Task: songer_r_fed

What follows is an opinion from a United States Court of Appeals.
Intervenors who participated as parties at the courts of appeals should be counted as either appellants or respondents when it can be determined whose position they supported. For example, if there were two plaintiffs who lost in district court, appealed, and were joined by four intervenors who also asked the court of appeals to reverse the district court, the number of appellants should be coded as six.
In some cases there is some confusion over who should be listed as the appellant and who as the respondent. This confusion is primarily the result of the presence of multiple docket numbers consolidated into a single appeal that is disposed of by a single opinion. Most frequently, this occurs when there are cross appeals and/or when one litigant sued (or was sued by) multiple litigants that were originally filed in district court as separate actions. The coding rule followed in such cases should be to go strictly by the designation provided in the title of the case. The first person listed in the title as the appellant should be coded as the appellant even if they subsequently appeared in a second docket number as the respondent and regardless of who was characterized as the appellant in the opinion.
To clarify the coding conventions, consider the following hypothetical case in which the US Justice Department sues a labor union to strike down a racially discriminatory seniority system and the corporation (siding with the position of its union) simultaneously sues the government to get an injunction to block enforcement of the relevant civil rights law. From a district court decision that consolidated the two suits and declared the seniority system illegal but refused to impose financial penalties on the union, the corporation appeals and the government and union file cross appeals from the decision in the suit brought by the government. Assume the case was listed in the Federal Reporter as follows:
United States of America,
Plaintiff, Appellant
v
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendant, Appellee.
International Brotherhood of Widget Workers,AFL-CIO
Defendants, Cross-appellants
v
United States of America.
Widgets, Inc. & Susan Kuersten Sheehan, President & Chairman
of the Board
Plaintiff, Appellants,
v
United States of America,
Defendant, Appellee.
This case should be coded as follows:Appellant = United States, Respondents = International Brotherhood of Widget Workers Widgets, Inc., Total number of appellants = 1, Number of appellants that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials" = 1, Total number of respondents = 3, Number of respondents that fall into the category "private business and its executives" = 2, Number of respondents that fall into the category "groups and associations" = 1.
Note that if an individual is listed by name, but their appearance in the case is as a government official, then they should be counted as a government rather than as a private person. For example, in the case "Billy Jones & Alfredo Ruiz v Joe Smith" where Smith is a state prisoner who brought a civil rights suit against two of the wardens in the prison (Jones & Ruiz), the following values should be coded: number of appellants that fall into the category "natural persons" =0 and number that fall into the category "state governments, their agencies, and officials" =2. A similar logic should be applied to businesses and associations. Officers of a company or association whose role in the case is as a representative of their company or association should be coded as being a business or association rather than as a natural person. However, employees of a business or a government who are suing their employer should be coded as natural persons. Likewise, employees who are charged with criminal conduct for action that was contrary to the company policies should be considered natural persons.
If the title of a case listed a corporation by name and then listed the names of two individuals that the opinion indicated were top officers of the same corporation as the appellants, then the number of appellants should be coded as three and all three were coded as a business (with the identical detailed code). Similar logic should be applied when government officials or officers of an association were listed by name.
Your specific task is to determine the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officials". If the total number cannot be determined (e.g., if the respondent is listed as "Smith, et. al." and the opinion does not specify who is included in the "et.al."), then answer 99.

JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge:
On January 10, 1978 in the Holman Prison in Atmore, Alabama, appellant Bobby Williams was assaulted by fellow inmate Larry Cook while Williams was sleeping in his dormitory bunk. Cook inflicted multiple stab wounds which rendered Williams a permanent quadriplegic. At the time of the incident, the dormitory housed medium security prisoners, and no prison guards were stationed either inside or outside the dormitory.
Williams filed a damage action in the district court under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983,1985, and 1986 and the eighth and fourteenth amendments against the Alabama Board of Corrections and its members, the Board’s commissioner and deputy commissioner, the warden and deputy wardens of Holman Prison, and the captain and assistant captain of the guards at the prison, all in their official and individual capacities. Williams alleged that his personal injuries were the result of the deprivation of his right under the eighth amendment to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and of his right under the fourteenth amendment to be free from deprivation of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. The complaint also named Larry Cook as an individual defendant, alleging a state law assault and battery claim.
