Court Opinion

ID: 9363697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-17 15:00:27.17756+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:15:33.636983
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13222    Document: 34-1     Date Filed: 01/17/2023   Page: 1 of 5

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                   In the
                United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                          ____________________

                                No. 21-13222
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                          ____________________

       DURELL SIMS,
                                                     Plaintiff-Appellant,
       versus
       SECRETARY, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS,

                                                   Defendant-Appellee.

                          ____________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Southern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 2:19-cv-14380-AMC
                          ____________________
USCA11 Case: 21-13222     Document: 34-1      Date Filed: 01/17/2023    Page: 2 of 5

       2                      Opinion of the Court                21-13222

       Before JORDAN, BRANCH, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
               Durrell Sims, a state prisoner proceeding pro se, appeals the
       district court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of the
       Secretary for the Florida Department of Corrections (“FDOC”).
       Sims filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the Sec-
       retary subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment under the
       Eighth Amendment because the FDOC’s policy of handwashing
       trays and utensils created unsanitary conditions and requesting in-
       junctive relief requiring the installation of mechanical dishwashers.
       The district court ultimately granted summary judgment in favor
       of the Secretary, determining that Sims had failed to raise a genuine
       issue of material fact as to either prong of his Eighth Amendment
       claim.
               On appeal, Sims argues the district court erred in granting
       summary judgment because he had shown that handwashing
       dishes exposed him to severe conditions of confinement and the
       secretary acted with deliberate indifference to such conditions.
       The Secretary subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the appeal as
       moot because Sims was transferred from Martin Correctional In-
       stitution, where he was housed when he filed the suit, before the
       district court granted summary judgment, and mechanical dish-
       washers had been installed at Martin Correctional Institution and
       over sixty other Florida prisons. We carried the Secretary’s motion
       to dismiss with the case.
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       21-13222                Opinion of the Court                          3

                We review de novo whether a case is moot. Troiano v. Su-
       pervisor of Elections, 382 F.3d 1276, 1282 (11th Cir. 2004). “Article
       III of the Constitution limits the jurisdiction of the federal courts to
       the consideration of ‘Cases’ and ‘Controversies.’” Al Najjar v. Ash-
       croft, 273 F.3d 1330, 1335 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting U.S. Const. art.
       III, § 2). “[A] case is moot when it no longer presents a live contro-
       versy with respect to which the court can give meaningful relief.”
       Id. at 1336 (quoting Fla. Ass’n of Rehab. Facilities, Inc. v. Fla. Dep’t
       of Health & Rehab. Servs., 225 F.3d 1208, 1216–17 (11th Cir. 2000)).
       “If events that occur subsequent to the filing of a lawsuit or an ap-
       peal deprive the court of the ability to give the plaintiff or appellant
       meaningful relief, then the case is moot and must be dismissed.”
       Id. “Where a case becomes moot after the district court enters
       judgment but before the appellate court has issued a decision, the
       appellate court must dismiss the appeal, vacate the district court’s
       judgment, and remand with instructions to dismiss as moot.”
       Thomas v. Bryant, 614 F.3d 1288, 1294 (11th Cir. 2010) (quoting
       Bekier v. Bekier, 248 F.3d 1051, 1055–56 (11th Cir. 2001)). “The
       burden of establishing mootness rests with the party seeking dis-
       missal.” Beta Upsilon Chi Upsilon Chapter at the Univ. of Fla. v.
       Machen, 586 F.3d 908, 916 (11th Cir. 2009).
              A pro se litigant cannot bring a claim on behalf of others.
       See Timson v. Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 873 (11th Cir. 2008) (explain-
       ing that 28 U.S.C. § 1654, which permits parties to proceed pro se,
       provides “a personal right that does not extend to the representa-
       tion of the interests of others”). Absent class certification, a
USCA11 Case: 21-13222           Document: 34-1         Date Filed: 01/17/2023        Page: 4 of 5

       4                            Opinion of the Court                      21-13222

       prisoner’s claims for injunctive and declaratory relief are mooted
       by his transfer from the facility where the cause of action arose,
       even when there is no guarantee that he will not be returned to his
       original facility. McKinnon v. Talladega County, 745 F.2d 1360,
       1363 (11th Cir. 1984). “Past exposure to illegal conduct does not in
       itself show a pending case or controversy regarding injunctive re-
       lief if unaccompanied by any continuing, present injury or real and
       immediate threat of repeated injury.” Cotterall v. Paul, 755 F.2d
       777, 780 (11th Cir. 1985) (quoting Dudley v. Stewart, 724 F.2d 1493,
       1494 (11th Cir. 1984)).
               However, in Hardwick v. Brinson, 523 F.2d 798 (5th Cir.
       1975) 1, the former Fifth Circuit determined that an inmate’s claims
       seeking injunctive relief against the head of the state prison system
       for unconstitutional censorship were not moot post-transfer be-
       cause prison officials could not guarantee the inmate would not re-
       turn to the prison he was transferred from. Id. at 799–800. The
       court also determined that the inmate’s claims, which he had raised
       in separate suits in all three district courts in Georgia, should pro-
       ceed in the Middle District because that was where he was pres-
       ently incarcerated and any injunctive relief would be binding on
       the defendants at the former prison where he was incarcerated

       1 In   Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc),
       this Court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Cir-
       cuit decided prior to the close of business on September 30, 1981.
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       21-13222               Opinion of the Court                         5

       because he had named the head of the state prison as a defendant
       in his complaint in the Middle District. Id. at 800–01.
               We later distinguished Hardwick, however, from other
       cases that involved alleged unconstitutional conditions at a specific
       jail rather than the statewide system. McKinnon, 745 F.2d at 1363
       (distinguishing the case from Hardwick, which involved unconsti-
       tutional censorship throughout the state’s prison system, because
       the plaintiff only alleged unconstitutional conditions at a jail where
       he was no longer incarcerated).
               Here, because Sims’s claims only applied to conditions at
       Martin Correctional Institution, we grant the secretary’s motion to
       dismiss the appeal as moot. Indeed, Sims was transferred from that
       facility and the FDOC has now installed dishwashers at his current
       facility and at Martin Correctional Institution.
             DISMISSED as moot.