Opinion ID: 181820
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Motivation for adverse action

Text: The third element that Hill must establish for his retaliation claim to survive summary dismissal is that the adverse action was motivated at least in part by the prisoner's protected conduct. Siggers-El, 412 F.3d at 699. This element addresses whether the defendants' subjective motivation for taking the adverse action was at least in part to retaliate against the prisoner for engaging in protected conduct. Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 399. If the prisoner can show that the defendants' adverse action was at least partially motivated by the prisoner's protected conduct, then the burden shifts to the defendants to show that they would have taken the same action even absent such protected conduct. Id. at 399. In the context of trying to defeat the other party's motion for summary judgment, where a prisoner must satisfy a higher burden to avoid having a First Amendment retaliation claim dismissed than Hill has to satisfy at the present stage of the case at hand, this court noted that some evidence of retaliatory motive is required: [C]onclusory allegations of retaliatory motive unsupported by material facts will not be sufficient to state a . . . claim. Harbin-Bey v. Rutter, 420 F.3d 571, 580 (6th Cir.2005) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). But because of the difficulty in producing direct evidence of an official's retaliatory motive, circumstantial evidence can suffice. Holzemer v. City of Memphis, 621 F.3d 512, 525-26, (6th Cir.2010). This circumstantial evidence can include the disparate treatment of similarly situated individuals or the temporal proximity between the prisoner's protected conduct and the official's adverse action. Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 399. Although this court has concluded that evidence of temporal proximity between filing grievances and the adverse action provides some support for establishing retaliatory motive, it has been reluctant to find that such evidence alone establishes retaliatory motive. Holzemer, 621 F.3d at 526 (noting explicitly this court's reluctance to find retaliatory motive based on evidence of temporal proximity alone, but concluding that the evidence before it, if true, created an inference of retaliatory motive where temporal proximity existed along with other supporting evidence). Hill alleges that three evidentiary facts support a retaliatory motive in the present case. The first is evidence of temporal proximity. He contends that he was placed in segregated housing at McCreary right after [he] filed a complaint against a McCreary staff member. The second is evidence of disparate treatment of similarly situated individuals. Hill alleges that he and several other prisoners were involved in the same investigation at McCreary. All of the prisoners were sent back to the general population except for Hill, who instead was recommended for a transfer to the lock-down unit at Lewisburg. Hill claims that this disparate treatment evinces a retaliatory motive based on the fact that [n]o one else has been or is being sent to a control lock down unit because none of them filed complaints against the staff for being abusive. The third evidentiary fact in support of a retaliatory motive is Hill's claim that two McCreary staff members, Officer Huff and Associate Warden McLeod, told him that he was going to be transfered [sic] because `they didn't need the paper-work up here.' He further alleges that Huff stated that [Huff] would do the investigative report `personally' to ensure that [Hill] would be shipped. Lieutenant Burchette received this report and then recommended that Hill be transferred to the lock-down unit at Lewisburg. Although Burchette did not make the paper-work statement that Hill contends is direct evidence that he would be transferred in retaliation for filing grievances, this fact is not determinative because Burchette relied on the report by Huff, who allegedly did make the statement. Cf. Siggers-El, 412 F.3d at 701 (reasoning that, with regard to the second element of a First Amendment retaliation claim, an adverse action may be imputed to a defendant who did not have the power to carry out the action because the defendant completed a report that was relied on by the person who did have the proper authority). These three evidentiary facts are sufficient at this stage of the proceedings to satisfy the retaliatory-motive element of Hill's First Amendment retaliation claim. The first two evidentiary facts that Hill offers (temporal proximity and disparate treatment) have been explicitly recognized by this court as being capable of proving a retaliatory motive. See Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 399. And Hill has alleged direct evidence of a retaliatory motive based on purported statements by two McCreary staff members. We must construe these allegations in the light most favorable to Hill at this stage in the proceedings. See Thomas v. Eby, 481 F.3d 434, 437 (6th Cir.2007). Hill's complaint is therefore sufficient to establish the retaliatory-motive element when scrutinized under the failure-to-state-a-claim standard. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, ___ U.S. ___, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 1949-50, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). And because Hill's allegations are at least plausible, his complaint also establishes this element without being frivolous. See Neitzke v. Williams, 490 U.S. 319, 327-28, 109 S.Ct. 1827, 104 L.Ed.2d 338 (1989).