Opinion
CASE No. 4:17-cv-00235-CDL-MSH
03-04-2019
DENNIS LEWIS RILEY, Plaintiff, v. Corrections Officer, JAMES GLOVER, Defendant.
REPORT AND RECOMMENDATION
Pending before the Court is Defendant's motion to dismiss Plaintiff's complaint (ECF No. 14). For the reasons explained below, it is recommended that Defendant's motion be granted in part and denied in part.
BACKGROUND
Plaintiff alleges that he observed Defendant Officer James Glover reading another inmate's legal mail, so Plaintiff confronted Glover about whether Glover was allowed to read their legal mail. Compl. 5, ECF No. 1. In response, Glover became angry and told Plaintiff to remove his shorts, which Glover said were contraband. Id. at 7. Plaintiff removed his shorts, leaving him in his boxer shorts. Id. Thereafter, Glover ordered Plaintiff to step outside of his cell and handcuffed him. Id.
Glover then began berating Plaintiff and lunged at Plaintiff, as if to grab his throat. Compl. 7. Plaintiff jumped back from Glover, and in doing so, Plaintiff's genitals came out of his boxer shorts. Id. Plaintiff asked Glover if Plaintiff could put his penis back into his boxer shorts, and Glover refused to allow him to do so. Id. Plaintiff was left with his genitals exposed for approximately two hours. Id. During this time, Glover walked Plaintiff through the prison to the security building, such that Plaintiff could be seen by anyone looking out a window. Id. at 8. Plaintiff asserts that, before this incident, he was already under the care of mental health services because he suffers from mental illness. Id. He states he has had to see his mental health counselor twice a week, has lost over 18 pounds, has nightmares, and is in fear for his safety as a result of the incident. Compl. 10.
Following preliminary review, the Court found Plaintiff had sufficiently alleged that Defendant subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment, in violation of the Eight Amendment. Order & R. & R. 6, ECF No. 6; Order on R. & R., ECF No. 10. It also found that Plaintiff had sufficiently alleged that Defendant had violated his constitutional right to bodily privacy. Order & R. & R. 8; Order on R. & R. Accordingly, those claims were allowed to proceed. Defendant now moves to dismiss those claims, arguing that Plaintiff has failed to state a relievable claim, that Defendant is immune from Plaintiff's claims, and that Plaintiff seeks unavailable remedies. Mot. to Dismiss 1, ECF No. 14.
DISCUSSION
I. Monetary Damages
Defendant contends that Plaintiff's claims are barred by the Eleventh Amendment "[t]o the extent Plaintiff seeks monetary damages against Defendant in his official capacities[.]" Br. in Supp. Mot. to Dismiss 3, ECF No. 14-1. He also argues that Plaintiff cannot seeks monetary damages in general because he alleges no physical injury. Id. at 12. The Court agrees with Defendant and recommends dismissal of Plaintiff's claims to the extent he seeks monetary relief beyond nominal damages.
"Under the Eleventh Amendment, state officials sued for damages in their official capacity are immune from suit in federal court." See, e.g., Jackson v. Ga. Dep't of Transp., 16 F.3d 1573, 1575 (11th Cir. 1994); see also Lewis v. Charlotte Corr. Inst. Emps., 589 F. App'x 950, 952 (11th Cir. 2014) (per curiam) (state prison officials entitled to Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit under § 1983 when sued in their official capacities). Defendant is an employee of a state prison, and thus considered a representative of the State of Georgia. Further, "an incarcerated plaintiff cannot recover either compensatory or punitive damages for constitutional violations unless he can demonstrate a (more than de minimis) physical injury." Brooks v. Warden, 800 F.3d 1295, 1307 (11th Cir. 2015). The Eleventh Circuit has found injuries such as "temporary chest pain, headache, and difficulty breathing" with recurrent back pain to be de minimis. Quilan v. Pers. Transp. Servs. Co., 329 F. App'x 246, 249 (11th Cir. 2009). Plaintiff has not alleged he suffered any physical injury. Accordingly Defendants' motion to dismiss should be granted as to their request to limit Plaintiff's request for damages to only nominal damages. See Br. in Supp. Mot. to Dismiss 12-13.
II. Failure to State a Claim
Defendant argues that Plaintiff has not alleged "sexual abuse severe enough to state an Eighth Amendment claim." Br. in Supp. Mot. to Dismiss 6. He also contends that Plaintiff has failed "to state a viable claim for violation of his right to bodily privacy." Id. at 8. Defendant essentially asks the Court to reverse its previous finding that Plaintiff's allegations were sufficient to support both of these claims. It is recommended that this request be rejected, and Defendant's motion to dismiss on grounds that Plaintiff has failed to state a claim be denied.
A complaint fails to state a claim if it does not include "sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to 'state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'" Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). The factual allegations in a complaint "must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level" and cannot "merely create[] a suspicion [of] a legally cognizable right of action." Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555 (first alteration in original). As noted above, the Court, in screening Plaintiff's complaint, found that his allegations are "sufficient to state a claim for sexual abuse" such that the claim should proceed. Order & R. & R. 8. It also found that Plaintiff had "alleged sufficient facts to state a claim for violation of his right to bodily privacy." Accordingly, it is recommended that Defendant's motion to dismiss for failure to state a relievable claim be denied.
III. Qualified Immunity
Finally, Defendant claims he is entitled to qualified immunity because "Plaintiff has not stated any constitutional violation" and "there is no clearly established law that would have put [Defendant] on notice that his alleged actions, or inactions, were clearly unlawful." Br. in Supp. Mot. to Dismiss 10. The Court finds this argument to also be without merit and recommends it be rejected.
