Court Opinion

ID: 9478383
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:47:52.971665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:24.320221
License: Public Domain

CONTIE, Senior Circuit Judge.
Louis Cale appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in this Bivens action.1 For the following reasons, we reverse the district court’s judgment and remand this case for further proceedings.
I.
Appellant Louis Cale was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution at Milan, Michigan (F.C.I. Milan) on November 19, 1982. On that date, at approximately 10:15 a.m. Cale took the diet line lunch tray which he had just been served and complained to the associate warden of operations, Jack Fevurly, concerning the poor quality of food in the diet line. Shortly thereafter, Fevurly met with the administrator of food service, James Wahl, and informed him of Cale’s complaint. According to the deposition of the cook foreman, Mikko Peterson, who testified that he had heard this conversation, Wahl responded to Fevurly that he would have Cale locked up and that that would be the end of Cale’s complaints. Peterson also deposed that he heard Wahl inform duty correctional supervisor Jerry Wells that Wells was going to “get the duces”2 at about three o’clock and that Cale was going to be locked up.
At approximately 3:00 p.m., there was an incident in the diet line which led to the filing of disciplinary charges against Cale and Cale’s administrative detention. At that time, allegedly under Wahl’s direction, inmate Melvin Persky, who worked in the kitchen, approached Cale from behind and placed a small package in his pocket. Cale began shouting repeatedly, “You’re trying to set me up.” Cale was approached by safety and occupational health specialist Harry Farris who placed his hand around the upper portion of Cale’s arm to get his attention. Cale stated to Farris, “Oh, I’m glad it’s you Mr. Farris. You are fair. These_are trying to set me up.” At that time, Wahl shouted at Farris to get the packet from Cale. Farris did not know what Wahl meant by this statement, but Cale threw a piece of paper which was folded in a small square on the top of the main serving line directly in front of Farris. This packet subsequently was determined to contain marijuana. Cale again became very agitated and shouted accusations at Persky.
Wells, the duty correctional supervisor, was called to the scene of the incident. He ordered correctional officers to escort Cale to administrative detention and instructed Wahl to file an incident report documenting the appropriate charges. Cale was thought *945to have been in possession of marijuana, and he had made threats toward others; therefore, Wells believed that if Cale had been allowed to remain in the general population the lives of others or his own life might have been in jeopardy.
Cale remained in administrative segregation through November 22, 1982, when an investigation of the incident was completed. On November 24, 1982, a three-member unit discipline committee which had considered the incident report written against Cale charging him with threatening another with bodily harm and possession of narcotics concluded that Cale had not committed a violation of the bureau of prison’s disciplinary policy. No sanctions were imposed on Cale by the committee. The incident report would have been expunged, but it was retained at Cale’s request.
On January 14, 1983, Cale filed a pro se Bivens action, alleging conspiracy to violate procedural and substantive due process and cruel and unusual punishment. Original defendants included Warden J.R. Johnson, Fevurly, Wells, Wahl, and Persky.
On September 18,1983, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Johnson, Fevurly, and Wells. Wahl renewed his motion for summary judgment. Thereafter, on August 28,1985, the district court adopted a magistrate’s report and recommendation which recommended denial of Wahl’s second motion for summary judgment. According to the magistrate, Cale’s procedural due process and eighth amendment theories were without merit. However, the magistrate continued, “ ‘There is a factual dispute as to whether Persky planted marijuana and there are circumstances that raise some doubt whether or not Wahl was involved.’ If Wahl did in fact ‘frame’ plaintiff, substantive due process protections may have been impeded.”
On May 28, 1986, this case was transferred from the docket of the Honorable Charles Joiner to that of the Honorable George LaPlata. Subsequently, Wahl filed a third motion for summary judgment. Thereafter, on September 17, 1987, the district court granted Wahl’s motion for summary judgment, sua sponte granted summary judgment in favor of inmate Persky,3 and dismissed the complaint.
Cale filed this timely appeal. We are asked to decide whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Wahl and Persky. Preliminarily, we must consider our authority to entertain a Bivens action in this context.
II.
A.
