Court Opinion

ID: 9407915
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-10 19:01:11.463957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:40.834256
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11648    Document: 39-1      Date Filed: 07/10/2023   Page: 1 of 21

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                 No. 22-11648
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        ERIC WATKINS,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        RANDY AZAEL,
        Correction Deputy #13263,

                                                     Defendant-Appellee.
                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 0:20-cv-62236-AMC
                           ____________________
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        2                     Opinion of the Court                22-11648

        Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and HULL, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Plaintiﬀ Eric Watkins, a former detainee at the Broward
        County Main Jail, brought this pro se complaint under 42 U.S.C.
        § 1983 against defendant Randy Azael, a deputy at the jail.
        Watkins’s complaint alleged that on January 9, 2016 Azael several
        times verbally threatened to rape him, in violation of Watkins’s
        rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court
        (1) granted defendant Azael’s motion for summary judgment based
        on qualiﬁed immunity, and (2) denied Watkins’s motion for leave
        to amend his complaint to add new state law claims.
               After review, we conclude that Azael is entitled to qualiﬁed
        immunity on Watkins’s § 1983 Fourteenth Amendment claim
        because Watkins points to no clearly established law that a
        corrections oﬃcer’s verbal threats of rape rise to the level of a
        Fourteenth Amendment violation. Further, the district court did
        not abuse its discretion in denying Watkins’s motion to amend his
        complaint given that it was ﬁled six months after the deadline set
        in the district court’s scheduling order and while Azael’s summary
        judgment motion was already pending.
                           I. BACKGROUND FACTS
               At summary judgment, defendant Azael’s Statement of
        Facts was drawn from Watkins’s veriﬁed amended complaint. In
        other words, for summary judgment purposes, defendant Azael did
        not dispute Watkins’s version of events, which we recount below.
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        22-11648               Opinion of the Court                         3

        A. Azael Verbally Harasses Watkins in December 2015
              In early December 2015, Watkins arrived as a pretrial
        detainee at the Broward County Main Jail, where defendant Azael
        worked as a correctional deputy. Shortly thereafter, Azael appeared
        at Watkins’s cell “a couple of times” and made “homosexual
        gestures and comments” to Watkins. Sometimes Watkins ignored
        Azael, but other times Watkins responded by cursing at Azael,
        which led to a “verbal confrontation” between the two men.
               On December 26, 2015, defendant Azael opened the door to
        Watkins’s cell while Watkins was sleeping. When Watkins awoke,
        Azael told Watkins he was a handsome man and made
        “homosexual gestures” at Watkins. Watkins became angry, cursed
        at Azael, and told Azael “to get his faggot ass from in front of [his]
        cell.” Azael became angry, told Watkins that he was becoming
        aggressive, and put Watkins in “lock down” for the whole day as
        punishment.
              The next day, plaintiﬀ Watkins ﬁled an administrative
        complaint regarding the incident, but no investigation was
        conducted. Watkins began to worry that Azael’s verbal harassment
        might become physical sexual harassment.
        B. January 9, 2016: Azael Repeatedly Threatens to Rape
        Watkins
              On January 9, 2016, Watkins was sitting in the jail’s day room
        when Azael, who was conducting cell checks, entered and ordered
        Watkins to go to his cell. As Watkins complied and began walking
        up the stairs to his cell, Azael “grab[bed] [Watkins’s] forearm.”
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-11648

        Watkins pulled his arm away and continued up the stairs and into
        his cell.
                By this time, Azael was “in a rage of anger.” Azael reached
        for his mace (but apparently did not use it) and slammed Watkins’s
        cell door shut. Azael also repeatedly threatened to rape Watkins,
        “while showing [Watkins] gestures of how he intend[ed] to rape
        [him].” Azael stormed oﬀ, still threatening that he intended to rape
        Watkins.
               Extremely frightened by Azael’s threats, Watkins began
        repeatedly kicking his cell door and loudly requesting to speak to
        the shift sergeant. Before the shift sergeant arrived, Azael
        continued to walk by Watkins’s cell during cell checks and to
        threaten to rape Watkins.
                When the shift sergeant ﬁnally arrived at the end of the day
        on January 9, he was accompanied by Azael. Watkins told the shift
        sergeant that Azael had repeatedly threatened to rape him. The
        shift sergeant responded that he did not believe Watkins and asked
        Watkins to shake Azael’s hand. When Watkins refused, the shift
        sergeant and Azael left without doing anything to protect Watkins
        from Azael.
               From January 9 until Watkins’s release on January 26, there
        is no evidence (or even an allegation) that Azael continued to
        threaten Watkins or ever acted on his past threats. Nonetheless,
        Watkins avers that after January 9, he was “in a state of fright,
        terror, nervousness, anxiousness and paranoia” because of Azael’s
        earlier threats. Watkins lost his appetite, had sleepless nights, was
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        22-11648               Opinion of the Court                        5

