Court Opinion

ID: 9931673
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-09 18:00:47.516634+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:25:17.571767
License: Public Domain

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
                        UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                             FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
                                 _______________

                                       No. 22-2771
                                     _______________

                                 DESHAWN DRUMGO,
                                       Appellant

                                             v.

                               SGT. WILLIAM KUSCHEL
                                   _______________

                     On Appeal from the United States District Court
                               For the District of Delaware
                                (D.C. No. 1-14-cv-01135)
                      District Judge: Honorable Colm F. Connolly
                                    _______________

                      Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
                                  October 31, 2023

                Before: JORDAN, ROTH, and AMBRO, Circuit Judges

                                 (Filed: February 9, 2024)
                                    _______________

                                        OPINION
                                     _______________

JORDAN, Circuit Judge.

       Deshawn Drumgo alleged that he was sexually assaulted by a prison guard. The

jury that heard the case decided that Drumgo’s Eighth Amendment right against cruel and

       
        This disposition is not an opinion of the full court and, pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7,
does not constitute binding precedent.
unusual punishment had been violated by what the guard did but that Drumgo had

suffered no injury, so it awarded him one dollar in nominal damages. It went on,

however, to award him $500,000 in punitive damages. The District Court reduced the

punitive damages award to $5,000 because the $500,000 award violated the Due Process

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Drumgo now appeals that reduction. We will

affirm.

I.        BACKGROUND

          As Drumgo, an inmate at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Delaware,

left the prison dining hall in May 2014, a correctional officer directed him to go to

Sergeant William Kuschel for a frisk search. During the search, Kuschel assaulted

Drumgo by grabbing and squeezing his penis. Following the assault, Drumgo filed a

grievance under the Prison Rape Elimination Act. An internal affairs investigator

interviewed Drumgo and Kuschel, before dismissing the grievance as unfounded.

          In September 2014, Drumgo filed a pro se complaint against Kuschel and other

prison staff under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for violating his First, Eighth, and Fourteenth

Amendment rights.1 After all defendants other than Kuschel were dismissed, a jury trial

          1
        After dismissing several defendants, the District Court granted the remaining
defendants’ motion for summary judgment, holding that Drumgo failed to exhaust his
administrative remedies. We affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further
consideration of Drumgo’s Eighth Amendment claim against Kuschel. Drumgo v.
Kuschel, 684 F. App’x 228, 231 (3d Cir. 2017) (per curiam).
       On remand, the District Court again granted summary judgment in favor of
Kuschel, ruling that he was entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity in his official
capacity and qualified immunity personally. Due to Drumgo’s failure to challenge the
issue, we affirmed the District Court’s ruling that Kuschel was immune from suit under
the Eleventh Amendment in his official capacity, Drumgo v. Kuschel, 811 F. App’x 115,
                                             2
commenced in December 2021, and the jury returned a verdict in Drumgo’s favor. It

found that Kuschel had “committed an act that violated Mr. Drumgo’s Eighth

Amendment rights,” but that Drumgo failed to “prove he suffered injuries as a result of

William Kuschel’s act.” (J.A. at 375.) Accordingly, it awarded Drumgo “nominal

damages of $1.00,” but it also awarded punitive damages of $500,000. (J.A. at 375-76.)

The District Court entered a total judgment in favor of Drumgo for $500,001.

       Kuschel moved to alter or amend the judgment under Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 59(e). He also moved for judgment as a matter of law under Rule 50(b) and

for a new trial under Rule 59(a). Drumgo, of course, opposed those motions. The

District Court denied the motion for a new trial but granted the motion to amend the

judgment and reduced the jury’s punitive damages award from $500,000 to $5,000,

basing its reduction on the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, added to

the one dollar of nominal damages for a total award of $5,001. Drumgo timely appealed.

II.    DISCUSSION2

       In State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell, the Supreme Court

held that “the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the imposition

of grossly excessive or arbitrary punishments on a tortfeasor.” 538 U.S. 408, 416 (2003).

117 & n.3 (3d Cir. 2020) (per curiam), but vacated its qualified immunity ruling as to his
individual capacity and remanded for further proceedings, id. at 119. The District Court
then appointed counsel for Drumgo.
       2
        The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We review a trial court’s “constitutionally required
reduction of damages” de novo. Jester v. Hutt, 937 F.3d 233, 238 (3d Cir. 2019).