A. Standard
"[Q]ualified immunity completely protects government officials performing discretionary functions from suit in their individual capacities unless their conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Gonzalez v. Reno, 325 F.3d 1228, 1233 (11th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "The purpose of qualified immunity is to allow officials to carry out discretionary duties without the chilling fear of personal liability or harrassive litigation, protecting from suit all but the plainly incompetent or one who is knowingly violating federal law." McCullough v. Antolini, 559 F.3d 1201, 1205 (11th Cir. 2009) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
"In order to receive qualified immunity, an official must first establish that he was acting within the scope of his discretionary authority when the alleged wrongful acts occurred." Id. To make that determination "a court must ask whether the act complained of, if done for a proper purpose, would be within, or reasonably related to, the outer perimeter of an official's discretionary duties." Harbert Int'l, Inc. v. James, 157 F.3d 1271, 1282 (11th Cir. 1998). Once the defendant shows that he was acting within his discretionary authority, the burden then shifts to the plaintiff to establish that qualified immunity does not apply. Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1358 (11th Cir. 2004). To meet this burden, Plaintiff must "show[] (1) that the official violated a statutory or constitutional right, and (2) that the right was clearly established at the time of the challenged conduct." Wood v. Moss, -- U.S. --, 134 S. Ct. 2056, 2066-67 (2014) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
B. Application to Defendant
Defendant has shown that Plaintiff's allegations clearly concern actions within his discretionary authority as a prison official. See Pl.'s Am. Resp. to Mot. to Dismiss 5, ECF No. 28; see, e.g., Roberts v. Spielman, 643 F.3d 899, 903 (11th Cir. 2011) (explaining that "discretionary authority" includes "all actions of a government official that (1) were undertaken pursuant to the performance of his duties, and (2) were within the scope of his authority") (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Therefore, the burden shifts to Plaintiff to show that Defendant's actions were violative of his clearly established constitutional rights. The Court has already established that Plaintiff's allegations, if true, would constitute the violation of his constitutional rights, so the remaining inquiry is whether those rights were clearly established.
"To be clearly established, a right must be sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would [have understood] that what he is doing violates that right." Reichle v. Howards, 566 U.S. 658, 658 (2012) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) (alteration in original). "In other words, existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate." Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). The Eleventh Circuit has explained that:
[a] right may be clearly established for qualified immunity purposes in one of three ways: (1) case law with indistinguishable facts clearly establishing the constitutional right; (2) a broad statement of principle within the Constitution, statute, or case law that clearly establishes a constitutional right; or (3) conduct so egregious that a constitutional right was clearly violated, even in the total absence of case law.
Maddox v. Stephens, 727 F.3d 1109, 1121 (11th Cir. 2013). Furthermore, "[t]he inquiry whether a federal right is clearly established must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the case, not as a broad general proposition." Loftus v. Clark-Moore, 690 F.3d 1200, 1204 (11th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "The relevant, dispositive inquiry in determining whether a right is clearly established is whether it would be clear to a reasonable [state official] that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted." Id. (quotation marks and citation omitted) (emphasis and alteration in original). The court should look "only to binding precedent—cases from the United States Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, and the highest court of the state under which the claim arose—to determine whether the right in question was clearly established at the time of the violation." Coffin v. Brandau, 642 F.3d 999, 1013 (11th Cir. 2011) (citation omitted).
The Supreme Court of the United States insists that prison officials may not treat prisoners in a way that is "incompatible with the concept of human dignity." Brown v. Plata, 563 U.S. 493, 511 (2011). Doing so results in a violation of the Eighth Amendment which "the courts have a responsibility to remedy." Id. The Eleventh Circuit has recognized "a prisoner's constitutional right to bodily privacy" that arises out of "a special sense of privacy [persons have] in their genitals[.]" Fortner v. Thomas, 983 F.2d 1024, 1030 (11th Cir. 1993). The Eleventh Circuit has specifically recognized that the principle "that, absent a legitimate reason, individuals maintain a right to bodily privacy, in particular the right not to have their genitals exposed to onlookers" is clearly established such that an officer may not claim qualified immunity from suit arising out of violation of it. Mitchell v. Stewart, 608 F. App'x 730, 735 (11th Cir. 2015).
Plaintiff has alleged that Defendant subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment and violated his right to bodily privacy by forcing him to walk through a prison with his genitals exposed. The rights implicated by these allegations were clearly established at the time they allegedly took place, as exemplified above. Accordingly, Defendant's motion to dismiss on grounds that he holds qualified immunity to Plaintiff's claims should be denied.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons explained above, it is recommended that Defendant's motion to dismiss (ECF No. 14) be granted in part and denied in part. Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1), the parties may serve and file written objections to this Recommendation within fourteen (14) days after being served with a copy hereof. The district judge shall make a de novo determination of those portions of the Recommendation to which objection is made. All other portions of the Recommendation may be reviewed for clear error.
The parties are hereby notified that, pursuant to Eleventh Circuit Rule 3-1, "[a] party failing to object to a magistrate judge's findings or recommendations contained in a report and recommendation in accordance with the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) waives the right to challenge on appeal the district court's order based on unobjected-to factual and legal conclusions if the party was informed of the time period for objecting and the consequences on appeal for failing to object. In the absence of a proper objection, however, the court may review on appeal for plain error if necessary in the interests of justice."
SO RECOMMENDED, this 4th day of March, 2019.
/s/ Stephen Hyles
UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGE