Opinion ID: 780063
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: the plaintiff engaged in protected conduct;

Text: 23 (2) an adverse action was taken against the plaintiff that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that conduct; and 24 (3) there is a causal connection between elements one and two — that is, the adverse action was motivated at least in part by the plaintiff's protected conduct. 25 Id. at 394. If the prisoner is able to prove that his exercise of the protected right was a substantial or motivating factor in the defendant's alleged retaliatory conduct, the burden shifts to the defendant to show that the same action would have been taken even absent the protected conduct. Id. at 399. 26 The defendants argue that the Thaddeus-X standard does not apply to this case because the incidents in question occurred before March 8, 1999, the date on which Thaddeus-X was decided. Instead, they maintain that we should apply the shocks the conscience standard in analyzing their defense of qualified immunity. Under this standard, the prisoner has to establish `an egregious abuse of governmental power' or behavior that `shocks the conscience' as a prerequisite to recovery. Herron v. Harrison, 203 F.3d 410, 414 (6th Cir.2000). 27 We need not address this argument, however, because the defendants did not raise the affirmative defense of qualified immunity in their motion for summary judgment. Although the defendants preserved the defense in their first responsive pleading and in their answer to Brown's complaint, they did not pursue this argument before the district court in the motion for summary judgment that they filed after the case was remanded. The Seventh Circuit has explained that, even if a defendant has raised the affirmative defense in a responsive pleading, the defense of qualified immunity may be deemed as waived if not properly and timely presented before the district court. Walsh v. Mellas, 837 F.2d 789, 799 (7th Cir.1988). [T]he cases holding that an omission of this character constitutes a waiver of the right to present that issue on appeal are legion. Id. at 799-800 (The mere fact that an obscure reference to [an affirmative defense] is contained in one of the defendants' pleadings does not suffice to preserve that issue for appeal.). We find this reasoning persuasive. See J.C. Wyckoff & Assocs., Inc. v. Standard Fire Ins. Co., 936 F.2d 1474, 1488 (6th Cir.1991) (Issues not presented to the district court but raised for the first time on appeal are not properly before the court.). We will not, therefore, address the defendants' argument that they have qualified immunity from Brown's claim. 28 On the other hand, as we discuss below, the judgment of the district court must be vacated and the case remanded for further proceedings, because the district court erred in its application of the law to Brown's retaliation claim. The defendants will thus be free to reassert their immunity defenses in the district court. See English v. Dyke, 23 F.3d 1086, 1090 (6th Cir.1994) (explaining that a waiver of an official-immunity defense need not waive the defense for all purposes but would generally only waive the defense for the stage at which the defense should have been asserted). 29 [E]very consideration that classically supports the law's ordinary remand requirement does so here. INS v. Ventura, ___ U.S. ___, 123 S.Ct. 353, 355, ___ L.Ed.2d ___ (2002) (per curiam) (listing among those considerations the points that the lower-level decisionmaker can bring its expertise to bear upon the matter; it can evaluate the evidence; it can make an initial determination; and, in doing so, it can, through informed discussion and analysis, help a [higher] court later determine whether its decision is appropriate). By forcing the defendants to present the qualified immunity defense to the district court in the first instance, we ensure that any future appeal in this case will have the benefit of the district court's analysis of the issues relating to the defense. We are at a disadvantage, generally, when we address on appeal an issue that was so tersely presented to the district court. District courts are far more familiar with the factual record in their cases than are the courts of appeals, and this knowledge can generate useful insights into the issues surrounding qualified immunity. By declining to consider qualified immunity defenses on appeal that were not raised properly before the district court, moreover, we might encourage future defendants to properly raise this defense at the district court level. 30 The dissent nevertheless laments our restraint in declining to reach the issue of qualified immunity in this particular case, where this immunity is certain to be conferred upon remand. Dissenting Op. at 794. We do not share the dissent's certainty of outcome. First, it is far from clear that the defendants are correct in urging their entitlement to immunity under the shocks the conscience standard. See Bell v. Johnson, 308 F.3d 594, 2002 WL 31317957, at  (6th Cir.2002) (Thus, after Gibbs [ v. Hopkins, 10 F.3d 373 (6th Cir.1993),] we think it clear that an inmate's First Amendment retaliation claim would be assessed according to the same standards applied to such claims in the other contexts, rather than the `shock the conscience' standard applicable to substantive due process claims.). Even applying the standard urged by the defendants, moreover, this court has held that a plaintiff inmate alleged facts showing a conscience-shocking abuse of power where he asserted that prison guards maliciously filed false disciplinary charges against him in retaliation for the exercise of his First Amendment rights. Cale v. Johnson, 861 F.2d 943, 950 (6th Cir.1988). Brown has alleged certain similar circumstances in this case. In short, it is far from a foregone conclusion that the defendants will be entitled to qualified immunity upon remand. 