                                            3
The Court gave three guideposts for determining the reasonableness of a jury’s punitive

damages award: “(1) the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant’s misconduct, (2) the

disparity between the actual or potential harm suffered by the plaintiff and the punitive

damages award, and (3) the difference between the punitive damages awarded by the jury

and the civil penalties authorized or imposed in comparable cases.” State Farm, 538 U.S.

at 418 (citing BMW of N. Am., Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 575-85 (1996)). When, as in

this case, a jury awards only nominal damages, the second guidepost does not apply.

Jester v. Hutt, 937 F.3d 233, 242 (3d Cir. 2019).

       A.     Degree of reprehensibility

       As noted, the State Farm analysis begins with the degree of reprehensibility of a

defendant’s conduct. 538 U.S. at 419. Drumgo argues that Kuschel waived any

argument regarding reprehensibility and that the District Court incorrectly raised the

argument sua sponte and misapplied State Farm’s first prong.

       While Kuschel conceded in the District Court that “an argument that the

reprehensibility prong is not met would be inappropriate,” (J.A. at 453 n.1), we agree

with the District Court that “State Farm’s first guidepost calls on courts to assess the

degree of reprehensibility. This is not a binary test that is either met or not met.” (J.A. at

18 n.4.) Thus, the Court had an obligation to consider where Kuschel’s actions fell on

the spectrum of reprehensibility.

       Sexual assault, especially perpetrated by a corrections officer against an inmate, is

always reprehensible. It involves physical, intimate violence, and is deplorable in its

                                              4
likelihood to demean and traumatize its victim. Cf. Gore, 517 U.S. at 575-76 (violent

crimes are more blameworthy than nonviolent crimes).

       That conclusion, however, does not end the inquiry. “[T]he Supreme Court has

provided further detail on [reprehensibility], instructing courts to consider the extent to

which the following subfactors are satisfied,” Brand Mktg. Grp. LLC v. Intertek Testing

Servs., N.A., Inc., 801 F.3d 347, 363 (3d Cir. 2015):

       the harm caused was physical as opposed to economic; the tortious conduct
       evinced an indifference to or a reckless disregard of the health or safety of
       others; the target of the conduct had financial vulnerability; the conduct
       involved repeated actions or was an isolated incident; and the harm was the
       result of intentional malice, trickery, or deceit, or mere accident[,]

State Farm, 538 U.S. at 419; see also id. (“The existence of any one of these factors

weighing in favor of a plaintiff may not be sufficient to sustain a punitive damages

award; and the absence of all of them renders any award suspect.”).

       While not all of those factors apply in every case, some do, but the District Court

did not expressly assess them. Instead, it looked at the nature of Kuschel’s assault on

Drumgo, describing it as “fleeting, through clothing, unaccompanied by threats, and

lacking in force sufficient to cause injury.” (J.A. at 18 n.4.) The District Court should

have explicitly addressed the State Farm factors. Nonetheless, the District Court’s

findings were implicitly on the mark. Like the District Court, we conclude that Kuschel’s

conduct supports the imposition of a punitive damages award but that the size of the

award given by the jury was unreasonable. State Farm, 538 U.S. at 419-20 (finding no

error in the imposition of a punitive damages award, but reducing the amount due to a

                                              5
lower degree of reprehensibility). A consideration of other assault cases supports that

conclusion.

       B.     Comparison to comparable cases

       We acknowledge the blight of prison sexual assault and the underreporting of such

cases, and we commend the attorneys who accepted the appointment to represent

Drumgo in this suit. By proving to a jury’s satisfaction that the assault occurred and that

Kuschel deserved to feel the force of a punitive award, they have done a real service.

However, State Farm instructs courts to compare a jury’s award to permissible civil

penalties or prior comparable cases when assessing the constitutionality of the award.

538 U.S. at 428; see also Jester, 937 F.3d at 243 (comparing the jury’s punitive damages

award to those in similar cases). The dearth of sexual assault cases that we can use as

benchmarks makes the assessment challenging, but the District Court’s determination is

fully defensible.3

       Cases with similar facts to Drumgo’s hold that a punitive damages award of

$5,000 satisfies the requirements of the Due Process Clause. In Cleveland v. Curry, the

