Court Opinion

ID: 9492920
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 14:53:24.978065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:55:33.281090
License: Public Domain

SILER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Although I agree that the district court might have erroneously dismissed the case as frivolous under 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2), I feel that we should nevertheless affirm the decision of the district court because Forrest Zayne Brown, the plaintiff, failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted under either 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e) (2) (B) (ii) or 28 U.S.C. § 1915A(b)(l).
The Eighth Amendment only arises in prison conditions when an official is deliberately indifferent “to a substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 828, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). Even considering the evidence in the light most favorable to Brown, as we must in a motion to dismiss, I do not see that there was a substantial risk of serious harm to Brown. The conditions of which he complains are that the bunks are improperly installed in some of the areas, including his cell in the prison, resulting in his falling out of bed and skin abrasions from the bolts which protrude from the wall near his bunk.
I do not question the subjective test which the majority states is required, because Brown has apparently brought the defective conditions to the attention of prison authorities. However, the objective test set out in Farmer is the one which fails in this case. This is a simple case of alleged negligence. According to the district court, the plaintiffs could file a claim against the state on a negligence theory under Tennessee law, but a negligence claim is not actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. See Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 298, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991). Admittedly, the failure of the bunk as presently installed without the lip on the upper side to retain the mattress *869might cause mattresses to slip, when the inmate rolls about in his bed. However, Brown’s original complaint provided an excellent solution which any inmate who rolls about in his bed could effect. In his complaint, he states:
I have had to go to the extremes of taking an old piece of sheet, ripping it into strips, and actually tying my mattress onto the steel bunk so that it would no longer slide off.
Thus, his bed has been taken care of. If the cruel and unusual punishment here is allowing the mattresses to slide off the steel bunks, then inmates can easily cure the problem by tying the mattresses in the very creative way suggested by Brown, or in some other fashion.
That leaves as an issue only the bolts which stick out of the wall and upon which inmates occasionally scratch themselves. I do not see how protruding bolts can constitute cruel and unusual punishment, even if they stick out over á bunk. They are not spikes and they do not seem to protrude for any great distance, according to the diagram in the record.
The Constitution “does not mandate comfortable prisons.” Rhodes v. Chapman, 452 U.S. 337, 349, 101 S.Ct. 2392, 69 L.Ed.2d 59 (1981). The “officials must ensure that inmates receive adequate food, clothing, shelter, and medical care, and must ‘take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.’ ” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (quoting Hudson v. Palmer, 468 U.S. 517, 526-27, 104 S.Ct. 3194, 82 L.Ed.2d 393 (1984)).
The officials in the institution involved in this case may have been unwise or negligent, but their conduct has not risen to the level of being deliberately indifferent under the Eighth Amendment. Therefore, I would affirm the decision of the district court.