        afraid to shower or exercise, and was constantly alert to the guards’
        movements for fear that Azael would carry out his threat to rape
        him.
                          II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY
        A. Motion for Leave to File Complaint Asserting an Eighth
        Amendment Claim Against Azael
                As background, in 2019, the district court deemed Watkins
        a vexatious litigant and entered a sanctions order enjoining
        Watkins from initiating any new action in the Southern District of
        Florida without prior court approval. This Court aﬃrmed the
        district court’s sanctions order given that under the pre-approval
        ﬁling injunction, the district court screens out frivolous and
        malicious claims and allows arguable claims to go forward. Watkins
        v. Dubreuil, 820 F. App’x 940, 948 (11th Cir. 2020). Accordingly,
        Watkins ﬁrst had to ﬁle, and did ﬁle, on December 26, 2019, a pro
        se motion for leave to ﬁle a § 1983 complaint asserting an Eighth
        Amendment claim against Azael.
               On January 2, 2020, the district court denied leave,
        explaining that the Eighth Amendment applies only to convicted
        prisoners and not to pretrial detainees like Watkins and that
        Watkins’s lawsuit was malicious. Watkins did not appeal this
        ruling.
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        6                     Opinion of the Court                22-11648

        B. Motion for Leave to File Complaint Asserting a Fourteenth
        Amendment Claim Against Azael
               On January 6, 2020, Watkins ﬁled a pro se motion for leave
        to ﬁle a § 1983 complaint asserting a Fourteenth Amendment claim
        against Azael based on his sexual harassment of, and threats to
        rape, Watkins. The district court denied Watkins’s motion for
        leave. The district court recognized that Watkins was now
        asserting a Fourteenth Amendment claim but concluded that “the
        other reasons for the denial stated in the Court’s January 2, 2020
        Order . . . remain valid grounds to deny the request.”
               On appeal, this Court vacated the district court’s denial of
        Watkins’s motion for leave and remanded with instructions to
        docket his proposed complaint. In re Eric Watkins Litig., 829 F.
        App’x 428, 430 (11th Cir. 2020). In so doing, this Court observed
        that “Azael’s alleged conduct of directing demeaning homosexual
        comments and gestures at Watkins, though unacceptable and
        unrelated to any legitimate governmental objective, is the type of
        verbal harassment or taunting that is not actionable under the
        Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments.” Id. at 431.
               This Court acknowledged, however, that “Watkins’s
        allegation that Azael angrily and repeatedly threatened to rape
        him” was “conduct objectively more serious than mere vulgar
        words or gestures” and that Watkins had alleged “severe mental
        distress.” Id. This Court noted that other circuits had suggested
        “that verbal threats, under certain circumstances, may be suﬃcient
        to state a constitutional claim.” Id. We concluded “that Watkins
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        22-11648               Opinion of the Court                         7

        ha[d] presented an ‘arguable’ constitutional claim” that “he should
        have been permitted to ﬁle in federal court.” Id.
        C. Amended Federal Complaint and Notice of State Court
        Action
              On remand, the district court docketed Watkins’s proposed
        § 1983 complaint. Shortly thereafter, the district court granted
        Watkins’s motion to ﬁle an amended § 1983 complaint. Watkins’s
        amended § 1983 complaint, ﬁled February 26, 2021, was
        substantially similar to his original January 6, 2020 complaint.
               In a pre-answer notice, defendant Azael advised the district
        court that on January 6, 2020, Watkins ﬁled a civil suit against Azael
        in Florida state court. Azael attached copies of Watkins’s original
        and amended state court complaints. In his amended state court
        complaint, Watkins alleged Florida law claims of assault and
        intentional inﬂiction of emotional distress based on the same facts
        and circumstances alleged in Watkins’s federal complaint. In his
        federal court response to Azael’s notice, Watkins acknowledged
        that his federal and state cases were “factually . . . identical” but
        argued they were not duplicative because they raised diﬀerent
        causes of action.
               On April 5, 2021, Azael also ﬁled a pre-answer motion to
        dismiss Watkins’s action with prejudice, arguing, inter alia, that
        Watkins had improperly split duplicative claims against Azael in his
        federal and state court actions.
             Shortly thereafter, on May 3, 2021, Azael withdrew his
        motion to dismiss. Azael’s pleading: (1) acknowledged that
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        8                     Opinion of the Court                22-11648

