S. 825, 833 (1994). The Eighth Amendment protects inmates by

requiring that “prison officials . . . ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing,

shelter, and medical care, and . . . ‘take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of

the inmates.’” Id. at 832 (quoting Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27 (1984)). As

we have explained, the elements of an Eighth Amendment violation have both objective

and subjective components. Curry v. Scott, 249 F.3d 493, 506 (6th Cir. 2001). “First,

the failure to protect from risk of harm must be objectively sufficiently serious.”

Harrison, 539 F.3d at 518 (internal quotation marks omitted). An inmate must show

“the existence of a sufficiently serious medical need.” Id. (citation and internal

quotations omitted). We evaluate the seriousness of an inmate’s need using an

“obviousness” approach. Blackmore v. Kalamazoo County, 390 F.3d 890, 897 (6th Cir.

2004). Under this approach, the medical needs must be “obvious even to a layperson.”

Id. 

We have applied the first prong of the Eighth Amendment test in varied contexts.

See, e.g., Gibson v. Moskowitz, 523 F.3d 657, 661-62 (6th Cir. 2008) (finding the

dehydration of an inmate who died after being confined in a 90-plus degree observation

room to be an objectively serious medical condition); Blackmore, 390 F.3d at 899-900

(finding that the rapid onset of sharp and severe abdominal pain that was eventually

revealed to be caused by appendicitis evinced an obvious, substantial risk of serious

harm); Weeks v. Chaboudy, 984 F.2d 185, 187 (6th Cir. 1993) (finding an Eighth

Amendment violation where a doctor did not admit a paralyzed inmate to the prison

infirmary); Hamilton v. Eleby, No. 08-4499, 2009 U.S. App. LEXIS 18020, at *7 (6th

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 6
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 7

Cir. Aug. 12, 2009) (holding that an inmate faced an objectively serious risk of harm

when the record showed that he was receiving threatening letters from and had been

previously assaulted by a prison gang). 

Second, the inmate must demonstrate that the official acted with “‘deliberate

indifference’ to inmate health or safety.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834. Under this

subjective standard, a prison official cannot be found liable under the Eighth

Amendment “unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate

health or safety; the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could

be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the

inference.” Id. at 837. Thus, the inmate “must show more than negligence or the

misdiagnosis of an ailment.” Comstock v. McCrary, 273 F.3d 693, 703 (6th Cir. 2001).

Even though an official need not have acted “for the very purpose of causing harm or

with knowledge that harm will result[,] . . . deliberate indifference to a substantial risk

of serious harm to a prisoner is the equivalent of recklessly disregarding that risk.”

Farmer, 511 U.S. at 835-36; see also Gibson, 523 F.3d at 663 (“The question, however,

is not just whether the state employee has admitted the inmate faced an excessive and

imminent health risk; it is also whether circumstantial evidence, including the very fact

that the risk was obvious, shows the employee must have understood the nature of the

risk.” (citation and internal quotation marks omitted)).

Butler contends that she is entitled to qualified immunity on Mingus’s Eighth

Amendment claim for two reasons. First, she argues that Mingus’s injury–having his

property stolen by other inmates–is not sufficiently serious to satisfy the first prong of

the Eighth Amendment test. Second, she argues that she was not deliberately indifferent

to the risks Mingus faced from other prisoners because Mingus has, at best, shown only

a difference of opinion over whether he was entitled to a single-occupancy room. The

undisputed facts reveal that Mingus notified Butler of his fear that his ailments made him

“more likely to be preyed upon by other prisoners” because his inability to use his

combination locks forced him to leave his property unlocked and unprotected. He

informed her of the theft of his property and the risks posed to him by other inmates who

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 7
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 8

saw him as vulnerable. Thus, as the district court noted, Mingus did not allege that he

was denied medical treatment but, rather, that Butler failed to protect him from the risks

resulting from his deteriorating eyesight and other physical ailments.

Even if we assume, without deciding, that Mingus faced an objectively serious

risk of harm, Butler was not deliberately indifferent to that risk. In deciding whether to

grant Mingus a single-occupancy room, Butler or her subordinates considered Mingus’s

health care request and the prison’s Guidelines, and concluded that the “inmate does not

meet the criteria for single man cell.” The Guidelines document, which Mingus has not

disputed, lists only two “medical conditions” and a category of “psychological

conditions which may require a single person cell.” The concluding catch-all clause,

providing that the “Outpatient Mental Health Team may order a single person cell for

reasons other than those listed above but consistent with their guidelines,” has no

bearing. While it is possible that Butler did not read this last provision with enough

breadth to cover Mingus’s request, her decision does not evince “deliberate indifference”

to Mingus’s plight. At worst, Butler was negligent and this Court has held that “[w]hen

a prison doctor provides treatment, albeit carelessly or inefficaciously, to a prisoner,

[she] has not displayed a deliberate indifference to the prisoner’s needs, but merely a

degree of incompetence which does not rise to the level of a constitutional violation.”

