Court Opinion

ID: 9480280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 07:43:06.240787+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:47:34.866853
License: Public Domain

WIGGINS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I dissent.
It must be especially remembered that White seeks damages because of injuries sustained by him as the result of “force used by Sergeant Roper and the deputies to subdue him after he backed away from Shaw’s cell.” Maj.Op. p. 3597. No claim is made for injuries as a result of being forced into Shaw’s cell or from Shaw.
The circumstances surrounding the attempted placing of White into Shaw’s cell are relevant to White’s claim for damages only insofar as those circumstances might explain and perhaps justify White’s backing away from the cell. But those circumstances do not justify White’s remaining at large and out of control within the prison. The officers had a duty to retake custody of White. White had no right to resist being retaken into custody and to the extent that he did so, the officers had the right to use reasonable force to accomplish this lawful objective.
*1508The majority claims that White is entitled to present to a jury the questions of whether Sergeant Roper knew or should have known (1) that attempting to force White into Shaw’s cell would cause White to resist; (2) that in resisting White might “back away,” compelling the prison guards to recapture him; and (3) that the use of force to do so might produce injury to White. These questions are based upon a tenuous string of suppositions that are too weak to hold White’s case together. They do not constitute genuine issues of fact sufficient to defeat summary judgment.
There can be no question that the prison guards had a duty to retake control of White after he backed away from Shaw’s cell. They exercised only reasonable force in doing so. White was injured as a result of the application of this reasonable force. Because I believe that he suffered no constitutional injury in the process, I respectfully dissent.