        Watkins’s federal action was ﬁled ﬁrst; (2) advised that attempts to
        reach a resolution by consolidating both actions in the federal case
        had been unsuccessful; and (3) proposed that Watkins voluntarily
        dismiss his state court action without prejudice and ﬁle an
        unopposed motion to amend his federal complaint to incorporate
        his state law claims. Watkins, however, continued to pursue his
        two-action strategy.
        D. Scheduling Order and Motion for Summary Judgment
              The district court entered a scheduling order that required
        the parties: (1) to amend their pleadings by June 4, 2021; (2) to
        complete discovery by December 30, 2021; and (3) to ﬁle any
        summary judgment motion by January 25, 2022.
               On November 19, 2021, Azael ﬁled a motion for summary
        judgment based on qualiﬁed immunity. Azael argued Watkins
        could not demonstrate that a pretrial detainee’s Fourteenth
        Amendment right to be free from repeated threats of rape was
        clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct. Watkins
        opposed the motion on numerous grounds.
        E. Untimely Motion for Leave to Amend Complaint
               On December 28, 2021, before the district court could rule
        on the summary judgment motion, Watkins ﬁled a motion for
        leave to amend his pleadings. Watkins’s motion was well outside
        the June 4, 2021 deadline for amendments. Yet, Watkins sought to
        add the state law claims of assault and intentional inﬂiction of
        emotional distress previously raised in his state court action.
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        22-11648              Opinion of the Court                        9

        Watkins averred that the state court had dismissed that action on
        grounds of duplicative claims splitting.
               The district court denied Watkins’s motion to amend his
        complaint, concluding Watkins had not shown good cause under
        Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16(b). The district court stressed
        that: (1) the case was over two years old; (2) Watkins was put on
        notice of his duplicative-claims defect by Azael’s pleadings but
        “chose to proceed in diﬀerent courts until receiving an unfavorable
        ruling in state court”; (3) Watkins did not move to amend his
        complaint until six months after the scheduling order’s June 4, 2021
        deadline; and (4) Azael’s motion for summary judgment was now
        fully briefed.
        F. District Court’s Order Granting Summary Judgment
               On April 5, 2022, the district court granted summary
        judgment to Azael based on qualiﬁed immunity. The district court
        found that at the time of the alleged rape threats, Azael was
        performing a job-related function and acting within his
        discretionary authority.
               Turning to the alleged constitutional violation, the district
        court construed Watkins’s allegations as tantamount to an
        excessive force claim under the Fourteenth Amendment. Although
        expressing skepticism that Azael’s verbal threats constituted
        excessive force, the district court concluded Watkins had not
        shown Azael’s conduct: (1) violated a “clearly established” right
        through binding case law with materially indistinguishable facts; or
        (2) was so egregious that it violated a constitutional right of
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        10                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11648

        “obvious clarity” even in the absence of case law. Watkins timely
        appealed.
                            III. MOTION TO AMEND
                On appeal, Watkins pro se argues the district court abused
        its discretion by refusing to allow him to amend his complaint to
        add his state law claims against Azael.
                Under Rule 15(a), a plaintiﬀ may amend his complaint once
        as a matter of course within 21 days of serving it or within 21 days
        after the defendant’s service of either the answer or a motion under
        Rule 12(b), whichever is earlier. Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(1). Thereafter,
        a plaintiﬀ may amend his complaint “only with the opposing
        party’s written consent or the court’s leave.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 15(a)(2).
        Rule 15(a)(2) instructs courts to “freely give leave when justice so
        requires.” Id. Nevertheless, the district court may deny leave to
        amend on numerous grounds, including undue delay. Maynard v.
        Bd. of Regents, 342 F.3d 1281, 1287 (11th Cir. 2003).
                Once the district court enters a scheduling order limiting the
        time to amend pleadings, that schedule may be modiﬁed only for
        “good cause” and with the district court’s consent. Fed. R. Civ. P.
        16(b)(4). Thus, a plaintiﬀ seeking leave to amend his complaint
        after the scheduling-order deadline must show “good cause” under
        Rule 16(b). S. Grouts & Mortars, Inc. v. 3M Co., 575 F.3d 1235, 1241
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        22-11648                  Opinion of the Court                             11