Comstock, 273 F.3d at 703.

Butler’s decision was based on her understanding of the prison policies specified

in the Guidelines and did not evince “deliberate indifference” to the risks Mingus faced

from other prisoners. We therefore reverse the district court’s denial of summary

judgment on Mingus’s Eighth Amendment claim.

B. Eleventh Amendment Immunity

As with qualified immunity, the district court’s denial of a claim of sovereign

immunity by a state or state entity is immediately appealable under the collateral order

doctrine. P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth. v. Metcalf & Eddy, Inc., 506 U.S. 139, 147

(1993). Whether Eleventh Amendment sovereign immunity exists in any particular case

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 8
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 9

is a question of constitutional law that we review de novo. Ernst v. Rising, 427 F.3d 351,

359 (6th Cir. 2005) (en banc).

The Eleventh Amendment provides: “The Judicial power of the United States

shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted

against one of the United States by Citizens of another State, or by Citizens or Subjects

of any Foreign State.” U.S. Const. amend. XI. In addition to the states themselves,

Eleventh Amendment immunity can also extend to departments and agencies of states.

Pennhurst State Sch. & Hosp. v. Halderman, 465 U.S. 89, 100 (1984). To determine

whether a state department or agency can receive Eleventh Amendment immunity, the

primary issue is whether the state itself would be liable for money damages should the

entity be found liable. Brotherton v. Cleveland, 173 F.3d 552, 560-61 (6th Cir. 1999).

Courts also look to other factors such as how state law defines the entity and the degree

of control the state exercises over the entity. Id. at 561 n.5.

Title II of the ADA provides, in pertinent part, that no qualified individual with

a disability shall, because of that disability, “be denied the benefits of the services,

programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such

entity.” 42 U.S.C. § 12132. The ADA applies to both federal and state prisons. Pa.

Dep’t of Corr. v. Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 209-10 (1998). It is undisputed that since Butler

has been sued in her official capacity, Mingus’s ADA claim is, for all intents and

purposes, against the state of Michigan as the real party-in-interest. See, e.g.,

Brotherton, 173 F.3d at 560-61.

In the district court, Butler argued that the Eleventh Amendment barred Mingus’s

ADA claim because it was based upon a theory of equal protection. To support her

argument, Butler relied on Popovich v. Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas, 276

F.3d 808, 811 (6th Cir. 2002) (“[T]he plaintiff’s action is barred by the Eleventh

Amendment in so far as the action relies on congressional enforcement of the Equal

Protection Clause, but it is not barred in so far as it relies on congressional enforcement

of the Due Process Clause.”). The district court held that United States v. Georgia, 546

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 9
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 10

U.S. 151 (2006), abrogated Popovich and denied Butler immunity. Mingus v. Butler,

No. 05-73842, 2008 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 73099, at *2-3 (E.D. Mich. Sept. 19, 2008).

In Georgia, an inmate alleged that certain conduct by prison officials

independently violated his Eighth Amendment rights and Title II of the ADA. 546 U.S.

at 157. Without deciding the accuracy of those allegations, the Court explained that the

inmate’s “claims for money damages against the State under Title II were evidently

based . . . on conduct that independently violated the provisions of § 1 of the Fourteenth

Amendment” because the guarantee against cruel and unusual punishment has been

incorporated into the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Id. As such,

the plaintiff in Georgia “differ[ed] from the claimants in our other cases addressing

Congress’s ability to abrogate [state] sovereign immunity . . . .” Id. (citing Tennessee

v. Lane, 541 U.S. 509, 543 n.4 (2004) and Bd. of Trustees of Univ. of Ala. v. Garrett, 531

U.S. 356, 362 (2001)). Thus, the Court held that “insofar as Title II creates a private

cause of action for damages against the States for conduct that actually violates the

Fourteenth Amendment, Title II validly abrogates state sovereign immunity.” Id. at 159.

To guide the lower courts in assessing an Eleventh Amendment defense to a suit

under Title II, the Supreme Court set forth a three-part test: 

[D]etermine . . . on a claim-by-claim basis, (1) which aspects of the

State’s alleged conduct violated Title II; (2) to what extent such

misconduct also violated the Fourteenth Amendment; and (3) insofar as

such misconduct violated Title II but did not violate the Fourteenth

Amendment, whether Congress’s purported abrogation of sovereign

immunity as to that class of conduct is nevertheless valid. 

Id. In this case, though the district court cited to Georgia, it did not apply the required

three-part test. See Zibbell v. Mich. Dep’t of Human Servs., 313 F. App’x 843, 847 (6th

Cir. 2009) (describing the Georgia procedure as “mandated”).