Prior to trial the district judge granted partial summary judgment in favor of the Alabama Board of Corrections and all other defendants, except Larry Cook, in their official capacities on the basis of their eleventh amendment immunity. Just after commencement of trial the state law claim against defendant Cook was dismissed for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. At the close of the evidence the court granted a directed verdict for the captain and assistant captain of the guards. A jury verdict was rendered in favor of the remaining defendants in their individual capacities and Williams appeals.
For the reasons developed below, we conclude that:
(1) The district court properly dismissed the proceedings against defendant Cook.
(2) The court properly held that, under the eleventh amendment, the Board of Corrections and other defendants, insofar as they were sued in their official capacities, were immune from damage liability.
(3) Prior litigation established that Williams was confined in violation of the eighth amendment and that his injuries, being the result of foreseeable peril, were at least concurrently caused by that wrongful deprivation of constitutional freedom.
(4) The injunction issued in the prior litigation is of no moment insofar as it anticipated an expected date of compliance. Although relevant to contempt proceedings, the time allowance in the injunction did not vary appellees’ duties under the Bill of Rights.
(5) The defense of good faith qualified immunity is not available to appellees because prior litigation put them on notice that the conditions of confinement at the prison were unconstitutional.
(6) In order to recover, however, Williams must prove that one or more of the individual defendants acted with such callous indifference to Williams’ safety as to amount to constitutional wrongdoing, and that such wrongdoing produced the constitutional deprivation. Evidence that an individual defendant had neither the authority nor the resources to prevent the deprivation is material to this issue.
(7) The district court improperly instructed the jury that the state could not be compelled to pay any part of a judgment in favor of Williams.
(8) Williams may not maintain a Bivins -type action under the eighth amendment in addition to his claims under section 1983.
(9) The direction of a verdict in favor of defendants Chancery and Raines is reversed. Their liability vel non should be reappraised in light of our conclusions as to the applicable principles.
I PROLOGUE
In order to appraise the legal setting in which the case was tried we must direct our attention to a prior class action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 involving conditions in the Alabama Penal system. In Pugh v. Locke, 406 F.Supp. 318 (M.D.Ala.1976), aff’d with modifications sub nom. Newman v. Alabama, 559 F.2d 283 (5th Cir. 1977), rev’d in part sub nom. Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 98 S.Ct. 3057, 56 L.Ed.2d 1114 (1978), the district court held that living conditions in Alabama prisons, including exposure to the constant threat of violence from other inmates, constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the eighth amendment. The court concluded that, by housing inmates “in virtually unguarded, overcrowded dormitories, with no realistic attempt... to separate violent, aggressive inmates from those who are passive or weak,” the Alabama prison system had failed to carry out its constitutional duty to provide inmates reasonable protection from the constant threat of violence. Id. at 329. Accordingly, the court entered injunctive relief against, inter alia, the commissioner, deputy commissioner, and members of the Board of Corrections in their individual and official capacities, “their agents, employees, successors in office and any other acting in concert with them.” Id. at 331. The decree directed that only minimum custody inmates be assigned to dormitories and that at least one guard be stationed inside and one guard outside the dormitories at all times. Id. at 333.
The district judge who entered the injunction in 1976 conducted hearings in September, 1978 to determine the extent of compliance with the Pugh order. The judge’s findings and conclusions therefore covered the conditions in the Alabama prisons at the time of the incident upon which the current action is based. Having reviewed the evidence of efforts toward compliance, the court held that “[t]he very fact of confinement in Alabama’s Penal System continues to contravene the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights” of the inmates. Newman v. Alabama, 466 F.Supp. 628, 630 (M.D.Ala.1979). With respect to the state’s duty to provide inmates reasonable protection from violence, the court observed:
Defendants admit noncompliance with the requirement that guards be stationed in the living areas, including dormitories. The dormitories, they say, are too dangerous for the guards to enter. That fear is well taken. The number of reported incidents of prosecutable crimes of violence shows a steady increase over the last four years....
The Board has not taken the first steps to curb the pattern of violence which makes a mockery of the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment. The Board has deliberately ignored the requirement that guards be stationed in the dormitory units at night.
Id. at 632 (emphasis added).