        (11th Cir. 2009). A plaintiﬀ’s lack of diligence in pursuing a claim
        precludes a ﬁnding of good cause. Id. at 1241 & n.3. 1
               Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion in
        denying as untimely Watkins’s motion for leave to amend his
        complaint. Watkins amended his complaint once as a matter of
        right. After Azael ﬁled his answer, Watkins needed either Azael’s
        consent or the district court’s leave to amend again. See Fed. R. Civ.
        P. 15(a)(2). And because Watkins’s motion was ﬁled over six
        months after the scheduling order’s June 4, 2021 deadline for
        amendments, Watkins was required to show good cause for his
        delay under Rule 16(b).
                The district court concluded, and we agree, that Watkins
        failed to demonstrate good cause for missing the scheduling order’s
        deadline. The record shows Watkins’s lack of diligence. First,
        Watkins knew of the information supporting his proposed state
        law claims long before the scheduling order’s deadline, as
        evidenced by the fact that he had already asserted those same state
        law claims in his state court action. See S. Grouts & Mortars, Inc.,
        575 F.3d at 1241 n.3; Sosa, 133 F.3d at 1419. Indeed, Watkins ﬁled
        his state court action asserting the state law claims on January 6,
        2020, the same day he ﬁled his motion for leave to ﬁle his original

        1We   review for abuse of discretion a district court’s denial of a motion for
        leave to amend a complaint. Covenant Christian Ministries, Inc. v. City of
        Marietta, 654 F.3d 1231, 1239 (11th Cir. 2011). Likewise, we review for abuse
        of discretion a district court’s enforcement of its scheduling order. Sosa v.
        Airprint Sys., Inc., 133 F.3d 1417, 1418 (11th Cir. 1998).
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        12                         Opinion of the Court                       22-11648

        complaint in this federal action. Yet, Watkins did not ﬁle his
        motion to amend until December 28, 2021, almost two years later.
               Second, Watkins was put on notice of the potential pitfalls
        of proceeding in parallel actions by Azael’s pleadings discussing
        duplicative claim splitting. Azael’s pleadings even recounted how
        his counsel had unsuccessfully proposed to Watkins that he dismiss
        his state action without prejudice and ﬁle in his federal action an
        unopposed motion to amend his complaint to add the state law
        claims. Yet, Watkins took no steps to do so before the June 4, 2021
        deadline expired. 2 Instead, Watkins waited another six months and
        only after Azael’s motion for summary judgment was fully briefed.
                Under the totality of the circumstances, we cannot say the
        district court abused its discretion.
                             IV. QUALIFIED IMMUNITY
              Watkins next argues that the district court erred in granting
        summary judgment on his Fourteenth Amendment claim against
        Azael on qualiﬁed immunity grounds.3

        2 There is no merit to Watkins’s contention that he could not amend his
        federal complaint until after the state court dismissed his state court action as
        impermissibly duplicative. As Azael’s counsel proposed, Watkins was free to
        voluntarily dismiss his state court action and move to amend his federal
        complaint to add the state law claims.
        3 We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment based on
        qualified immunity. Stephens v. DeGiovanni, 852 F.3d 1298, 1313 (11th Cir.
        2017). At the summary judgment stage, we construe all facts and draw all
        reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff as the non-moving party and use
        that version of the facts to determine whether the defendant is entitled to
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        22-11648                  Opinion of the Court                              13