In Schweiker v. Chilicky, — U.S. -, 108 S.Ct. 2460, 101 L.Ed.2d 370 (1988), the Supreme Court recently reconsidered the proper scope of Bivens actions.4 In that case, the Court evaluated its authority to entertain Bivens actions as follows:
In 1971, this Court held that the victim of a Fourth Amendment violation by federal officers acting under color of their authority may bring suit for money damages against the officers in federal court. Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U.S. 388 [91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619]. The Court noted that Congress had not specifically provided for such a remedy and that ‘the Fourth Amendment does not in so many words provide for its enforcement by an award of money damages for the consequences of its violation.’ Nevertheless, finding ‘no special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress,’ and ‘no explicit congressional declaration’ that money damages may not be awarded, the majority relied on the rule that ‘ “where legal rights have been invaded, and a federal statute provides for a general right to sue for such *946invasion, federal courts may use any available remedy to make good the wrong done.” ’
So-called ‘Bivens actions’ for money damages against federal officers have subsequently been permitted under § 1331 for violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, Davis v. Passman, 442 U.S. 228 [99 S.Ct. 2264, 60 L.Ed.2d 846] (1979), and the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment, Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. 14 [100 S.Ct. 1468, 64 L.Ed.2d 15] (1980). In each of these cases, as in Bivens itself, the Court found that there were no ‘special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress,’ no explicit statutory prohibition against the relief sought, and no exclusive statutory alternative remedy.
Our more recent decisions have responded cautiously to suggestions that Bivens remedies be extended into new contexts. The absence of statutory relief for a constitutional violation, for example, does not by any means necessarily imply that courts should award money damages against the officers responsible for the violation. Thus, in Chappell v. Wallace, 462 U.S. 296 [103 S.Ct. 2362, 76 L.Ed.2d 586] (1983), we refused — unanimously — to create a Bivens action for enlisted military personnel who alleged that they had been injured by the unconstitutional actions of their superior officers and who had no remedy against the Government itself....
See also United States v. Stanley, 483 U.S. -, - [107 S.Ct. 3054, 3062, 97 L.Ed.2d 550] (1987) (disallowing Bivens actions by military personnel ‘whenever the injury arises out of activity “incident to service” ’).
Similarly, we refused — again unanimously — to create a Bivens remedy for a First Amendment violation ‘arising] out of an employment relationship that is governed by comprehensive procedural and substantive provisions given meaningful remedies against the United States.’ Bush v. Lucas, 462 U.S. 367, 368 [103 S.Ct. 2404, 2406, 76 L.Ed.2d 648] (1983).
In sum, the concept of ‘special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress’ has proved to include an appropriate judicial deference to indications that congressional inaction has not been inadvertent. When the design of a government program suggests that Congress has provided what it considers adequate remedial mechanisms for constitutional violations that may occur in the course of its administration, we have not created additional Bivens remedies.
Id. 108 S.Ct. at 2466-68 (some citations omitted). In Chilicky, the Court held that the improper denial of Social Security disability benefits allegedly resulting from due process violations by the petitioners in their administration of the continuing disability review program could not give rise to a Bivens action.
Of the Bivens actions considered by the Supreme Court, the instant case is most similar to Carlson v. Green. In that case, a Bivens action was brought against federal prison officials for violation of a prisoner’s eighth amendment rights. The Court permitted a Bivens action in that context, reasoning as follows:
First, the case involves no special factors counselling hesitation in the absence of affirmative action by Congress. Petitioners do not enjoy such independent status in our constitutional scheme as to suggest that judicially created remedies against them might be inappropriate. Davis v. Passman, [442 U.S. 228, 246 [99 S.Ct. 2264, 2277, 60 L.Ed.2d 841] (1979)]. Moreover, even if requiring them to defend respondent’s suit might inhibit their efforts to perform their official duties, the qualified immunity accorded them under Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478 [98 S.Ct. 2894, 57 L.Ed.2d 895] (1978), provides adequate protection. See Davis v. Passman, [442 U.S. at 246, 99 S.Ct. at 2277],
Second, we have here no explicit congressional declaration that persons injured by *947federal officers’ violations of the Eighth Amendment may not recover money damages from the agents but must be remitted to another remedy, equally effective in the view of Congress. Petitioners point to nothing in the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA) or its legislative history to show that Congress meant to pre-empt a Bivens remedy or to create an equally effective remedy for constitutional violations.
Carlson v. Green, 446 U.S. at 19, 100 S.Ct. at 1472. This rationale applies with equal force to the instant case. Therefore, we hold that federal courts have the jurisdictional authority to entertain a Bivens action brought by a federal prisoner, alleging violations of his right to substantive due process, and, consequently, that we have authority to consider this appeal.
B.