II THE INSTITUTION EXITS
The Pugh litigation determined that the conditions of Williams’ confinement denied him the protection afforded prison inmates by the eighth amendment and that the cruel and unusual punishment thus inflicted was his constant exposure to the very sort of violence he experienced. The Alabama Penal System, as an institution, was being unconstitutionally operated. Williams attempted to sue the institution itself by naming as defendant the Board of Corrections and its officials and employees in their official capacities. If these defendants were proper parties for a damage suit, his task would have been far easier. However, on the basis of the eleventh amendment’s acknowledgement of sovereign immunity, the district court entered a partial summary judgment in favor of the Alabama Board of Corrections and its officials and employees insofar as they were sued in their official capacities. Williams now challenges the application of sovereign immunity on two grounds. Initially, he argues that the Board of Corrections should not be considered the “state” for eleventh amendment purposes. In the alternative, he argues that a recent Alabama statute should be construed as a partial abrogation of any immunity the Board may have enjoyed previously.
The eleventh amendment has evolved to stand for the proposition that an unconsenting state is immune from damage suits brought in federal court by its own citizens or by citizens of another state. Quern v. Jordan, 440 U.S. 332, 337, 99 S.Ct. 1139, 1143, 39 L.Ed.2d 358 (1979); Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U.S. 651, 663, 94 S.Ct. 1347, 1355, 39 L.Ed.2d 662 (1974). The amendment effectively bars such actions for monetary relief even when the state is not named as a party. If the judgment necessarily will be paid from the state treasury, and the state is the real party in interest, then the state may invoke its sovereign immunity. Id. 415 U.S. at 664, 94 S.Ct. at 1356; Ford Motor Co. v. Department of Treasury, 323 U.S. 459, 464, 65 S.Ct. 347, 350, 89 L.Ed. 389 (1945). Although Williams maintains that the Board of Corrections is amenable to suit because it is political subdivision operating independent of the state, his argument is precluded by the Supreme Court’s decision in Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 98 S.Ct. 3057, 56 L.Ed.2d 1114 (1978). In Alabama v. Pugh, the Court concluded:
There can be no doubt, however, that suit against the State and its Board of Corrections is barred by the Eleventh Amendment, unless Alabama has consented to the filing of such a suit.
438 U.S. at 782, 98 S.Ct. at 3057 (citation omitted).
Recognizing that the Board and its officials may invoke the eleventh amendment when sued in their official capacity, we turn now to plaintiff’s contention that the state has since elected to waive its constitutional immunity by consenting to such suits. In 1979, the Alabama legislature enacted a statute in which the state agreed to pay up to $100,000 for judgments awarded against officials and employees of the Board of Corrections. Ala.Code § 41-9-74 (1981 Supp.). Williams maintains that by enacting this statute the legislature intended to effectuate a limited waiver of eleventh amendment immunity. We disagree.
Waiver of a state’s eleventh amendment immunity can be found only when evidenced “by the most express language or by such overwhelming implications from the text as [will] leave no room for any other reasonable construction.” Edelman, 415 U.S. at 673, 94 S.Ct. at 1360 (quoting Murray v. Wilson Distilling Co., 213 U.S. 151, 171, 29 S.Ct. 458, 464, 53 L.Ed. 742 (1909).); accord Florida Department of Health & Rehabilitative Services v. Florida Nursing Home Association, 450 U.S. 147, 150, 101 S.Ct. 1032, 1034, 67 L.Ed.2d 132 (1981). In evaluating the statute for evidence of waiver, we therefore begin with an analysis of its language. The introductory paragraph of section 41-9-74 states that Alabama will pay final judgments awarded against Board officials in suits arising out of official acts “[a]s part of the consideration of the employment or appointment” of the individuals. Ala.Code § 41-9-74(a) (1981 Supp.). This language suggests that the statute was designed to be an employment benefit, analogous to liability insurance, for any Alabama correctional employee who may be sued individually for acts arising in the course of employment. Cf. Reeves v. City of Jackson, 608 F.2d 644, 654 n.6 (5th Cir. 1979) (a state municipality does not waive its immunity by purchasing liability insurance). Section 41-9-74 makes no mention of suits against the state or against the Board itself as an independent political body. Instead, the statute indicates that its indemnity provision runs to individuals by specifically listing those employees who may claim the benefit of its coverage. In addition, the provision that awards will be paid only to the extent that coverage is not provided by an insurance carrier suggests further that payments pursuant to the statute were intended to be nothing more than an insurance supplement for individuals, see Ala.Code § 41-9-47(a), and perhaps to afford some measure of relief to plaintiffs required to sue those who might otherwise be judgment proof individuals.