               Qualiﬁed immunity protects a government oﬃcial sued in
        his individual capacity from civil damages so long as his “conduct
        does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional
        rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Spencer
        v. Benison, 5 F.4th 1222, 1230 (11th Cir. 2021) (quotation marks
        omitted). To seek qualiﬁed immunity, the government oﬃcial
        must show that he was “acting within the scope of his
        ‘discretionary authority’ when the allegedly wrongful acts
        occurred.” Id. If the government oﬃcial does so, “the burden shifts
        to the plaintiﬀ to show that the oﬃcial’s conduct (1) violated federal
        law (2) that was clearly established at the relevant time.” Id.
        A. Scope of Azael’s Discretionary Authority
                As to Azael’s discretionary authority, Watkins contends that
        jail guards are not allowed to threaten to rape a detainee under any
        circumstances and such an act is not related to any legitimate state
        objective.
                 To demonstrate that he acted within the scope of his
        discretionary authority, Azael “was required to show that he acted:
        ‘(1) . . . pursuant to the performance of his duties, and (2) within
        the scope of his authority.’” Benison, 5 F.4th at 1230 (ellipsis in
        original) (quoting Est. of Cummings v. Davenport, 906 F.3d 934, 940
        (11th Cir. 2018)). “Put diﬀerently, [Azael] was required to show that
        he was (a) performing a legitimate job-related function (that is,

        qualified immunity. Feliciano v. City of Miami Beach, 707 F.3d 1244, 1252 (11th
        Cir. 2013); Penley v. Eslinger, 605 F.3d 843, 948-49 (11th Cir. 2010).
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        14                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11648

        pursuing a job-related goal), (b) through means that were within
        his power to utilize.” Id. at 1230-31 (quotation marks omitted).
              Here, when Azael allegedly made the rape threats, he was
        on duty as a correctional oﬃcer at the jail and was conducting a cell
        check, a legitimate job-related function. During the cell check,
        Azael directed Watkins to return to his cell, escorted Watkins from
        the day room to his cell, secured Watkins in the cell, and then
        continued with the cell check, all means that were within Azael’s
        power to utilize to carry out the cell check.
               Watkins’s argument—that Azael was not authorized to
        make rape threats as part of those job duties—misunderstands the
        nature of the discretionary authority inquiry. “The inquiry is not
        whether it was within the defendant’s [discretionary] authority to
        commit the allegedly illegal act. Framed that way, the inquiry is no
        more than an ‘untenable’ tautology.” Harbert Int’l, Inc. v. James, 157
        F.3d 1271, 1282 (11th Cir. 1998).
               Rather, “[i]n applying each prong of the [discretionary
        authority] test, we look to the general nature of the defendant’s
        action, temporarily putting aside the fact that it may have been
        committed for an unconstitutional purpose, in an unconstitutional
        manner, to an unconstitutional extent, or under constitutionally
        inappropriate circumstances.” Holloman v. Harland, 370 F.3d 1252,
        1266 (11th Cir. 2004). In other words, we “consider a government
        oﬃcial’s actions at the minimum level of generality necessary to
        remove the constitutional taint.” Id.; Benison, 5 F.4th at 1231
        (explaining that a proper “framing of the inquiry” must “strip out
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        22-11648               Opinion of the Court                         15

        the allegedly illegal conduct”). When we do so here, it is readily
        apparent from the record that Azael was acting within his
        discretionary authority as a corrections oﬃcer at the jail when he
        threatened Watkins during the cell check.
        B. Clearly Established Right
               Watkins next contends that he met his burden to show that
        Azael violated his clearly established Fourteenth Amendment right
        as an inmate to be free from a corrections oﬃcer’s threats of rape.
        Once the defense of qualiﬁed immunity has been properly raised,
        the plaintiﬀ bears the burden of showing: (1) that the defendant
        violated a constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly
        established at the time of the alleged misconduct. Pearson v.
        Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232, 129 S. Ct. 808, 815 (2009). We have
        discretion to aﬃrm a grant of qualiﬁed immunity on either prong
        or both. Id. at 236, 129 S. Ct. at 818; see also Crocker v. Beatty, 995
        F.3d 1232, 1240 (11th Cir. 2021).
               Even assuming arguendo that Watkins has shown that Azael’s
        rape threats violated the Fourteenth Amendment, Azael is still
        entitled to qualiﬁed immunity because Watkins failed to
        demonstrate the constitutional violation was clearly established at
        the time Azael made the threats in 2016. A right is clearly
        established if “at the time of the oﬃcer’s conduct, the law was
        suﬃciently clear that every reasonable oﬃcial would understand
        that what he [was] doing [was] unlawful.” District of Columbia v.
        Wesby, 583 U.S. ___, 138 S. Ct. 577, 589 (2018) (quotation marks
        omitted). To meet this “demanding standard,” “existing law must
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        16                     Opinion of the Court                  22-11648