Initially, appellant argues that the district court violated the doctrine of law of the case when Judge LaPlata granted ap-pellee Wahl’s third motion for summary judgment after Judge Joiner had denied two similar motions. We reject this argument.
Unlike the more precise requirements of res judicata, law of the case is an amorphous concept. As most commonly defined, the doctrine posits that when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same case.8 Law of the case directs a court’s discretion, it does not limit the tribunal’s power.
Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618, 103 S.Ct. 1382, 1391, 75 L.Ed.2d 318 (1983) (citations omitted). Cf Fed.R.Civ.P. 54(b) (stating that an order or other form of decision is subject to revision at any time before the entry of judgment adjudicating all the claims and the rights and liabilities of all the parties).
[T]he major grounds that justify reconsideration involve an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice. In applying these grounds for reconsideration, it may prove proper to draw distinctions that rest on the stage that that proceeding has reached. Early pretrial rulings, for example, may often be subject to reconsideration as a case progresses toward trial....
... A wide degree of freedom is often appropriate when the same question is presented to different judges of a single district court. To be sure, unfettered reexamination would unduly encourage efforts to shop rulings from one judge to another, and might seem an undesirable denial of comity between colleagues, Substantial freedom is desirable nonetheless, particularly since continued proceedings may often provide a much improved foundation for deciding the same issue. Thus it has often been ruled that denial of a motion for summary judgment by one judge does not foreclose grant of summary judgment by another judge, and other preliminary matters are often reopened.
18 C. Wright, A. Miller & E. Cooper, Federal Practice and Procedure § 4478 pp. 790-95 (1981) (footnotes omitted).
In Dictograph Products Co. v. Sonotone Corp., 230 F.2d 131, 134 (2d Cir.), cert. dismissed, 352 U.S. 883, 77 S.Ct. 104, 1 L.Ed.2d 82 (1956), the Second Circuit faced a question similar to that presented in the instant case: “[Wjhether Judge Ryan was so bound to follow Judge Weinfield’s denial of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment that we must reverse his summary judgment on the merits without considering whether it was right: that is, whether the denial had become ‘the law of the case,’ and must be accepted thereafter without re-examination.” The Second Circuit answered this question in the negative. Judge Learned Hand reasoned for the court as follows:
No one will suggest that the first judge himself may not change his mind and *948overrule his own order, so that the basis of the doctrine can only be that there are reasons why the second judge may not do so that do not exist when the first does. We can think of only two such reasons: (1) the second judge should defer to the rule of the first as a matter of mutual respect between members of the same court; (2) if he does not so defer, the defeated party may shop about in the hope of finding a judge more favorably disposed. The first reason is clearly untenable: judicial sensibilities should play no part in the disposition of suitors’ rights. The second reason has indeed much to recommend it, and, as a matter of practice, has been universally regarded a sufficient reason for treating the first ruling as conclusive. It is, however, quite another question whether under all circumstances it makes the first ruling immune from reconsideration.
Id. at 134-35.
The Second Circuit reconsidered and reaffirmed its holding in Dictaphone Products Co. in Corporacion De Mercadeo Agricola v. Mellon Bank International, 608 F.2d 43, 48 (2d Cir.1979):
In Dictograph Products Company v. Sonotone Corporation, 230 F.2d 131 (2nd Cir.1956), we set forth the standard which governs consideration of [a renewed motion for summary judgment before a second judge]. We held that on a renewed motion for summary judgment before a second judge, the district court must balance the need for finality against the forcefulness of any new evidence and the demands of justice. With respect to a non-appealable denial of summary judgment, the law of the case is not a limit on the court’s jurisdiction, but a rule of practice which may be departed from in the sound discretion of the district court. The first judge always has the power to change a ruling; further reflection may allow a better informed ruling in accordance with the conscience of the court. A fortiori, if the first judge can change his mind after denying summary judgment, and change his ruling, a second judge should have and does have the power to do so as well.
See also Williamsburg Wax Museum, Inc. v. Historic Figures, Inc., 810 F.2d 243, 251 (D.C.Cir.1987) (holding that a subsequent motion for summary judgment based on an expanded record is always permissible); United States v. Horton, 622 F.2d 144, 148 (5th Cir.1980) (holding that the trial court properly reconsidered the motion for summary judgment because the production of reports, admissions, affidavits, and other record material during the course of proceedings had clarified and resolved questions of material fact on several issues). Cf. Amen v. City of Dearborn, 718 F.2d 789, 793-94 (6th Cir.1983) (law of the case doctrine is not so rigid as the rule of res judicata; there is a well-recognized exception that the doctrine must yield to an intervening change in controlling law; the law of the case doctrine does not foreclose reconsideration of subject-matter jurisdiction).
