Opinion ID: 4585008
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Transport Claims

Text: First, we address Bilal’s claims concerning his van transport to and from Escambia County. We begin with his complaints about the use of leg irons, waist chains, and black-box restraints during the van transport, the cramped van quarters, the stale sandwich, and the excessive driving speeds during the van transport. None of these things, alone or in combination, states a Fourteenth Amendment violation in this case. But we conclude that Bilal’s challenge that Defendants permitted no 14 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 15 of 31 bathroom stops during the journey and forced him to sit in his own excrement for roughly 300 miles does state a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. We explain each resolution below. i. Bilal’s allegations about the shackles, transport by van instead of airplane, the stale sandwich, and the driving speeds fail to state a Fourteenth Amendment claim As we have noted, Florida restrained Bilal during transport to protect the public.7 The State’s psychologist, Dr. Gregory Prichard, Ph.D., has described Bilal as a “borderline psychopath” and “one of the most dangerous individuals” in the FCCC. Against this assessment of Bilal’s threat to the public, we cannot say that Defendants’ decision to use leg irons, waist chains, and black-box restraints during the journey to ensure that Bilal did not escape was inconsistent with professional judgment. See Beaulieu v. Ludeman, 690 F.3d 1017, 1032–33 (8th Cir. 2012) (finding policy of placing civilly committed sexually violent individuals in full restraints during transportation to and from facility was justified by safety concerns and did not violate patients’ substantive-due-process rights). Bilal’s complaints about the cramped seating in the van and the alleged effect on his knees of the seating and the restraints do not affect the decision. Bilal asserts that he would have preferred to fly rather than drive to Escambia County. But Bilal 7 Bilal does not contend he was restrained while housed in the FCCC, where he would not have access to the public. So that is not at issue. 15 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 16 of 31 does not allege that a different way of restraining him during the travel would have been substantially better for his knees or that Defendants’ use of the chosen restraints somehow fell outside the realm of professional choices. He also has not explained why driving represents a significant departure from professional judgment in selecting a method to deliver him securely to and from Escambia County. And that is especially so since Bilal’s proposed alternative—flying—can itself require cramped seating. To the extent that Bilal complains that the State commits a Fourteenth Amendment violation merely by requiring road travel instead of authorizing air travel, he also fails to state a claim. While we have recognized a Fourteenth Amendment claim arising from the placement and confinement of a detainee in an unventilated and un-air-conditioned transport van for an extended period, see Patel v. Lanier Cnty., 969 F.3d 1173 (11th Cir. 2020), Bilal did not allege that to be the case here. Millions of people in this country make lengthy road trips every day for business, vacation, and personal reasons. And they do so by car, van, bus, and truck. There is nothing inherently punishing about a State’s decision to transport its prisoners by van rather than plane. Though we are troubled by Bilal’s claim that Garza and Jarvis drove at speeds up to 90 miles per hour, taking Bilal’s complaint as a whole, we cannot say that this allegation states a Fourteenth Amendment violation. Other than any inherent threat 16 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 17 of 31 to safety that traveling at speeds up to 90 miles per hour may represent, Bilal did not assert that Defendants’ driving was itself reckless. And Bilal was delivered safely to Escambia County and back again to the FCCC. As for the stale sandwich and single bottle of water provided during the trip, we likewise do not conclude that those choices were so extreme and unreasonable as to amount to a violation of Bilal’s constitutional rights. The Fourteenth Amendment requires only that the State provide Bilal with “reasonably adequate food.” Hamm v. DeKalb Cnty., 774 F.2d 1567, 1575 (11th Cir. 1985) (food that should be served hot and is sometimes served cold, “while unpleasant, does not amount to a constitutional deprivation”). And although Bilal asserts in his complaint that he should have been fed a hot meal during transport, many people have cold lunches every day. Bilal also did not suggest that he was denied breakfast or dinner at his departure and destination locations, in addition to the cheese sandwich en route. Nor did he allege he was dangerously and inappropriately deprived of sufficient nutrition over the course of his travel days. Even assuming the sandwich caused him food poisoning, 8 Bilal does not contend that Defendants knew or should have known that the sandwich would make 8 We construe Bilal’s allegation that the cheese sandwich caused him botulism to mean that the cheese sandwich resulted in some type of food poisoning. Botulism, which attacks nerves, causes difficulty breathing, muscle paralysis, and death in the absence of immediate, proper medical treatment. https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/general.html (last visited Nov. 9, 2020). It is treated with an antitoxin that does not correct the damage the Botulinum toxin inflicts but rather prevents the toxin from further harming the victim’s nerves. https://www.cdc.gov/botulism/ 17 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 18 of 31 him sick. Cf. Roberts v. Williams, 456 F.2d 819, 827 (5th Cir. 1972)9 (“We might say careless preparation of a single meal, producing food poisoning in prisoners, was not cruel, but it might be so if the jailors negligently allowed the jail’s only drinking water supply to become permanently infected with typhoid bacteria.”). Under these circumstances, feeding Bilal only a cheese sandwich and a bottle of water during the road trip did not violate his Fourteenth Amendment rights. ii. Bilal’s allegations that Defendants would not allow him to use the bathroom and required him to sit in his own excrement for 300 miles state a Fourteenth Amendment claim But Bilal’s allegations that Garza and Jarvis refused to allow him to use the bathroom during a 600-mile road trip, which caused Bilal to have to defecate in his clothing and sit in his excrement for about 300 miles, do state a claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Our decision in Brooks v. Warden, 800 F.3d 1295 (11th Cir. 2015), requires this result. Brooks, a prison inmate, alleged that he was forced to defecate in his testing-treatment.html (last visited Nov. 9, 2020). As a result, even when death can be prevented, botulism victims can require months of hospitalization while they recover from the nerve damage. See id. Although we do not make credibility determinations in reviewing a motion to dismiss, we note the absence in Bilal’s complaint of any allegations at all concerning the devastating effects that would result from botulism. Considering Bilal’s pro se status, we therefore liberally construe his complaint to allege that the cheese sandwich caused him, more generally, some kind of food poisoning. In any case, whether Bilal suffered botulism or some other type of food poisoning does not bear on the analysis. 