        have placed the constitutionality of the oﬃcer’s conduct ‘beyond
        debate.’” Id.
               A plaintiﬀ can show that a constitutional right was clearly
        established in three ways: (1) “he can point us to a materially similar
        case that has already been decided”; (2) “he can point us to a
        broader, clearly established principle that should control the novel
        facts of the situation; or (3) he can show that the conduct involved
        “so obviously violate[d] the Constitution that prior case law is
        unnecessary.” Echols v. Lawton, 913 F.3d 1313, 1324 (11th Cir. 2019)
        (cleaned up). “We look only to binding precedent at the time of
        the challenged conduct—that is, the decisions of the Supreme
        Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the highest court of the state” to
        see if the right was clearly established. Id. (quotation marks
        omitted).
               We now turn to Watkins’s particular constitutional claim.
        C. Fourteenth Amendment Claim
                Claims involving the mistreatment of pretrial detainees, like
        Watkins, are governed by the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due
        Process Clause rather than the Eighth Amendment’s Cruel and
        Unusual Punishment Clause, which applies to convicted prisoners.
        Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1490 (11th Cir. 1996). Although the
        source of the right diﬀers, pretrial detainees, like prisoners, have a
        right to be free from excessive uses of force by guards. See Piazza
        v. Jeﬀerson Cnty., 923 F.3d 947, 952 (11th Cir. 2019). Because the
        district court’s order and the parties’ appellate briefs analyzed
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        22-11648                Opinion of the Court                         17

        Watkins’s Fourteenth Amendment claim within the excessive force
        framework, we do as well.
              Nonetheless, in Watkins’s prior appeal, this Court
        concluded that Azael’s alleged demeaning homosexual comments
        and gestures were the type of verbal harassment or taunting that is
        not actionable under the Fourteenth Amendment (or even the
        Eighth Amendment). See In re Eric Watkins Litig., 829 F. App’x at
        431. Thus, we focus our analysis on Azael’s alleged angry and
        repeated threats to rape Watkins, which are “objectively more
        serious than mere vulgar words or gestures,” and allegedly caused
        Watkins severe mental distress. See id.
               Neither the Supreme Court nor this Court in a published
        opinion has determined whether a correctional oﬃcer’s verbal
        threats to physically harm an inmate alone violate the Eighth
        Amendment or the Fourteenth Amendment. In dicta, this Court
        has said that “verbal taunts. . . . [h]owever distressing” cannot
        establish a claim that guards violated the Eighth Amendment.
        Edwards v. Gilbert, 867 F.2d 1271, 1273 n.1 (11th Cir. 1989)
        (alterations in original). In an unpublished decision, this Court has
        gone further and concluded that prison oﬃcers’ threats that were
        never carried out were insuﬃcient to state a constitutional
        violation. Hernandez v. Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 281 F. App’x 862, 866 (11th
        Cir. 2008).
               More recently (and after Azael’s 2016 conduct alleged here),
        this Court has held that prisoners have an Eighth Amendment right
        to be free from sexual assault by corrections oﬃcers and have
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        18                     Opinion of the Court                 22-11648

        deﬁned sexual assault to include various types of physical contact
        of a sexual nature. See DeJesus v. Lewis, 14 F.4th 1182, 1195-98 (11th
        Cir. 2021). Yet, in doing so, we have left open “whether non-
        physical contact can constitute ‘sexual assault’ for purposes of
        establishing an excessive-force claim under the Eighth
        Amendment.” Id. at 1197 n.14.
                Elsewhere, at least three other courts have concluded that
        threats, in at least some situations, may be suﬃcient to state an
        Eighth Amendment claim. See, e.g., Irving v. Dormire, 519 F.3d 441,
        448-50 (8th Cir. 2008) (involving correctional oﬃcer’s ongoing
        threats to kill a prisoner and to have him killed or beaten by other
        prisoners coupled with the oﬃcer’s unsuccessful eﬀorts to pay
        other prisoners to assault him and to arm one of them with a razor
        blade); Chandler v. D.C. Dep’t of Corrs., 145 F.3d 1355, 1360-61 (D.C.
        Cir. 1998) (involving correctional oﬃcer’s threats to have inmate
        killed); Hudspeth v. Fiins, 584 F.2d 1345, 1348 (4th Cir. 1978)
        (involving correctional oﬃcer’s threat to pay another oﬃcer to
        shoot an inmate and make it look like an accident accompanied by
        a gesture toward the oﬃcer’s holstered gun).
               But these courts do not bind the Eleventh Circuit. Nor did
        they address facts like those alleged here. And we are not aware of
        any court, much less this Court or the Supreme Court, that has
        previously concluded that threats of rape that occurred on a single
        day and not followed by additional threats or other action, stated a
        violation of a prisoner’s right to be free from excessive force. Even
        if the facts alleged here do state a Fourteenth Amendment due
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        22-11648                  Opinion of the Court                               19