In the instant case, appellant stresses that the district court’s grant of summary judgment was improper because the only new evidence considered by the district court was Cale’s affidavit. We need not decide whether the new evidence considered by the district court meets some threshold test of sufficiency, however, as the Second Circuit has made clear. The district court does not have to rely on new evidence; if the demands of justice require, it may simply change its mind. Thus, we turn to the substantive question in this appeal, i.e., whether appellant has raised a genuine issue of material fact concerning a violation of his right to substantive due process which can be redressed through Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971).
C.
Appellant argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in this case by holding that appellee Wahl’s abuse of his authority as a prison official to plant illegal drugs on appellant, a prison inmate, for retaliatory purposes did not violate appellant’s substantive due process rights. We agree.
*949The general standard an appellate court applies in reviewing a grant of summary judgment is the same as the district court employs initially under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(c). Gutierrez v. Lynch, 826 F.2d 1534, 1536 (6th Cir.1987); 10 C. Wright, A. Miller & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure, § 2716 (1983). “[T]he burden on the moving party may be discharged by ‘showing’ — that is, pointing out to the district court — that there is an absence of evidence to support the nonmov-ing party’s case.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 325, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2554, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). “Where the moving party has carried its burden of showing that the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions and affidavits in the record, construed favorably to the nonmoving party, do not raise a genuine issue of material fact for trial, entry of summary judgment is appropriate.” Gutierrez, 826 F.2d at 1536.
In McMaster v. Cabinet for Human Resources, 824 F.2d 518 (6th Cir.1987), former state employees brought a civil rights action, claiming violation of substantive due process through malicious prosecution. This court summarized its position with respect to malicious prosecution-type substantive due process claims as follows:
The test for substantive due process claims is whether defendants’ conduct ‘shocks the conscience.’ Rochin v. California, 342 U.S. 165, 72 S.Ct. 205, 96 L.Ed. 183 (1952). We have previously measured section 1983 malicious prosecution claims by this standard. E.g., Vasquez v. City of Hamtramck, 757 F.2d 771, 773 (6th Cir.1985). Where we have recognized a possible section 1983 claim, the circumstances have uniformly involved situations of arrest, incarceration, or charges of violation of non-traffic laws. Also, the courts that have recognized that malicious prosecution may support a section 1983 claim are virtually unanimous in holding that constitutional protection exists only with respect to criminal proceedings and not to civil proceedings.
In the past, we have declined to recognize a section 1983 claim analogous to malicious prosecution where the plaintiff was never ‘in danger of imprisonment.' Vasquez, supra, 757 F.2d at 773 (allegation of police harassment for issuance of traffic citations)....
Because plaintiffs were never subjected to the possibility of incarceration, they failed to state a claim for violation of substantive due process. Dismissal [from employment with a state agency] simply does not ‘shock the conscience.’ We do not believe Congress intended section 1983 to apply to every claim of dismissal from employment without probable cause, at least where plaintiffs can point to no other invidious reason for their dismissal, such as race or political beliefs or other status or conduct protected by the Constitution or federal statutes.
Id. at 522-23 (some citations omitted).
In one case not cited by the court in McMaster, however, this court has recognized that an “egregious abuse of governmental power” may be sufficient to state a claim based on the violation of substantive due process. Vinson v. Campbell County Fiscal Ct., 820 F.2d 194, 201 (6th Cir.1987). In Vinson, this court reasoned as follows: “The substantive component of the due process clause ‘bar[s] certain government actions regardless of the fairness of the procedures used to implement them [and thereby] serves to prevent governmental power from “being used for purposes of oppression.” ’ ” Id. In that case, a mother whose children had been removed from her custody in Ohio by a Kentucky juvenile services probation officer brought a civil rights action against the probation officer alleging, inter alia, a violation of substantive due process. The probation officer’s alleged unlawful, malicious, and intentional deprivation of the mother’s liberty interest in custody of her children was an egregious abuse of governmental power sufficient to state a claim based on substantive due process.
