Opinion ID: 732360
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Summary Judgments

Text: 41 In Ernest Smith's 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action for damages arising out of the brutal attack by fellow inmate Lewis, the defendant prison officials moved for summary judgment on qualified immunity grounds, asserting that they acted in conformity with the clearly established law as set forth in Finney v. Mabry, 546 F.Supp. 628 (E.D.Ark.1982), and could not reasonably have known that compliance with Finney would violate Smith's constitutional rights. The district court assessed the facts and concluded that the prison officials had not complied with the requirements of Finney. Thus, the district court denied their request for qualified immunity. Further, the district court granted partial summary judgment to Smith on the issue of liability, saving only the issue of damages for trial. The prison officials appeal both the district court's denial of qualified immunity and the district court's grant of partial summary judgment on liability. We conclude that the district court erred by resolving issues of disputed fact in a summary judgment context. 42 When a district court denies a summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity, we view the facts in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party and consider  'whether the facts as alleged (by the plaintiff, or, in some cases, the defendant) support a claim of violation of clearly established law.'  Johnson v. Jones, --- U.S. ----, ----, 115 S.Ct. 2151, 2156, 132 L.Ed.2d 238 (1995) (quoting Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 528 n. 9, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2816 n. 9, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985)). We have jurisdiction to examine the information possessed by the government official accused of wrongdoing in order to determine whether, given the facts known to the official at the time, a reasonable government official would have known that his actions violated the law. Miller v. Schoenen, 75 F.3d 1305, 1308 (8th Cir.1996) (citing Reece v. Groose, 60 F.3d 487, 489 (8th Cir.1995)). 43 The district court's prior opinion in 1982 in the Finney case sets forth the clearly established law with which the defendants must demonstrate compliance. The Finney litigation involved a comprehensive review of the Arkansas prison system. Specifically, the district court addressed a number of challenges to the conditions of confinement at the Cummins Unit, including the problems of overcrowding and violence in the open barracks. 546 F.Supp. at 639-40. The district court, in a proper display of judicial restraint, allowed the Department of Correction to devise its own remedy for the unconstitutional conditions and specifically avoid[ed] imposing any specific solution which could cause a hardship for the Department. Id. Upon final review of the Department's proposed solution, the district court found: The alternative solution now devised by the respondents is adequate to bring the security in those open barracks to an acceptable level without requiring a population reduction. Id. at 640. The court then listed the changes that the Department had made. Inmates were no longer allowed to stack beds or hang sheets or clothing from their beds, and the lighting had been increased in order to make continual visual supervision possible. Id. Also, the Department was conducting random shake downs to curtail contraband, an officer was always present in the hallways to visually monitor the barracks, and a patrol officer entered and inspected each open barracks at least once an hour at irregular times. Id. The district court concluded: 44 The Court has determined that these measures, if continued as represented to the Court, are sufficient to provide adequate safety and inmate security in the open barracks despite the numbers of inmates now housed there. Therefore, no order requiring a reduction of the population in those barracks will be entered. If the respondents continue the security measures as represented to the Court, they will be in compliance with the requirements of the Constitution, the Consent Decree, and all prior orders of the Court on the issue of inmate safety and overcrowding in the open barracks. 45 Id. 46 Thus, in Finney, the district court allowed the prison officials to devise their own solution to the overcrowding and supervision problems in the open barracks, and the district court adopted those solutions as providing constitutional minimum conditions of confinement. The prison officials now argue that Finney, in reality, did not establish any requirements for security in the open barracks. (Appellants' Br. at 46-47.) We disagree. While the requirements set forth in Finney may not be inflexible, they certainly represent the constitutional minimum conditions that the court required to be maintained at the Cummins Unit. Thus, the district court in this case properly measured the prison officials' conduct and knowledge against the standards set forth in Finney. 47 The district court's ultimate finding that the prison officials were not acting in compliance with Finney, however, is beyond the scope of a summary judgment proceeding. Material issues of fact and credibility were present that precluded granting summary judgment to the prison officials on the ground of qualified immunity. See Ludwig v. Anderson, 54 F.3d 465, 473 (8th Cir.1995). Smith presented evidence from which a reasonable juror could conclude that the prison officials were not in fact complying with Finney, as the testimony of some witnesses and the stipulated reports indicated that regular security checks were not being made. On the other hand, the evidence also indicated that a correctional officer had walked through the barracks only minutes before the attack and that a guard had been posted out in the hall all night. Prison officials testified that they had instructed officers to make the security checks and that they were under the impression that they were in fact being made. Further, the officer responsible for making rounds on the night of the assault testified that hourly checks were made, though he could not remember at what times they were made. Additionally, though not regulated by Finney, prison officials knew of the presence of hobby craft tools and the danger posed by them from Department of Justice reports that specifically set forth the risk inherent in the hobby craft policy. 