Williams relies most heavily on paragraph (c) of the statute by arguing that the legislature considered sovereign immunity, but decided to waive its protection insofar as a particular judgment did not exceed $100,000. This construction of the statute, however, ignores a clause which alters the meaning of paragraph (c). The relevant language reads as follows:
“Nothing in this section shall be deemed to waive the sovereign immunity of the state with respect to a claim covered under this section or to authorize the payment of any judgment or settlement against aforesaid commissioner, deputy commissioner, members of the board of corrections, officers, employees and agents, to the extent that the same exceeds the sum of $100,000.
Id. § 41-9-74(c) (emphasis added). We are not persuaded that this provision expresses the intent of the legislature to waive sovereign immunity; rather, the legislature appears to reaffirm Alabama’s sovereign immunity and simply to limit payments made pursuant to the statute to $100,000.
Our construction of section 41-9-74 is consistent with Alabama’s traditional reluctance to waive its sovereign immunity. For example, the Alabama Constitution unequivocally states “That the State of Alabama shall never be made a defendant in any court of law or equity.” Ala.Const. art. I, § 14. Moreover, the Alabama Supreme Court consistently maintains that “[sjince our Constitution unequivocally prohibits suits against the state, the legislature may not consent to such a suit.” Armory Commission v. Staudt, 388 So.2d 991, 992 (Ala.1980); accord Druid City Hospital Board v. Epperson, 378 So.2d 696, 697 (Ala.1979); Dunn Construction Co. v. Board of Adjustments, 234 Ala. 372, 175 So. 383 (1937). Because of Alabama’s unequivocal affirmation of sovereign immunity, and because section 41-9-74 fails to represent a clear expression of intent to waive that immunity in federal court, we hold that the Board may not be subject to suit; however, while its officials and/or employees may not be sued in their official capacities, they are, individually subject to suits for acts or omissions in connection with their official duties. The grant of partial summary judgment is affirmed.
Ill DEFENDANT COOK- EXITS
The district court dismissed the assault and battery claims against defendant Larry Cook for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. On appeal, Williams urges that Cook’s dismissal was improper because the court had pendent jurisdiction over these state law claims. We disagree.
A federal court may exercise pendent jurisdiction over state law claims by parties properly before it, provided the federal and state law claims derive from a common nucleus of operative fact and that adjudication of the state claim will not prove inconvenient or unfair to the litigants or unduly burden the proceedings. United Mine Workers v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 86 S.Ct. 1130, 16 L.Ed.2d 218 (1966); Jackson v. Stinchcomb, 635 F.2d 462 (5th Cir. 1981); Silva v. Vowell, 621 F.2d 640 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1125, 101 S.Ct. 941, 67 L.Ed.2d 111 (1981). Implicit in the traditional concept of pendent jurisdiction is that the court already has jurisdiction over all the parties involved, whether because they are diverse or because a substantial federal claim has been asserted against the defendant. Here, however, Cook was not a diverse party. Nor was any substantial federal claim asserted against him. Because Cook is not a state official, he was not involved in the section 1983 claim. Moreover, Williams failed to proffer sufficient evidence to maintain that Cook and state correctional officials conspired to deprive Williams of his constitutional rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) (1976). See Griffin v. Breckenridge, 403 U.S. 88, 91 S.Ct. 1790, 29 L.Ed.2d 338 (1971); Crowe v. Lucas, 595 F.2d 985 (5th Cir. 1979).
Accordingly, the only possible source of jurisdiction over the state law claim against Cook lies in the nascent concept of pendent party jurisdiction. Under this theory, a court in some limited circumstances may bring in “state” parties over which it could not otherwise exercise jurisdiction. See Aldinger v. Howard, 427 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 2413, 49 L.Ed.2d 276 (1976); Arango v. Guzman Travel Advisors Corp., 621 F.2d 1371, 1377 n.7 (5th Cir. 1980); Boudreaux v. Puckett, 611 F.2d 1028, 1030-31 (5th Cir. 1980); see, e.g., Connecticut General Life Insurance Co. v. Craton, 405 F.2d 41 (5th Cir. 1968). The exercise of such pendent party jurisdiction turns on judicial economy considerations and whether “... Congress has expressly or impliedly negated the existence of jurisdiction of a pendent claim or party.” Boudreaux, 611 F.2d at 1031.
