Opinion ID: 6927142
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Causing the Lice Infestation

Text: Plaintiffs alleged that the jail and county officials’ “deliberate indifference towards Ferri’s care and welfare while he was housed in the DHU caused him to become infected with head and body lice as a result of providing him with dirty bed linen or mattresses.” Although we recognize that the Eighth Amendment “does not mandate comfortable prisons,” Rhodes, 452 U.S. at 349, 101 S.Ct. at 2400, we believe that inmates do have a right to be free of conditions that generate infestations of vermin. Plaintiffs have therefore stated a claim sufficient to withstand dismissal under the Seiter standard, provided the claim also withstands scrutiny under the applicable statute of limitations. Plaintiffs filed their complaint on July 18, 1991. Therefore, if their claim that the ACJ defendants caused Ferri’s infestation accrued before July 18, 1989, it is barred by the Pennsylvania two-year statute of limitations for personal injury actions. Wilson v. Garcia, 471 U.S. 261, 280, 105 S.Ct. 1938, 1949, 85 L.Ed.2d 254 (1985); 42 Pa.Con.Stat. Ann. § 5524 (Supp.1993). Ferri’s alleged infestation did in fact commence before that date: The remaining pertinent allegations show that Ferri suffered from the infestation for 70 days while in the DHU until his release on August 4, 1989; counting backward, this places the commencement date, and thus causation, prior to July 18. The claim is therefore time-barred. Thus, although it was error to grant summary judgment on this claim, see supra section III.B., it would not have been error to dismiss it on statute of limitations grounds. Therefore, the district court’s grant of summary judgment will be vacated and the claim remanded with instructions to dismiss it.