The instant case is distinguishable from McMaster and Vasquez because in the instant case appellant was in danger of further loss of liberty through disciplinary de*950tention and through the loss of good-time credit as the result of the charges filed against him. Furthermore, this case is distinguishable from McMaster because in the instant case appellees allegedly framed appellant in retaliation for exercising his first amendment right to register a complaint about the food.
However, the question remains whether appellees’ alleged conduct constitutes an “egregious abuse of governmental power” within the meaning of Vinson. As the magistrate observed, there is a factual dispute as to whether Persky planted the marijuana, and there are circumstances which raise a question concerning Wahl’s involvement in framing appellant. For example, Mikko Peterson, cook foreman, related in an internal memorandum concerning this incident, which was filed in the district court, and again in a deposition that on the morning of the incident Wahl told Fevurly that he was going to have Cale locked up and that that would be the end of Cale’s complaints. Wells recalled in an interview concerning the incident that at the noon meal on that day Wahl told Wells that he would need to be available to go to the dining room at approximately 3:00 p.m. Thus, the evidence supports a claim that Wahl intentionally and maliciously framed Cale and filed disciplinary charges against him in retaliation for Cale’s exercise of his first amendment rights. This alleged conduct constitutes an egregious abuse of authority within the meaning of Vinson.
Our conclusion is bolstered by recent holdings in other circuits. For example, in Franco v. Kelly, 854 F.2d 584 (2d Cir.1988), the Second Circuit addressed the question “whether an allegation that state prison officials intentionally filed false disciplinary charges against an inmate, in retaliation for the prisoner’s exercise of a constitutional right, states a cause of action for damages under [section 1983] that can withstand a motion for summary judgment.” The court answered this question in the affirmative. In that case, a prisoner alleged that a prison official’s disciplinary report was part of a pattern of false disciplinary actions taken against him in retaliation for his cooperation with an investigation by the state Inspector General into reported incidents of inmate abuse. The prisoner alleged that he subsequently had been subjected to trumped up disciplinary charges resulting in confinement and a loss of privileges, and that he suffered physical abuse and threats by prison guards.
Additionally, the Eighth Circuit recently has held that a prisoner stated a claim based on substantive due process under the following circumstances:
The complaint states that Sgt. Livingston pointed a lethal weapon at the prisoner, cocked it, and threatened him with instant death. This incident occurred immediately after the prisoner had given testimony against another guard in a § 1983 action. The death threat was accompanied by racial epithets which strongly suggest that the prisoner would have been treated differently had he not been black. Apparently, another guard who was present took the threat seriously enough to step between the prisoner and Sgt. Livingston. In case the point had not been made, Sgt. Livingston repeated the performance moments later. According to the uncontroverted words of the complaint, there was no provocation for the guard’s action other than the prisoner’s attempting to exercise his due-process and First Amendment right of access to the federal courts. The complaint describes in plain words a wanton act of cruelty which, if it occurred, was brutal despite the fact that it resulted in no measurable physical injury to the prisoner. The day has passed when an inmate must show a court the scars of torture in order to make out a complaint under § 1983. We hold that a prisoner retains at least the right to be free from the terror of instant and unexpected death at the whim of his allegedly bigoted custodians.
Burton v. Livingston, 791 F.2d 97, 100 (8th Cir.1986).
The instant case is similar to Franco. Appellant alleges that in retaliation for appellant’s complaint about the food a federal prison official framed him by instructing another inmate to plant narcotics on him *951and by then filing false disciplinary charges. Appellant was subject to the possibility of disciplinary sanctions and a resulting loss of liberty as a consequence of the alleged actions. Moreover, we agree with the court in Burton that an inmate need not show a court the scars of torture in order to make out a complaint under section 1983.
For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment is REVERSED, and this case is REMANDED for further proceedings.

. See Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 91 S.Ct. 1999, 29 L.Ed.2d 619 (1971).

. "Get the duces” refers to receiving an emergency call.

. Appellant does not challenge Persky’s sua sponte dismissal as improper. But see Yashon v. Gregory, 737 F.2d 547 (6th Cir.1984).

. The proper scope of Bivens actions is a question of the federal courts’ competency, and, hence, a question of subject matter jurisdiction. See Bivens, 403 U.S. at 398-402, 91 S.Ct. at 2005-08 (Harlan, X, concurring in judgment). see also Chilicky, 108 S.Ct. at 2466.

 Under law of the case doctrine, as now most commonly understood, it is not improper for a court to depart from a prior holding if convinced that it is clearly erroneous and would work a manifest injustice.