The exercise of pendent party jurisdiction already has been rejected in the context of diversity jurisdiction. Owen Equipment & Erection Co. v. Kroger, 437 U.S. 365, 98 S.Ct. 2396, 57 L.Ed.2d 274 (1978). Although we recognize that the policies supporting federal question jurisdiction differ from those supporting diversity jurisdiction and thus may compel a different approach to pendent party jurisdiction in federal question cases, see generally Note, A Closer Look at Pendent and Ancillary Jurisdiction: Toward a Theory of Incidental Jurisdiction, 95 Harv.L.Rev. 1935, 1942-43 (1982), we need not resolve the issue. The exercise of pendent jurisdiction is a discretionary decision reserved to the district court. See Jackson supra, 635 F.2d at 472-73; Gregory v. Mitchell, 634 F.2d 199, 202 (5th Cir. 1981). As such, the district court was in the best position to determine if joinder of the state law claim against Cook would interfere
with the disposition of Williams’ federal civil rights claim. We are not faced here with a case of a federal court accused of exercising jurisdiction beyond that authorized by Congress. Instead, we are presented with a case where a trial judge, acting within his discretion, chose not to exercise pendent party jurisdiction and deferred to state courts resolution of the state law claim of assault and battery. In light of the tenuous nature of pendent party jurisdiction and its emphasis on judicial economy, we conclude that the court acted within its discretion in dismissing defendant Cook.
IV THE CASE REMAINING
With Cook dismissed from the suit and the Alabama Prison System immune from damage liability, Williams is left with claims against the remaining defendants in their individual capacities. Because of the Pugh decision, proof of actionable wrongdoing by the prison system, in its corporate form, would appear to have been a straightforward matter. The case remaining against the individuals working in various capacities in the system, however, is far more complicated. Thus, before we evaluate the effect of Pugh on the remaining case, we find it important to focus on the nature of Williams’ prima facie case under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violation of his eighth amendment rights.
“In order to state a § 1983 cause of action against prison officials based on a constitutional deprivation resulting from cruel and unusual punishment, there must be at least some allegation of a conscious or callous indifference to a prisoner’s rights, thus raising the tort to constitutional stature.” Wright v. El Paso County Jail, 642 F.2d 134, 136 (5th Cir. 1981). Accord Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 106, 97 S.Ct. 285, 292, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976); Woodall v. Foti, 648 F.2d 268, 272 (5th Cir. 1981) (per curiam). To establish a deprivation of his eighth amendment rights, Williams therefore must bear the burden of proving deliberate indifference on the part of each of the defendant officials to his need for reasonable protection from violence. Only this degree of disregard for a prisoner’s rights “can offend ‘evolving standards of decency’ in violation of the Eighth Amendment” and can separate official conduct that is actionable under section 1983 from simple negligence which is not actionable under section 1983. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. at 106, 97 S.Ct. at 292.
Section 1983 imposes additional proof requirements when that statute is used as the vehicle to vindicate substantive constitutional rights. The statute provides:
Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution... shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.
42 U.S.C. § 1983. The italicized language plainly requires proof of an affirmative causal connection between the actions taken by a particular person “under color of state law” and the constitutional deprivation. See Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 692, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2036, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978) (causation requirement precludes imposition of vicarious liability on municipality for acts of its employees absent proof that execution of official policy inflicts injury); McLaughlin v. City of LaGrange, 662 F.2d 1385, 1388 (11th Cir. 1981) (per curiam); Rheuark v. Shaw, 628 F.2d 297, 305 (5th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 931, 101 S.Ct. 1392, 67 L.Ed.2d 365 (1981).
In Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1976), the Supreme Court expounded on the nature of the causal link which must be established. Under review in Rizzo was the entry of injunctive relief against the mayor, police commissioner, and other officials of the City of Philadelphia in a section 1983 action alleging a pervasive pattern of police mistreatment of minority citizens and of Philadelphia residents in general. The Court reversed the judgment of the district court, finding fault with the theory of liability upon which it was based. Specifically, the Court disapproved the imposition of liability for the officials’ failure to act in the face of a statistical pattern of police misconduct absent proof that the supervisory defendants had “direct responsibility for the actions” of those police officers who had engaged in the misconduct. Id. at 375-76, 96 S.Ct. at 606 (emphasis added). The former Fifth Circuit also has elaborated on the necessary causal link between officials’ acts or omissions and the constitutional deprivation. “ ‘Personal participation’ is only one of several theories which can be used to establish causation.... Another theory... is that a supervisory defendant is subject to § 1983 liability when he breaches a duty imposed by state or local law, and this breach causes plaintiff’s constitutional injury.” Sims v. Adams, 537 F.2d 829, 831 (5th Cir. 1976) (citations omitted). From Rizzo and Sims it is clear that the inquiry into causation must be a directed one, focusing on the duties and responsibilities of each of the individual defendants whose acts or omissions are alleged to have resulted in a constitutional deprivation.