31 We will now proceed to determine whether the defendants are entitled to summary judgment by applying the standard that this court announced in Thaddeus-X. The defendants concede that Brown was engaged in protected conduct when he complained about the alleged overcharges to his prison account. Brown has thus established the first element of a retaliation claim. 32 Under Thaddeus-X, the second element requires proof of an adverse action that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that conduct. This court has explained that while certain threats or deprivations are so de minimis that they do not rise to the level of being constitutional violations, this threshold is intended to weed out only inconsequential actions, and is not a means whereby solely egregious retaliatory acts are allowed to proceed past summary judgment. Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 398. 33 The defendants acknowledge that prisoners who are subject to a major misconduct charge are generally transferred to administrative segregation, and that this court has concluded that placing a prisoner in administrative segregation is an adverse action. Herron, 203 F.3d at 416 (holding that being sentenced to five days of administrative segregation constitutes an adverse action); Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 396 (In the prison context, an action comparable to transfer to administrative segregation would certainly be adverse.). They point out, however, that Brown was already in administrative segregation when he was issued the major misconduct charge. The defendants therefore contend that he did not suffer an adverse action. 34 Although Brown was already in administrative segregation and a hearing officer ultimately found him not guilty, the issuance of the major misconduct charge subjected him to the risk of significant sanctions. Mich. Admin. Code R. 791.5505(1) (listing the sanctions that a hearing officer is allowed to impose on a prisoner who is found guilty of major misconduct). Brown, for example, could have been sentenced to punitive segregation if he had been found guilty, a sanction more severe than administrative segregation. Id.; Mich. Admin. Code R. 791.5510 (describing punitive segregation). He also could have lost good-time or disciplinary credits, effectively increasing the amount of remaining time that he was required to serve. Mich. Comp. Laws § 800.33(5); Mich. Admin. Code R. 791.5505(3)(b). A reasonable jury could conclude that being subjected to the risk of such severe sanctions for raising a legitimate complaint would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that [protected] conduct. Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 394; see also Cale, 861 F.2d at 949-50 (recognizing the § 1983 claim of an inmate in part because in this case appellant was in danger of further loss of liberty through disciplinary detention and through the loss of good-time credit as the result of the charges filed against him) (emphasis added). 35 The third element of a retaliation claim is a causal connection between the protected conduct and the adverse action. This element is satisfied where the adverse action was motivated at least in part by the plaintiff's protected conduct. Id. at 394. Once the plaintiff has met his burden of establishing that his protected conduct was a motivating factor behind any harm, the burden of production shifts to the defendant. Id. at 399. In order to prevail on summary judgment, the defendant must then show that he would have taken the same action in the absence of the protected activity. Id. 36 The record in the present case establishes that Regional Prison Administrator Johnson sent a memorandum to Warden Crowley directly linking the major misconduct charge to Brown's protected conduct. After that memorandum was received, the major misconduct charge was issued, despite the fact that prison officials were aware that an accounting problem existed regarding Brown's prison account and that Brown might have a valid complaint. In finding Brown not guilty of the misconduct charge, the hearing officer stated: 37 I find that, based on the documents that prisoner did submit at this hearing that his perception that his debt is paid off is not unreasonable at all. Prisoner even states in his complaints that he has grieved that matter and spoken with staff several tiomes [sic] about this matter in an effort to show that he has [] paid his debt in full and even shown them the documents that he showed this hearing officer. Hearing officer finds that it is entirely reasonable and probable that prisoner did legitimately think someone was taking his money and that prisoner had a reasonable belief that his alleations [sic] were not false. 38 Based upon this evidence, we conclude that a reasonable jury could find that Brown has established that the defendants' adverse action was motivated at least in part by his protected conduct. The burden of production therefore shifts to the defendants. 