Opinion ID: 515717
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: examining the allegations in unwin's complaint

Text: 20 In Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), the Supreme Court held that the courts of appeals have jurisdiction to review a district court's denial of qualified immunity on an interlocutory basis. In Bonitz v. Fair, 804 F.2d 164, this court held that this jurisdiction was limited to scrutinizing the allegations in the complaint to determine whether the acts as alleged therein, if proven, violated clearly established law at the time of the alleged incident. Appellants first argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity on the basis of the allegations in Unwin's complaint, thus making it unnecessary to examine facts developed through discovery and to decide whether Bonitz, which would preclude such an examination, is still valid law after Anderson v. Creighton, 107 S.Ct. 3034. They point out that Unwin has not alleged facts which show that defendants maliciously and sadistically attacked him for the very purpose of causing harm. According to defendants, they cannot be held liable because the facts alleged in the complaint show that Unwin's injuries were merely the result of their good faith effort to quell a disturbance and return inmates to their cells; thus, they did not violate clearly established law and are entitled to qualified immunity. 21 We cannot accept this argument because the disturbance charged by Unwin was not necessarily one that would make the Whitley standard applicable. 475 U.S. at 320-21, 106 S.Ct. at 1084-85. To be sure, paragraph 11 of the complaint alleged that, Due to a previous disturbance that day ... law enforcement officials ... were called to help assist in quelling any potential disturbance. But the previous disturbance may have subsided by the time the law enforcement officials arrived at the prison, and the vague reference to any potential disturbance does not necessarily establish that an actual disturbance was then in progress. In addition, while paragraph 14 of the complaint refers to an inmate's attempt to subdue a boisterous inmate that led to a struggle between the two, the complaint goes on to allege that the remaining four to six inmates were not at all involved in any sort of violent or disruptive activity. We are unable to infer from these contradictory and vague allegations a prison disturbance of a magnitude to justify defendants' alleged conduct merely because it fell short of being malicious and sadistic, much less a disturbance, such as occurred in [Whitley ], that indisputably poses significant risks to the safety of inmates and prison staff.... Whitley, 475 U.S. at 320, 106 S.Ct. at 1084. 2 Thus, to state an Eighth Amendment claim Unwin did not have to allege that defendants had acted maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm. See Wyatt v. Delaney, 818 F.2d 21, 23 (8th Cir.1987) (in cases not involving matters of institutional security, an Eighth Amendment violation may be established upon a showing less than that force was applied maliciously and sadistically for the very purpose of causing harm). 22 Unwin did allege facts indicating that some one or more of the defendants had seriously injured him when they unjustifiably struck him several times while Unwin was innocently standing in the dayroom observing an isolated struggle between two inmates. These allegations, which we would have to take as true for purposes of Bonitz analysis, would tend to show that defendants had violated clearly established law and thus were not entitled to qualified immunity. Thus we reject the argument that, under Bonitz analysis, appellants should have been granted qualified immunity. 23