Opinion ID: 3011331
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Gardner

Text: As with Demko, Berg points to no record evidence that Gardner intentionally caused his arrest. Though Gardner initiated the series of events that ultimately led to Berg's arrest, his only role was to request a warrant for Banks. He played no part in issuing the erroneous warrant for Berg. Neither did he play any part in Wolfgang's execution of that warrant. In short, there is nothing in this record suggesting that Gardner ever intended to cause Berg's arrest. His only intention was to cause Banks' arrest. By way of rough analogy, Gardner's warrant request is analogous to the stray bullets at issue in Medeiros, Rucker, and Landol-Rivera. Gardner fired the warrant at Banks, and it inadvertently struck Berg instead. This is not the intentional application of the means of detention required for a Fourth Amendment seizure. Again, however, Berg argues that Gardner could be held liable under a due process theory of deliberate indifference. He contends that Gardner displayed such indifference when he failed to act on his `hunch' that perhaps an erroneous warrant did, in fact, issue. Appellant's Br. at 8. It is worth noting, however, that the record does not establish any such hunch on Gardner's part. Asked at deposition to recall his thoughts on a particular day more than three years in the past, Gardner was only willing to assume that: based upon the way I try and perform my job, that it occurred to me that the warrant-- there was no warrant issued, that the warrant may have not taken in the computer or that there was a possibility that a bad warrant had been issued. Gardner Dep. at 151:16-20 (A.407); see also id. at 140:4-8 (A.396). Even assuming, for summary judgment purposes, that Gardner did realize a bad warrant may have issued, his uncontradicted testimony establishes that he believed there was simply no reasonable way to investigate his suspicion. While the term deliberate indifference is generally defined to require only knowledge of a serious risk of harm, see Fuentes v. Wagner, 206 F.3d 335, 345 n.12 (3d Cir. 2000) 17 (defining deliberate indifference in the context of a prisoner's Eighth Amendment claim), it also implies a failure to take reasonably available measures to reduce or eliminate that risk. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 847 (1994) (holding that a prison official may be held liable under the Eighth Amendment . . . only if he knows that inmates face a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it.) (emphasis added). Where no reasonable measures exist, neither can deliberate indifference. As with Demko, we will affirm summary judgment in favor of Gardner.