For purposes of her motion for summary judgment, Butler has not argued that

Mingus failed to state a claim for relief under Title II. Thus, she has conceded, for the

purposes of this appeal, that the facts would show a violation of Title II of the ADA.

Also, the district court found that there exists a genuine issue of material fact with

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 10
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 11

respect to the rational basis for Butler’s actions and, as explained below, we lack

jurisdiction to consider Butler’s appeal of that determination. At this stage in the

litigation, Mingus has alleged misconduct that actually violated the Fourteenth

Amendment–namely, treatment unequal to that received by other disabled inmates.

What remains is the third prong of the Georgia test. 

A review of the complaint reveals that Mingus has alleged that the same

misconduct by Butler violated the Fourteenth Amendment and the ADA independently.

Regarding the former, he alleged that “there is no rational basis for the classification

allowing able bodied prisoners, and those with medical problems less serious than

Plaintiff’s, as qualifying for a single-occupancy room.” As to the ADA, he claimed that

he was being “discriminated against as a result of [his] disability, where other prisoners

with different disabilities, or no disabilities at all, are provided with single-occupancy

rooms.” In both instances, the gravamen of his complaint is that he was treated

differently than similarly situated prisoners or prisoners with fewer, or less serious,

disabilities with no rational basis underlying the disparate treatment. Thus, Mingus has

alleged misconduct that independently violated both Title II of the ADA and the

Fourteenth Amendment. Georgia, 546 U.S. at 159.

Butler’s reliance upon Popovich is misplaced. In that case, the plaintiff brought

a Title II action against a state court for allegedly failing to provide him with hearing

assistance in his child custody case. Popovich, 276 F.3d at 811. This Court described

the suit as “an equal protection-type claim of discrimination [and] a due process-type

claim of unreasonable exclusion from participation in the custody proceeding.” Id.

Relying upon Garrett, in which the Supreme Court held that the Eleventh Amendment

barred federal employment discrimination suits against a state based on disability under

Title I of the ADA because “disability” is not a “suspect category” that deserves

“heightened scrutiny,” the Popovich court held that the “the plaintiff’s action is barred

by the Eleventh Amendment in so far as the action relies on congressional enforcement

of the Equal Protection Clause.” Id. at 811-12 (citing Garrett, 531 U.S. at 356). 

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 11
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 12

In this case, however, Mingus does not claim to deserve heightened scrutiny as

a member of a suspect class but instead challenges the rational basis for Butler’s actions.

Butler has conceded that Mingus has stated a claim for relief under Title II of the ADA

and, in the district court, did not point to facts in the record showing her rational basis

for denying him a single-occupancy room, the conduct underlying both the ADA and

Fourteenth Amendment claims. Thus, he has made a traditional equal protection claim

and not an “equal protection-type claim of discrimination,” Popovich, 276 F.3d at 811.

Because Mingus has alleged conduct that violates the ADA and the Fourteenth

Amendment independently, the third prong of Georgia requires that we not determine

whether sovereign immunity is at issue. Thus, we have no occasion to elaborate further

on the relationship between Georgia and Popovich, and affirm the district court, albeit

on different grounds.

C. Fourteenth Amendment

Finding that Butler had offered no rational explanation for her decision to deny

Mingus a single-occupancy room, the district court denied her summary judgment on

Mingus’s Fourteenth Amendment claim. For the first time on appeal, Butler contends

that she is entitled to qualified immunity. Butler asserted qualified immunity in her

answer to the complaint but did not present it to the district court in seeking summary

judgment. Instead, she merely asserted that she and Mingus had a difference of opinion

on whether he was entitled to a single-occupancy room. Thus, we will adhere “to the

general rule that ‘[i]ssues not presented to the district court but raised for the first time

on appeal are not properly before the court.’” Jones v. Caruso, 569 F.3d 258, 266 (6th

Cir. 2009) (alteration in original, citation omitted). Because qualified immunity is not

properly before us, we lack jurisdiction to consider Butler’s appeal of the district court’s

denial of summary judgment. Floyd v. City of Detroit, 518 F.3d 398, 404 (6th Cir. 2008)

(“The denial of a summary judgment motion usually presents neither a final appealable

order nor an appealable interlocutory order.”). Accordingly, we affirm the district court.

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 12
No. 08-2286 Mingus v. Butler Page 13

D. Appointment of Counsel

Finally, we deny Mingus’s motion for appointment of counsel pursuant to 6th

Cir. R. 34(j)(2)(C). Although the issues raised by this appeal are complex, we find that

Mingus has more than adequately represented himself.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM in part, REVERSE in part, REMAND

for further proceedings, and DENY Mingus’s motion for appointment of counsel.

 Case: 08-2286 Document: 00618293750 Filed: 01/05/2010 Page: 13