United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

_____________ No. 96-3980NI

_____________ Jeffrey A. Massick, * * Appellant, * * v. * * On Appeal from the United * States District Court for North Central Correctional Facility; * the Northern District of John A. Thalacker; Terry Hawkins; * Iowa. Kim Courters; Richard Walters; * Fred Seabetta; Patricia A. Young; * Sally M. Chandler-Halford; and * Unknown Defendants, * * Appellees. *

___________ Submitted: October 9, 1997 Filed: February 13, 1998

___________ Before RICHARD S. ARNOL D, Chief Judge, HEANEY and BEAM, Circuit Judges.

___________ RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Chief Judge. This is an action by an inmate against employees of the Iowa Department o f Corrections. The complaint, brought pursua nt to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleges that prison officials violated Jeffrey Massick’s Eighth Amendment rights when he wasThe Hon. Mark W. Bennett, United States District Judge for the Norther n 1 District of Iowa. -2- placedin a cell with another inmate who tested positive for the huma n immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Mr. Massick alleged that the inmate had been involved in a fightand was bleeding from open wounds. During the eight days the inmate s sharedan administrative segregation cell, Mr. Massick cleaned the cell, picking u p towels, pillow cases, and sheets stained w ith his cell-mate’s blood, and cleaning blood off the sink. When Mr. Massick learned that his cell-mate was HIV-positive, h e demanded to be moved to another cell, and prison officials compl ied promptly with this request. So far as anyone knows, Mr. Massick was not infected with the virus. H e alleges, however, that defendants have refused his request to be tested. The District Court dismissed the complaint. The Court held that Mr. Massick’s 1 allegations lacked an arguable basis in fact and law. In addition, t he Court held that the defendants were entitled to qualified immu nity, on the ground that their conduct, at the time that it occurred, did not violate a clearly established constitutional right. We affirm on the ground of qualified immunity. Eighth Amendment claims of this type are fact-intensive. The legal standard requires a plaintiff to show tha t defen dants knew that he faced a substantial risk of serious harm and disregarded that riskby failing to take reasonable measures to abate it. See Farmer v. Brennan , 51 1 U.S. 825, 847 (1994). Certainly the right, thus abstractly stated, was clearl y establ ished. However, “[t]he mere assertion of such a right . . . will not be adequate: ‘[t]he contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would un derstandthat what he is doing violates that right.’ ” Latimore v. Widseth , 7 F.3 d 709, 712 (8t h Cir. 1993), cert. denied , 510 U.S. 1140 (1994), quoting Anderson v
. Creighton , 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987). Here, there is no doubt that placing the HIV--3-

positive inmate in the c ell with Mr. Massick exposed the latter to a risk. On the other hand, the exposure was brie f, and the inmates were separated as soon as Mr. Massick spec ifically complained about being placed with someone who was HIV positive
. Situations like this are inherently matters of degree, and we cannot say that the risk was so substantial, and the defendants’ reactions to it so unreasonable, as to negative a defense of qualified immunity. Accordingly, the judgment dismissing the complaint is Affirmed. A true copy.
Attest: CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.