*Pursuant to Local Rule 47.5, the court has determined that

this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except

under the limited circumstances set forth in Local Rule 47.5.4.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

for the Fifth Circuit

_____________________________________

No. 96-40510

Summary Calendar

_____________________________________

ROBERT MEADOWS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

VERSUS

THOMAS, Major; MAYFIELD, Sgt; W. CLARK; M. MERCHANT, 

Officer; DOW, Officer,

Defendants-Appellees.

______________________________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

(G-95-CV-116)

______________________________________________________

September 5, 1996

Before DAVIS, EMILIO M. GARZA and STEWART, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

Robert Meadows, an inmate in the custody of the Texas

Department of Criminal Justice (DCJ), challenges the district

court's § 1915(d) dismissal of his civil rights complaint against

a number of prison officials. We vacate and remand for further

factual development. 
2

The gravamen of plaintiff's complaint against the defendants

is that they took inadequate steps to protect him from a violent

fellow inmate. Meadows' pleadings, together with his answers to

interrogatories, establish that inmate Clark attacked him on

January 26, 1995, while a guard was escorting Meadows to the

shower. Two days earlier, Clark had threatened Meadows following

a dispute over some property. Meadows reported that incident to

defendant Mayfield but received no response.

The district court applied the proper legal standard. To

establish a failure to protect claim, an inmate must show that he

was "incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of

serious harm" and that the prison officials were deliberately

indifferent to his need for protection. Horton v. Cockrell, 70

F.3d 397 (5th Cir. 1995), citing Farmer v. Brennan, 114 S.Ct. 1970,

1977 (1994). To act with deliberate indifference, "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 draw

the inference." Id. at 1979. A prison official acts with

deliberate indifference "only if he knows that inmates face a

substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by

failing to take reasonable measures to abate it." Id. at 1984.

Meadows' pleadings support an inference that prison officials

knew that Meadows faced risk of injury from Clark inasmuch as

Meadows informed the officials about Clark's threats. The prison

officials did not totally disregard these threats; a guard was
3

escorting Meadows to the showers when Clark attacked him. We

nevertheless conclude that the question of whether prison officials

took reasonable measures to abate the risk must have further

factual development. Meadows alleges that with the prison

officials' knowledge of Clark's threats and in violation of prison

regulations, Clark was allowed to remain outside his cell in the

area where Meadows was being escorted in handcuffs at the time

Clark attacked him. Meadows' action may eventually pass § 1915(d)

muster following additional factual development of this aspect of

his claim. See Eason v. Taylor, 13 F.3d 8, 10 (5th Cir. 1994).

But without this factual development we conclude that the district

court abused its discretion in dismissing Meadows' claim under §

1915(d). 

VACATED and REMANDED.