Opinion ID: 213384
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: August 24 assault

Text: The district court did not consider Harris’ allegations that two gang members were present at the time of the assault and had questioned him about his state witness status a few days prior to the incident because the relevant portions of Harris’ deposition (pages 98 and 99) had not been included with the motion for summary judgment or Harris’ response to the motion. That is only partially correct. While page 99 of Harris’ deposition was not provided to the district court at the summary judgment stage, page 98 was attached to Matthews’ motion. Nevertheless, the only information page 98 provided is that Harris “speculat[ed]” that two gang members were the instigators of the assault. (R. at 119.) Therefore, the only evidence before the court at the time of summary judgment was Harris’ “speculation” that two members of Ray’s gang assaulted him. That is clearly insufficient to establish Matthews’ actions in November 2008 caused the -6- August 2009 assault. See Snell v. Tunnell, 920 F.2d 673, 700 (10th Cir. 1990) (in order to state a § 1983 claim, a plaintiff must show the defendant “cause[d]” the constitutional deprivation; that causal connection is demonstrated “if the defendant set in motion a series of events that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known would cause others to deprive the plaintiff of [his] constitutional rights”) (quotations omitted); see also Bones v. Honeywell Int’l, Inc., 366 F.3d 869, 875 (10th Cir. 2004) (“To defeat a motion for summary judgment, evidence, including testimony, must be based on more than mere speculation, conjecture, or surmise.”). Nevertheless, even were we to consider Harris’ testimony on page 99 of his deposition and assume his assailants were two gang members who had questioned him about his state witness status a few days before the assault, we would reach the same conclusion. There is no evidence, other than rank speculation, that Harris’ assailants obtained the information concerning his state witness status from Matthews’ disclosure, as opposed to the fact that Ray and Owens were both present when Harris testified against them in court. Again, that is not enough and Harris has failed to establish Matthews’ disclosure caused the assault.