48 Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, there exists a material dispute of fact concerning whether the prison officials were complying with the terms of Finney and providing adequate protection to inmates. To conclude definitively that the defendants were not complying with Finney, as it did, the district court made credibility assessments, weighed the conflicting evidence presented, and resolved disputed issues of fact. See 877 F.Supp. 1296, 1308 (E.D.Ark.1995) (The defense of qualified immunity, to be of any value, must usually be disposed of before trial. In the great majority of the cases, the facts are not in dispute and the issue is therefore one of law. This, however, is not such a clear cut case.) (emphasis added); id. at 1309 (Mr. Smith contends that security checks were almost never made. The defendants contend that they were made routinely on an hourly basis as required by Finney. The Court finds that such security checks were made on an irregular and random basis ....) (emphasis added); id. at 1311 (The Court has heard and considered the testimony of the witnesses for both the plaintiff and the defendants and has received and considered the documentary evidence, and finds therefrom that the requirements of Finney have not been adhered to, or followed, in recent years, and certainly not since the first of 1992.) (emphasis added); id. at 1310 (Generally the Court was impressed by the credibility of Sergeant Johnson, but felt that he was under pressure to support the ADC's claimed adherence to the Finney security check requirement while knowing that such was not the case.). This is improper in the summary judgment context. We conclude that the district court took the evidence presented on the equitable claim for an injunction and used it to decide the disputed issues of fact not only on the injunction issue but also on the qualified immunity issue. We conclude that [t]he evidence in this case presents material issues of fact on which the issue of qualified immunity turns and 'presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury.'  Ludwig, 54 F.3d at 474 (quoting Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251-52, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2512, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)). Accordingly, though for a different reason than that articulated by the district court, we conclude that the district court's denial of the prison officials' motion for summary judgment on grounds of qualified immunity must be affirmed. See Dicken v. Ashcroft, 972 F.2d 231, 233 (8th Cir.1992) (court of appeals may affirm district court on any basis supported by the record). 49 The same factual dispute that precludes a grant of qualified immunity--whether the prison officials were actually complying with the requirements of Finney at the time of the incident--also precludes summary judgment in favor of Smith on the issue of liability. In an appeal from the denial of qualified immunity, we do not have jurisdiction to address any issues that are not themselves immediately appealable unless they are inextricably intertwined with the qualified immunity determination of whether the alleged facts support a violation of clearly established law. Swint v. Chambers County Comm., 514 U.S. 35, ----, 115 S.Ct. 1203, 1212, 131 L.Ed.2d 60 (1995); Kincade v. City of Blue Springs, Mo., 64 F.3d 389, 395 (8th Cir.1995), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 116 S.Ct. 1565, 134 L.Ed.2d 665 (1996). Partial summary judgment on the issue of liability would not ordinarily be immediately appealable. See Swint, 514 U.S. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1208 (a mere defense to liability is not immediately reviewable). In this case, however, the material dispute of fact that precludes a grant of qualified immunity is not only inextricably intertwined with, but is precisely the same issue of fact that precludes summary judgment on liability. Id. at ----, 115 S.Ct. at 1212. The district court granted summary judgment on the issue of liability only because it first found that no reasonable juror could conclude that the prison officials had complied with Finney. Thus, we have jurisdiction to consider this issue. Our independent review of the record convinces us, as we have demonstrated above, that disputed issues of fact exist on Smith's § 1983 Finney noncompliance claim. We respectfully disagree with the district court's conclusion that the evidence is so one-sided regarding what happened on the night Smith was stabbed that no reasonable juror could conclude that the officials had complied with the clearly established law. 50 Because we conclude that a material question of fact exits on the issue of whether the prison officials complied with Finney, the premise on which the district court granted partial summary judgment establishing liability no longer exists. The material dispute of fact that precludes summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity also precludes summary judgment on the issue of liability under a Finney theory. With respect to the district court's grant of summary judgment establishing liability against the defendants based on the prison's policy of permitting inmates to have hobby craft tools, including sharp knives, in the open barracks, we note that the court held that that policy, in combination with the staffing shortcomings the district court had found, created a pervasive risk of harm. To reach such a conclusion, the court relied on its own factual findings. See 877 F.Supp. at 1313. Accordingly, we must reverse the district court's grant of partial summary judgment on liability and remand Smith's § 1983 case for a trial on the merits. 51 In the John Stewart estate's case, we conclude for the same reasons that the district court properly denied the prison officials' request for qualified immunity but improperly granted summary judgment on the issue of liability. We have no jurisdiction in this qualified immunity appeal to review the district court's decision that the defendants' failure to respond to the Administratrix's Requests for Admissions results in the requests being deemed admitted. The district court did not rely on any of the deemed admissions in reaching its decision with respect to the defendants' qualified immunity motion. This discovery dispute is not inextricably intertwined with the qualified immunity issue, and its resolution must await the appeal from the final judgment if any is taken. This case must also be remanded for a trial on the merits.