        process violation—a question we do not decide—we cannot say
        that any such violation was “clearly established” in 2016, at the time
        of Azael’s alleged conduct.
               As we have mentioned, in 2016, no binding precedent from
        this Court or the Supreme Court established “beyond doubt,”
        either through materially similar facts or a broad statement of
        principle, that a corrections oﬃcer’s verbal threats to sexually
        assault a pretrial detainee, without more, rise to the level of a
        constitutional violation. See Wesby, 583 U.S. at ___, 138 S. Ct. at
        589. And, in dicta in a published decision and in an unpublished
        decision, this Court had indicated that mere verbal threats were not
        cognizable constitutional violations. See Edwards, 867 F.2d at 1273
        n.1; Hernandez, 281 F. App’x at 866. Given the state of our
        decisional law in 2016, we cannot say Azael had “fair notice” that
        his threats constituted a due process violation under the
        Fourteenth Amendment. 4
               Watkins cites Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 113 S. Ct. 2475
        (1993), for the general principle “[t]hat the Eighth Amendment
        protects against future harm to inmates” and “requires that
        inmates be furnished with the basic human needs, one of which is

        4 Watkins argues the district court mischaracterized his claim as onefor verbal
        sexual harassment when his claim is for “sexual assault by way of rape threats.”
        While the district court referred to Watkins’s claim as one involving “sexual
        harassment,” it also acknowledged that Azael’s alleged conduct was
        objectively more serious than vulgar words or gestures, properly focused its
        qualified immunity analysis on Azael’s alleged rape threats, and treated
        Watkins’s claim as an excessive force claim.
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        20                         Opinion of the Court                        22-11648

        ‘reasonable safety.’” See 509 U.S. at 33, 113 S. Ct. at 2480-81
        (involving a claim that oﬃcials were deliberately indiﬀerent to an
        inmate’s serious medical problems caused by exposure to
        environmental tobacco smoke). But this principle deﬁnes the right
        at too high of a level of generality to put a reasonable corrections
        oﬃcer on notice that threats like the ones Azael allegedly made to
        Watkins amounted to a Fourteenth Amendment violation.5
               Finally, Azael’s alleged threats to rape Watkins were
        undoubtedly unprofessional and highly inappropriate. Like sexual
        assault itself, threats to commit sexual assault by correctional
        oﬃcers serve no legitimate penological purpose and have no place
        in correctional facilities, and they should be dealt with swiftly and
        deﬁnitively. See DeJesus, 14 F.4th at 1195. However, given the
        binding precedents concerning verbal statements (in a single
        incident) without accompanying actions, we cannot say that such
        verbal threats present one of the exceptionally rare cases in which
        the conduct so obviously violates the Fourteenth Amendment that
        no prior case law was necessary to give a reasonable corrections
        oﬃcer fair notice. See Echols, 913 F.3d at 1324.
                                     V. CONCLUSION
             We aﬃrm the district court’s order denying Watkins’s
        untimely motion to amend his § 1983 complaint to add state law

        5 Watkins’s reliance on the Eighth Circuit’s decision in Burton v. Livingston, 791

        F.2d 97, 100 (8th Cir. 1986), is misplaced, as only decisions from the Supreme
        Court, this Court, or the highest court of the state can “clearly establish” a
        constitutional right. See Echols, 913 F.3d at 1324.
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        22-11648             Opinion of the Court                     21

        claims. We also agree with the district court that because Azael
        acted within the scope of his discretionary authority and did not
        violate a clearly established Fourteenth Amendment right, he is
        entitled to qualiﬁed immunity. Thus, we aﬃrm the district court’s
        entry of summary judgment in Azael’s favor on Watkins’s
        Fourteenth Amendment claim under § 1983.
              AFFIRMED.