Thus, in order to prevail against any one of the individual defendants, Williams must prove the following:
1. That being confined in a dormitory with inmates other than minimum security inmates without guards being present deprived him of his eighth amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment because of the danger of violence.
2. That the individual defendant intentionally, or by callous indifference, was a cause of the constitutional deprivation.
3. That this deprivation was a legal cause of his injuries.
Williams contends that the Pugh litigation collaterally estops defendants from re-litigating the issue of whether he (and other inmates of Holman Prison) was deprived of his right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment by exposure to violence. For this reason, Williams continues, the district court erred in admitting evidence of defendants’ good faith attempts to comply with the dictates of the Pugh injunction. We agree only in part with Williams’ argument.
V PUGH IN PERSPECTIVE
The Pugh litigation, the findings and conclusions of the court, and the injunctive relief granted, have been woven into this case from the start. It is from this perspective that we evaluate the principles of preclusion and their proper place in these proceedings.
A.
Preclusive effect will be given to the adjudication of an issue litigated in a prior proceeding if the issue in the subsequent proceeding is identical to the one involved in the prior action, the issue was actually litigated, and the determination of the issue was necessary in the prior action. Stovall v. Price Waterhouse Co., 652 F.2d 537, 540 (5th Cir. 1981); Johnson v. United States, 576 F.2d 606, 615 (5th Cir. 1978). In the present case Williams seeks to estop the defendants from relitigating issues they purportedly litigated and lost in the Pugh action, thus invoking the offensive use of collateral estoppel. In Parklane Hosiery Co. v. Shore, 439 U.S. 322, 99 S.Ct. 645, 58 L.Ed.2d 552 (1979), the Supreme Court granted federal trial courts broad discretion to permit the offensive use of collateral estoppel, indicating, however, that the exercise of this discretion is circumscribed by considerations of fairness to the defendant in foreclosing relitigation of an issue. Id. 439 U.S. at 331-32, 99 S.Ct. at 651-52. A trial judge may justifiably refuse to allow offensive use of collateral estoppel if the defendant did not have an incentive to litigate the issue vigorously in the prior proceeding or if the defendant did not have a full and fair opportunity to litigate it. Id. at 332, 99 S.Ct. at 652.
Under the circumstances of this case we conclude that the defendant officials are collaterally estopped to relitigate the issue of whether the conditions and practices in Holman Prison violated Williams’ eighth amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment. The parties there actually litigated, and the district court necessarily decided, one of the same basic issues at stake in this action— namely, whether the conditions and practices to which Williams was exposed as an inmate of Holman, including the failure adequately to guard dormitories and to assign only minimum security prisoners to dormitories, amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. To state it more precisely, the Pugh decision forecloses relitigation on the issue of whether Williams was denied reasonable protection from violence. That decision, however, does not preclude litigation on the issue of the degree of culpability of each defendant — that is, whether each defendant exhibited “deliberate indifference,” which was a producing cause of the eighth amendment violation.
We do not perceive an unfairness in es-topping the defendants’ relitigation of the eighth amendment issue. All of the current defendants — with the exception of the warden, deputy warden, captain, and assistant captain of the guards at Holman — or their predecessors in office were named defendants in the Pugh litigation. In light of the serious constitutional violations alleged and the broad declaratory and injunctive relief sought in Pugh, the defendants had every incentive to litigate the eighth amendment issue fully and vigorously. The journey of the case through the appellate courts evidences the fact of their vigorous defense. See Newman v. Alabama, 559 F.2d 283 (5th Cir. 1977), rev’d in part sub nom, Alabama v. Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 98 S.Ct. 3057, 56 L.Ed.2d 1114 (1978). Moreover, there are no procedural opportunities in the present case that were unavailable to the Pugh defendants and of a kind that would be likely to alter the resolution of the eighth amendment issue. See Parklane Hosiery, 439 U.S. at 332 n. 19, 99 S.Ct. at 652 n. 19.