       3
         Drumgo argues that we should ignore older case law, as the jury awards do not
reflect post-2018 public attitudes that better understand the cruelty of prison sexual
assaults. Cf. Ricks v. Shover, 891 F.3d 468, 473 (3d Cir. 2018) (holding, as a matter of
first impression, that “sexual abuse of prisoners, once overlooked as a distasteful blight
on the prison system, offends our most basic principles of just punishment” (internal
quotation marks omitted)). However, State Farm and its progeny do not direct courts to
only review cases within a certain time frame, cf. 538 U.S. at 428, and thus we decline to
adopt Drumgo’s approach and will look at comparable cases before and after his
proposed 2018 “cut-off.” Further, recent juries have awarded similar amounts to the
reduced award here, even on more concerning facts. See, e.g., Anselme v. Griffin, No.
3:20-cv-00005, 2023 WL 1930005, at *3 (W.D. Va. Feb. 10, 2023), report & rec.
adopted, 2023 WL 1930005, at *2 (Feb. 10, 2023) (awarding $10,000 in punitive
                                             6
jury awarded $5,000 in punitive damages to the inmate-plaintiffs after finding the

defendant corrections officer liable for squeezing and grabbing inmates’ genitals while

conducting clothed-body searches. No. 07–cv–02809, 2014 WL 690846, at *9-11 (N.D.

Cal. Feb. 21, 2014) (also reducing another defendant’s punitive damages penalty from

$20,000 to $5,000). In Morton v. Johnson, when a corrections officer assaulted an

inmate by touching her breasts and “rub[ing] down [her] stomach down to [her] private

area,” the district court reduced a punitive damages award from $50,000 to $5,000 based

on comparable cases. No. 7:13-cv-00496, 2015 WL 4470104, at *1, *9 (W.D. Va.

July 21, 2015) (collecting cases awarding $5,000 for similar conduct and distinguishing

larger awards based on more egregious conduct). Additionally, courts have upheld the

same or lower awards based on conduct more repugnant than that at issue here. See

Lagarde v. Metz, No. 13-cv-805, 2017 WL 457654, at *1, *6 (M.D. La. Feb. 2, 2017)

(awarding $1,000 in punitive damages when a corrections officer attempted to penetrate

an inmate’s anus with a broomstick); Carrington v. Easley, No. 5:08–CT–3175, 2011 WL

2132850, at *5 (E.D.N.C. May 25, 2011) (awarding $5,000 in punitive damages when an

officer forced an inmate to strip naked, grabbed his penis, and attempted to perform oral

sex on him). Drumgo cites other cases, but they are readily distinguishable.

      Accordingly, based on comparisons to factually similar cases, a reduction in

punitive damages to $5,000 was sound.

damages when inmate was vaginally penetrated so violently that she bled).

                                            7
       C.     Other factors

       Drumgo also argues that the District Court did not give the jury sufficient

deference when it reduced the punitive damages award. We disagree. While jury awards

should be treated by trial judges “with a measure of deference,” that deference merely

cautions judges to not overreach and “substitute [their] view of the appropriate amount of

punitive damages for the jury’s determination.” Willow Inn, Inc. v. Pub. Serv. Mut. Ins.

Co., 399 F.3d 224, 231 (3d Cir. 2005). It does not prohibit judges from reviewing the

constitutionality of jury awards and reducing the award to a reasonable amount. Id.

While the award here was reduced far more than Drumgo likes, deference to a jury’s

award is not warranted when due process dictates otherwise.4

       Drumgo further asserts that the District Court incorrectly considered the effects

that the award would have on punishment and deterrence. Courts routinely consider the

effects that punitive damages awards will have on punishment and deterrence when

considering the reasonableness of an award under the Due Process Clause. See State

Farm, 538 U.S. at 416 (“[P]unitive damages … are aimed at deterrence and retribution.”).

To the extent the District Court’s remarks may have implied that maintaining a larger

       4
         Drumgo also contends that for the District Court to not give deference to the
jury’s punitive damages award there must have been a finding that the jury instructions
were wrong or that there was irregularity in jury management. We disagree. For
constitutional review of a punitive damages award, State Farm directs courts to
independently review the relevant criteria, regardless. Cf. Cooper Indus., Inc. v.
Leatherman Tool Grp., Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 1684-85 (2001) (emphasizing the need for de
novo review by appellate courts of punitive damages awards due to the constitutional
nature of the question, without any regard to jury deference); see also id. (“[T]he level of
puntitive damages is not really a ‘fact’ ‘tried’ by the jury.” (citation omitted)).

                                             8
punitive damages award would necessarily dissuade correctional officers from

conducting proper searches and deter people from becoming correctional officers, we

disagree. But the Court was correct that $5,000 should provide sufficient punishment to

Kuschel and adequately dissuade other officers from engaging in similar behavior.

      For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the judgment of the District Court.

                                           9