39 In holding that Brown failed to establish the third element of a retaliation claim, the district court emphasized that the defendants presented evidence that they had issued Brown a major misconduct charge only after investigating his allegation and concluding that it was meritless. The district court thus concluded that [i]t is clear that defendants issued the misconduct ticket solely because they believed plaintiff acted improperly and made false allegations. Although the evidence presented by the defendants is relevant to the question of whether they would have taken the same action in the absence of the protected activity, it is not sufficient to establish as a matter of law that there was no causal connection between the protected conduct and the adverse action. The district court therefore erred in concluding that no genuine issue of material fact exists regarding the third element of Brown's retaliation claim. 40 A classic parade of horribles is presented by the dissent because of our conclusion, which supposedly will result in strict liability — or at least a triable factual issue — whenever a prison official cites a prisoner for misconduct and the charge is subsequently set aside. Dissenting Op. at 792. What this critique misses is that we are here concerned with allegations of prison officials retaliating against an inmate for the exercise of his First Amendment rights, not with prisoner misconduct generally. Cf. Wright v. Newsome, 795 F.2d 964, 968 (11th Cir.1986) (concluding that the plaintiff inmate had alleged facts bringing actions that might not otherwise be offensive to the Constitution, such as the search itself or the confiscation and destruction of [legal and] nonlegal materials..., within the scope of the Constitution by alleging that the actions were taken in retaliation for filing lawsuits and administrative grievances). 41 The dissent contends that a prison official does not abuse his position of authority merely by invoking a conventional administrative procedure for sanctioning prisoner misconduct. Dissenting Op. at 798. This is accurate as a general statement of the law, but it has little application to the facts of this case, where there was no misconduct. All Brown did was file non-frivolous grievances and write a letter to the police asking them to investigate prison officials for embezzlement when, according to the hearing officer, he did legitimately think someone was taking his money. On the facts as alleged by the plaintiff, the defendants and the dissent seem to have forgotten the childhood doggerel that sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Johnson v. Pedersen, 1986 WL 11023, at  (N.D.Ill.1986) (holding that prison officials could not disregard a prisoner's due process rights when they punished him for such a relatively minor offense as swearing). 42 We are dubious that the issuance of a major misconduct ticket under such circumstances could ever be deemed consistent with First Amendment principles. Prison officials are clearly free to punish inmate conduct that threatens the orderly administration of the prison. But [t]he State must ensure ... that [conduct-regulating] portions of the prison rules are not used as a backdoor means of punishing inmates for exercising their right to criticize the legality of officials' actions. Any attempt to use the rules in this manner would result in an unconstitutional application of the rules. Clarke v. Stalder, 121 F.3d 222, 230 (5th Cir.), vacated on other grounds by 133 F.3d 940 (5th Cir.1997). 43 In sum, genuine issues of material fact remain as to whether Brown was subjected to a risk of significant sanctions that would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in protected conduct, and whether the defendants can rebut the causal connection between the two. The district court therefore erred in granting summary judgment to the defendants. Accordingly, the district court's judgment is vacated and the case is remanded for further proceedings. On remand, the district court should also reconsider its order denying Brown's motion to amend his complaint, because that motion is no longer moot. 44 B. Request for a remand to a different district court judge 45 Brown also requests that we remand this case to a different district court judge, based upon his contention that he can not and will not receive a fair trial before the current judge. In particular, Brown claims that [t]he district court seemed to [analyze] everything in favor of the defendants [] and thereby violated the law which states that he is to view the facts in favor of the nonmoving party[]. Brown also contends that the district court judge has always been [biased against] the plaintiff's case whenever the plaintiff requested anything from the court. 46 Although we have the authority pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2106 to remand the case to a different district court judge, this is an extraordinary power and should rarely be invoked.... Armco, Inc. v. United Steelworkers of Am., 280 F.3d 669, 683 (6th Cir.2002). Because Brown has not submitted any proof of personal bias that would require recusal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 144, we have considered the following factors in evaluating his request: (1) whether the original judge would reasonably be expected upon remand to have substantial difficulty in putting out of his or her mind previously-expressed views or findings determined to be erroneous or based on evidence that must be rejected, 47