Although not stated with the desired precision, Williams’ counsel did move “... for a directed verdict in regard to the question of cruel and unusual punishment.” Record, at 1115. Indeed, the motion was somewhat lost among other motions which were far from deserved. Nevertheless, without suggesting that everything moved for in the same oration had merit, a directed finding of cruel and unusual punishment should have been made by the district court.
B.
The degree of culpability of each of the individual defendants and his causal role in the physical injuries suffered by Williams as a result of his exposure to the constant threat of violence present us with a different matter. As we have pointed out above, only a gross deviation from the standard of care owed — specifically in this case a callous indifference to Williams’ need for protection from violence — is actionable as an eighth amendment violation under section 1983. In our view, Pugh does not estop each of the current defendant officials from attempting to establish that he did not exhibit such deliberate indifference. Although the district judge involved in the Pugh litigation castigated the state for its failure to take seriously its responsibility for operating its prisons in conformity with constitutional mandates, at times referring to the deliberate disregard of steps ordered in the Pugh injunction, see, e.g., Newman v. Alabama, 466 F.Supp. 628, 632 (M.D.Ala.1979), it is clear that Pugh did not resolve the state of mind or intent of any particular one of the current defendants in failing to perform acts within his official responsibility. Hence one of the prerequisites of collateral estoppel, identity of these issues in the prior and subsequent actions, is missing here. The district court’s comments in Pugh addressed the corporate fault of the state officialdom with responsibility for operation of the Alabama penal system, not the existence of individual fault on the part of each of — or any one of — the current defendants. The latter focus is critical here. For example, it would be unfair to penalize with personal monetary liability an individual Board of Corrections member whose vigorous efforts to hire sufficient prison guards, or to assign available guards so as adequately to staff the dormitories, were overruled by the contrary views of a majority of the Board. On the other hand, it would be highly relevant to the establishing of personal liability to introduce evidence that an individual defendant, having jurisdiction over an adequate number of guards and over Williams’ dormitory at the time of the stabbing announced: “I’m not going to station a guard in that dorm. Those prisoners deserve what they can do to one another.” Such matters remain to be litigated.
Accordingly, we conclude that Pugh has no preclusive effect on the issue of individual constitutional wrongdoing. Our examination of the Pugh litigation convinces us that the causation element in that case is not identical to the causation requirement at issue here. To be sure, as the language of section 1983 plainly requires, a causal connection between the constitutional deprivation and the defendants’ acts or omissions is as much an element of liability for purposes of entering injunctive relief in Pugh as it is in the present damages action. See, e.g., Rizzo v. Goode, 423 U.S. 362, 96 S.Ct. 598, 46 L.Ed.2d 561 (1979) (injunctive relief). It also is clear that the parties in Pugh, collectively, as the corporate officialdom, were in a position to end the constitutional violation. However, when individuals are being sued in individual capacities for damages for personal injuries, the causation inquiry must be more refined and focused than that undertaken in Pugh, where only declaratory and injunctive relief were sought for constitutional violations pervading an entire prison system. In Pugh the focus for causation purposes was on whether the combined acts or omissions of all state officials with some responsibility for operation of the Alabama penal system created living conditions in the prisons which violated the eighth amendment. Thus the approach of the district court in Pugh was broad and generalized. From that approach ensued a sweeping injunction against all officials with any responsibility with respect to the prisons’ operation. By contrast, the critical causation issue here must be whether each individual defendant was in a position to take steps that could have averted the stabbing incident at Holman but, through callous indifference, failed to do so. Resolution of this issue necessarily entails a very individualized approach, taking into account the duties, discretion and means of each defendant.
There can be no duty, the breach of which is actionable, to do that which is beyond the power, authority, or means of the charged party. One may be callously indifferent to the fate of prisoners and yet not be liable for their injuries. Those whose callous indifference results in liability are those under a duty — possessed of authority and means — to prevent the injury-
We find support for our holding that Pugh has a preclusive effect on the eighth amendment issue but not on the issues of individual liability in a former Fifth Circuit case arising from a very similar factual background. In Bogard v.

Question: What is the total number of respondents in the case that fall into the category "the federal government, its agencies, and officialss"? Answer with a number.
Answer:

Answer: 0