Opinion ID: 2766199
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Eighth Amendment Standard

Text: The Eighth Amendment “imposes a duty on prison officials” to “take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.” Caldwell v. Warden, FCI Talladega, 748 F.3d 1090, 1099-100 (11th Cir. 2014) (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S. Ct. 1970, 1976 (1994) (quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted)). In particular, under the Eighth Amendment, “prison officials have a duty . . . to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833, 114 S. Ct. at 1976 (quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted). “It is not, however, every injury suffered by one prisoner at the hands of another that translates into constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for the victim's safety.” Id. at 834, 114 S. Ct. at 1977. A prison official violates the Eighth Amendment “when a substantial risk of serious harm, of which the official is subjectively aware, exists and the official does not respond reasonably to the risk.” Carter v. Galloway, 352 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation marks omitted and alterations adopted) (emphasis 11 Case: 14-13748 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 Page: 12 of 16 added). To survive summary judgment on a failure-to-protect claim under the Eighth Amendment, “a plaintiff must produce sufficient evidence of (1) a substantial risk of serious harm; (2) the defendants’ deliberate indifference to that risk; and (3) causation.” Goodman, 718 F.3d at 1331 (quotation marks omitted). “The second element—that [a prison official] evidenced a deliberate indifference to a serious risk that [a prisoner] would be injured—forms the crux of the matter at hand.” Id. The prison official must “actually (subjectively) know[ ] that an inmate is facing a substantial risk of serious harm, yet disregard[ ] that known risk by failing to respond to it in an (objectively) reasonable manner.” Rodriguez v. Sec'y for Dep't of Corr., 508 F.3d 611, 617 (11th Cir. 2007). With regard to the subjective component of the defendant's actual knowledge, the defendant “must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and [s]he must also draw the inference.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837, 114 S. Ct. at 1979. Moreover, this must be shown by “conduct that is more than gross negligence.” Townsend v. Jefferson Cnty., 601 F.3d 1152, 1158 (11th Cir. 2010). “[T]he deliberate indifference standard—and the subjective awareness required by it—is far more onerous than normal tort-based standards of conduct sounding in negligence: ‘Merely negligent failure to protect an inmate from attack does not 12 Case: 14-13748 Date Filed: 01/02/2015 Page: 13 of 16 justify liability under [§] 1983.’ ” Goodman, 718 F.3d at 1332 (quoting Brown v. Hughes, 894 F.2d 1533, 1537 (11th Cir. 1990)).