9 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1207 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), we accepted as binding precedent all published Fifth Circuit opinions issued before October 1, 1981. 18 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 19 of 31 prison jumpsuit and sit in his own feces for two days during his three-day hospital stay because the guard did not want to temporarily lower Brooks’s waist chains to allow him to use the toilet. Id. at 1299, 1303. Brooks also asserted the guard would not allow the nurses to clean him or offer him an adult diaper. Id. at 1303. We determined that these “serious allegations” stated an Eighth Amendment conditionsof-confinement claim. Id. We recognized that the Constitution protects prisoners from being exposed to objectively “unreasonable risk[s] of serious damage to [their] future health” and that the conditions of confinement must meet “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.” Id. (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). As we explained, “conditions that deprive inmates of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities are violative of the contemporary standard of decency that the Eighth Amendment demands”—in particular, the right “not to be confined . . . in conditions lacking basic sanitation.” Id. at 1303–04 (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). We also recognized that a common thread ran through prison-condition cases—the deprivation of “basic elements of hygiene.” Id. at 1304 (quotation omitted). Upon surveying our sister Circuits’ rulings in this area, we noted that each had recognized that the “deprivation of basic sanitary conditions” can state a constitutional violation. Id. (collecting cases, including those dealing with exposure to human waste). 19 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 20 of 31 We concluded that Brooks’s allegations were, in some ways, worse than those in the cases we had reviewed, since he was forced to lie in “direct and extended contact with his own feces” without the ability to clean himself. Id. at 1305. (comparing Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 735 (2002)). Although the Brooks defendant claimed that Brooks had not alleged any harm except mere discomfort, we concluded that “he sufficiently alleged a substantial risk of serious harm” because “the health risks of prolonged exposure to human excrement are obvious.” Id. Finally, we determined that Brooks sufficiently averred that the guard was deliberately indifferent to Brooks’s needs because Brooks had repeatedly asked to remove his jumpsuit and use the toilet. Id. Brooks stands for the proposition that an unreasonable refusal to allow a prisoner to use the restroom, which results in his being forced to sit in his own feces for an extended period, constitutes an Eighth Amendment violation. True, Bilal is not a criminal prisoner; he is a civilly committed individual. But Fourteenth Amendment substantive-due-process rights are at least equivalent to the comparable Eighth Amendment rights of those incarcerated. Dolihite, 74 F.3d at 1041. So “relevant case law in the Eighth Amendment context also serves to set forth the contours of the due process rights of the civilly committed.” Id. And we have specifically recognized that actions that would violate a prisoner’s Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement rights would also violate the due-process 20 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 21 of 31 rights of the involuntarily civilly committed, since conditions that transgress the Eighth Amendment standard undoubtedly violate the higher standard owed to civil committees under the Fourteenth Amendment. See id. Here, Bilal adequately alleged that Jarvis and Garza did not allow him bathroom breaks and “refused” to stop at any restroom. Because of the guards’ “refus[al],” Bilal was forced to relieve himself in his clothing. And since Bilal contended that this happened midway through the 600-mile one-way trip, during which he was waist-chained with black-boxed handcuffs, we must infer that Bilal was forced to sit in his own feces for a roughly 300-mile drive. To be sure, the length of time is not as prolonged and drastic as the two days in Brooks, but it states a claim, nonetheless. Indeed, in Brooks we commented on the extreme nature of the allegations as compared to other situations courts encountered. See Brooks, 800 F.3d at 1305 (noting that in Hope, 536 U.S. at 735, seven hours was sufficient to state a claim). And here, as we’ve noted, Bilal is a civilly committed person, not a criminal prisoner. Civilly committed individuals are “entitled to more considerate treatment and conditions of confinement than criminals whose conditions of confinement are designed to punish.” Romeo, 457 U.S. at 322. It seems doubtful that a legitimate reason exists to refuse a civilly committed prisoner an opportunity to relieve himself during a 600-mile road trip. But if one does, Defendants will have an opportunity to present it as the case proceeds. In any 21 USCA11 Case: 16-11722 Date Filed: 11/09/2020 Page: 22 of 31 case, barring exigent circumstances, restroom breaks should come more frequently than every 600 miles on a road trip. In short, we conclude that refusing a single bathroom stop during a 600-mile road trip and requiring a civilly committed person to sit in fecal matter for several hours fits squarely within the definition of “deprivation of basic sanitary conditions.” For that reason, those actions are not consistent with a civilly committed person’s interest in reasonably safe conditions, and they violate the Fourteenth Amendment. So Bilal’s claim in this regard should not have been dismissed, and we reverse that dismissal.