UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 14-7856

MARCUS DALE THOMAS,

Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.

M. YOUNCE, Unit Manager; A. MULLIN, LT; Building (LT) A; D. 

BARTON, SGT, Building (SGT) A,

Defendants - Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western

District of Virginia, at Roanoke. James P. Jones, District 

Judge. (7:14-cv-00510-JPJ-RSB)

Submitted: May 29, 2015 Decided: June 16, 2015

Before NIEMEYER, SHEDD, and FLOYD, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by unpublished 

per curiam opinion.

Marcus D. Thomas, Appellant Pro Se. 

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:

Marcus Dale Thomas, a Virginia inmate, filed a 42 U.S.C. 

§ 1983 (2012) complaint alleging that Defendant prison officials

were deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious 

harm when they ignored a doctor’s order directing that he be 

assigned to a bottom bunk on the bottom tier for one year. As a 

result of this deliberate indifference, Thomas alleged that he 

fell down the stairs and injured his knee. Thomas sought 

compensatory damages and, later, filed a motion for a 

preliminary injunction. The district court denied the motion 

for a preliminary injunction and dismissed the complaint sua 

sponte for failure to state a claim, pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1915A(b)(1) (2012). The court found that Thomas had not 

established that Defendants’ deliberate indifference was the 

cause of his injury or that the injury was sufficiently serious

to support a claim. Thomas appeals the district court’s order 

denying his motion for a preliminary injunction and dismissing 

his complaint and the order denying his motion for 

reconsideration. We affirm in part, vacate in part, and remand 

for further proceedings.

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal for failure 

to state a claim under 28 U.S.C. § 1915A, accepting all wellpled factual allegations in the complaint as true and drawing 

all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving 

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party. Slade v. Hampton Roads Reg’l Jail, 407 F.3d 243, 248 

(4th Cir. 2005). While a pro se plaintiff’s pleadings are to be 

liberally construed, id. at 252, a pro se complaint must still 

contain sufficient facts “to raise a right to relief above the 

speculative level” and “state a claim to relief that is 

plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 

544, 555, 570 (2007).

The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and 

unusual punishment “protects inmates from inhumane treatment and

conditions while imprisoned.” Williams v. Benjamin, 77 F.3d 

756, 761 (4th Cir. 1996). “Prison officials are, therefore, 

obligated to take reasonable measures to guarantee inmate 

safety.” Makdessi v. Fields, ___ F.3d ___, ___, 2015 WL 

1062747, at *5 (4th Cir. Mar. 12, 2015). “For a claim based on 

a failure to prevent harm, the [prisoner] must [first] show that 

he was incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk 

of serious harm.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 

Next, the prisoner must establish that the prison official had 

“a sufficiently culpable state of mind,” that is, “deliberate 

indifference to [the] inmate[’s] health or safety.” Id.

(internal quotation marks omitted). 

A prison official “is deliberately indifferent to a 

substantial risk of harm to a [prisoner] when that [official] 

knows of and disregards the risk.” Parrish ex rel. Lee v. 

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Cleveland, 372 F.3d 294, 302 (4th Cir. 2004) (internal quotation 

marks omitted). However, “prison officials may not simply bury 

their heads in the sand and thereby skirt liability” by claiming 

that they were not aware of the risk. Makdessi, ___ F.3d at 

___, 2015 WL 1062747, at *6. Finally, the prisoner must 

establish that the prison official’s deliberate indifference 

caused his injury. See Caldwell v. Warden, FCI Talladega, 748 

F.3d 1090, 1099 (11th Cir. 2014) (stating elements of deliberate 

indifference to substantial risk of serious harm claim). 

Thomas alleged that, after he showed Younce the doctor’s 

order for the special bunk assignment on at least two occasions, 

Younce refused to move him to a bottom bunk on the bottom tier. 

Instead, Younce told Thomas that he did not have time to change 

Thomas’ bunk assignment and gave him the choice of staying in 

the top tier cell or being moved to segregation. It could be 

reasonably inferred from Thomas’ complaint that Younce 

deliberately denied Thomas’ request to be moved to a bottom bunk 

on the bottom tier, in contravention of the doctor’s order. To 

silence Thomas’ complaints, Younce threatened to place him in 

segregation if he did not agree to stay in the top tier cell. 

Accepting these allegations as true, as we must, we conclude 

that Thomas alleged sufficient facts to demonstrate that Younce 

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was deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious

harm to Thomas.* 

We also conclude that the district court erred by finding 

that Thomas placed himself at risk by not accepting Younce’s 

offer to be moved to segregation. Thomas did not voluntarily 

place himself at risk; rather, he refused Younce’s objectionable 

offer to place him in segregation (presumably without committing 

an infraction) in lieu of his staying on the top tier, where he 

faced a substantial risk of serious injury. The court also 

erred by concluding that Thomas stated no facts to support the 

allegation that his medications played any role in causing his 

fall, as Thomas specifically alleged that he was still sedated 

from his medication when he caught his shower shoe on the stair 

and fell. Finally, the court erred by finding that Thomas could 

not state a claim because he failed to show that the injury to 

his knee was serious. While “evidence of a serious or 

significant physical or emotional injury resulting from the 

challenged conditions” may aid a prisoner in making his 

case, Shakka v. Smith, 71 F.3d 162, 166 (internal quotation 

marks omitted), a prisoner only need “show that he was 

incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of 

* Of course, Younce is free to dispute these allegations and

raise legal challenges to Thomas’ complaint in a motion to 

dismiss or for summary judgment.

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serious harm.” Makdessi, ___ F.3d at ___, 2015 WL 1062747, at 

*5; cf. Wilkins v. Gaddy, 559 U.S. 34, 38-39 (2010) (holding 

that there is no de minimis injury threshold for excessive force 

claim because focus is on prevention of prison officials’ 

malicious and sadistic use of force). Although Thomas may have 

suffered a relatively minor injury to his knee, the risk of more 

significant harm from a fall down the stairs (or out of an upper 

bunk) is obvious. 

Accordingly, we vacate the portion of the district court’s 

orders dismissing Thomas’ claim that Younce exhibited deliberate 

indifference to a substantial risk of serious harm when Younce

ignored a doctor’s order directing that Thomas be assigned to a 

bottom bunk on the bottom tier for one year. However, we find 

no error in the district court’s dismissal of the claims against 

the remaining Defendants and the court’s denial of Thomas’ 

motion for a preliminary injunction. Accordingly, we affirm 

those portions of the district court’s orders.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal 

contentions are adequately presented in the materials before 

this court and argument would not aid the decisional process.

AFFIRMED IN PART,

VACATED IN PART,

AND REMANDED

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