Opinion ID: 800677
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Email to Central Office

Text: Just like the Wells Memo, Chaffee's email to Central office proximately and actually caused the resulting security increase by Central Office. There is no indication in the forty minutes between Zamiara's receipt of Chaffee's email and Zamiara's reply issuing the security increase that Zamiara received any additional information regarding King. See R. 172 (Trial Tr. II at 166:19-167:20). For the same reasons discussed above in addressing the Wells Memo, we disagree with the district court's conclusion that Chaffee was not involved in the increased security level. That conclusion is the result of a misapplication of the correct law to the undisputed facts giving rise to the increase in King's security level. The next inquiry is whether the district court committed clear error in finding that Chaffee was not motivated by King's exercise of his constitutional rights. Compared to Wells, Chaffee appears to have held no specific malice or ill-will toward King. However, the desire to punish someone for protected conduct does not require malice. The record clearly reflected that Chaffee was motivated at least in part by King's protected conduct, even if he did not realize that doing so would constitute retaliation. [15] We therefore take no issue with the district court's finding that Chaffee's testimony was credible, King IV, 2009 WL 3424221, at , because Chaffee's statement that he took no action for the purpose of retaliating against Mr. King, R. 171 (Trial Tr. I at 154:6-8), says nothing about whether Chaffee understood that the legal definition of retaliation included taking an adverse action against King in response to his protected conduct, which included assisting others in filing grievances. Indeed, if Chaffee is credible, his testimony directly establishes that he was improperly motivated by King's protected conduct. In his email to Zamiara, Chaffee specifically cites King's assistance with filing grievances and participation in the Warden's Forum as examples of the problems King was causing that required him to be transferred: It seems he can instigate them to create problems (grievances, complaints to Warden's Forum, etc.) while he remains uninvolved directly. Currently, he is printing out grievances about various issues and having other prisoners sign them and send them in. R. 130-3, Ex. 18 (Chaffee/Zamiara Email). Chaffee also acknowledged being told that King was being transferred because he was instigating other prisoners to file grievances. R. 171 (Trial Tr. I at 139:9-12). Chaffee testified that if Harry had told him of other forms of misconduct or manipulative behavior, he would have included it in the email, and that if King had not been involved in the Warden's Forum and had not been assisting other prisoners file grievances, he likely would not have been transferred at all. Id. at 142:13-16. [16] An adverse action, like an increase in security, was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of Chaffee's request, and the record clearly demonstrates that King's assistance in filing grievances motivated Chaffee to comply with his superior's order requesting the transfer. [17]