Opinion ID: 6318463
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: dongarra alleges two distinct

Text: EIGHTH AMENDMENT CLAIMS To get damages, Dongarra must clear two hurdles. First, he must show that the prison violated his Eighth Amendment rights. Second, he must show that Bivens lets him sue for damages. All too often, courts skip straight to step two, without first considering whether the government violated the Constitution. Though this approach is permissible, it has its downsides. Cf. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 236 (2009) (letting courts consider another two-step analysis—qualified immunity—in either order). For one, it skips a logical step: there is no need to consider a remedy unless the plaintiff has established an injury. Plus, when a judge recognizes a victim’s injury, that recognition may have symbolic value for the victim, even if he gets no compensation. Jumping ahead also stunts the development of constitutional law. Courts spend less time clarifying the scope of our rights. And that makes it harder for plaintiffs to defeat qualified immunity by showing that a right is “clearly established.” See Carroll v. Carman, 574 U.S. 13, 16 (2014) (per curiam). Although plaintiffs need not find a case directly on point, they must cite “existing precedent” that puts “the … question beyond debate.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 563 U.S. 731, 741 (2011). But they cannot do that if courts do not analyze the Constitution. 5 This case illustrates the problem. Dongarra alleges that being mislabeled a sex-offender increased his risk of assault, subjecting him to cruel and unusual punishment. But the Third Circuit has no precedent on point. So he is forced to support his claim by citing out-of-circuit and nonprecedential opinions. Reply Br. 23–24. This lack of precedent makes it harder for him to clearly establish the right. We refuse to contribute to this problem. So we turn to Dongarra and his constitutional claims. The Eighth Amendment bans “cruel and unusual punishments .” When we parse his complaint, we see that Dongarra is alleging two distinct Eighth Amendment wrongs. First, he challenges the conditions of his confinement: living in prison while branded a sex offender, he says, made him anxious and stressed. Second, he challenges the prison’s failure to protect him. Smith, he argues, was deliberately indifferent to the risk that other prisoners would assault a supposed sex offender. Each claim fails, but for different reasons. The conditionsof-confinement claim fails because dubbing him a sex offender did not deprive him of a basic human need. So he does not allege a constitutional violation (step one). The failure-to-protect claim does allege a constitutional violation, but it still falls short because the Supreme Court has never recognized a damages remedy for an assault that never happened. So he has no Bivens claim (step two). 6