Brian Herron v. Douglas Meyer
Filing
Filed opinion of the court by Judge Easterbrook. The judgment of the district court is VACATED, and the case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. William J. Bauer, Circuit Judge; Frank H. Easterbrook, Circuit Judge and David F. Hamilton, Circuit Judge. [6745260-1] [6745260] [15-1659]
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Case: 15-1659
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In the
United States Court of Appeals
For the Seventh Circuit
____________________
No. 15-‐‑1659
BRIAN HERRON,
Plaintiff-‐‑Appellant,
v.
DOUGLAS MEYER,
Defendant-‐‑Appellee.
____________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Southern District of Indiana, Terre Haute Division.
No. 2:13-‐‑cv-‐‑109-‐‑JMS-‐‑WGH — Jane E. Magnus-‐‑Stinson, Judge.
____________________
SUBMITTED MARCH 18, 2016 — DECIDED APRIL 25, 2016
____________________
Before BAUER, EASTERBROOK, and HAMILTON, Circuit
Judges.
EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. In this Bivens suit, Brian Her-‐‑
ron, a disabled federal prisoner, accuses guard Douglas
Meyer of transferring him to a cell that the guard knew was
likely to cause him injury. Meyer did this, Herron alleges,
because he disliked the fact that Herron had filed grievances
and had refused to share a cell with an inmate who he
thought endangered him. Herron maintains that Meyer vio-‐‑
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lated the First and Eighth Amendments. The district court
dismissed the First Amendment theory and held that the
guard is entitled to qualified immunity on the Eighth
Amendment theory. 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20865 (S.D. Ind.
Feb. 20, 2014) at *7–9 (First Amendment); 2015 U.S. Dist.
LEXIS 28263 (S.D. Ind. Mar. 9, 2015) (Eighth Amendment).
We report the facts of record in the light most favorable
to Herron. A former gang member, he is serving long sen-‐‑
tences for bank robbery and other crimes. Before his transfer
to the prison at Terre Haute, where the events we narrate
occurred, he had been attacked by other inmates at a differ-‐‑
ent prison and left permanently disabled. He is confined to a
wheelchair and is incontinent, though usually he has a brief
time to make it to a toilet before soiling himself. When arriv-‐‑
ing at Terre Haute, Herron was assigned to a cell designed
for wheelchair-‐‑bound inmates. Among other features, the
cell has grab bars that inmates can use to transfer safely from
a wheelchair to a bed or toilet; it also has a shower that the
occupant can use to clean up if he does not make it to the toi-‐‑
let in time.
Herron originally believed that the persons who injured
him did so as part of gang warfare, but he was told by some
inmates at Terre Haute that he had been targeted because
they believed him to be a pedophile. Herron checked and
found that, indeed, his prison records contained references
to the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, 42
U.S.C. §§ 16901–91, even though his convictions are for other
crimes. He filed a grievance asking the prison to correct his
records and a request under the Privacy Act asking the Bu-‐‑
reau of Prisons to do so. The Bureau made the change, but
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the news may not have reached the prison until after the
events we narrate.
On being told that some other inmates, believing him to
be a child molester, were planning to attack him anew, he
asked to be placed in segregation. The prison complied. The
segregation unit has wheelchair-‐‑accessible cells, and Herron
was assigned to one. Another inmate joined him a few days
later (it was a two-‐‑person cell), and within the month at-‐‑
tacked him over his “Walsh Act stuff.” The attacker was re-‐‑
moved, and Herron again had the cell to himself.
Before the month was out, Meyer arrived with a new
cellmate for Herron. The two prisoners discussed whether
they could tolerate each other, and when the newcomer told
Herron that he was being moved because he had just at-‐‑
tacked his former cellmate, Herron objected. Meyer took the
other prisoner away, then came back and took Herron away.
Meyer demanded of Herron to know “what your problem
is” and, when Herron replied that he just wanted to be safe,
Meyer replied: “Well, don’t you have a Walsh Act assign-‐‑
ment? We didn’t put it on you here at Terre Haute, so quit
filing.” Visibly angry, Meyer continued: “you are not going
to sit in my [special housing unit] living high on the hog. I
have something in store for you.”
Having said that, Meyer and some other guards carried
Herron to a non-‐‑wheelchair-‐‑accessible cell. It lacked grab
bars, it lacked a shower, and it had a concrete bed that a
wheelchair-‐‑bound inmate would find hard to use. Herron
protested, but Meyer replied that he would be in that cell for
“the next couple of days or so” and warned Herron not to
“hit the duress button unless it was a life-‐‑threatening situa-‐‑
tion.” When Herron next needed to use the toilet, he asked
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guards for help. They refused. Without the aid of grab bars,
Herron fell when trying to get out of his wheelchair and
struck his head. He was found lying helpless with his head
near the toilet. He was taken to a hospital and treated for in-‐‑
juries that included a laceration to his temple, a contusion to
one shoulder, and a sprained spine.
The district court analyzed Herron’s Eighth Amendment
theory as if he were contending that the Constitution re-‐‑
quires grab bars for all wheelchair-‐‑bound inmates, all the
time. Finding that it does not—and adding that Meyer likely
anticipated that other guards would help Herron use the toi-‐‑
let in his new cell—the court concluded that Meyer is enti-‐‑
tled to qualified immunity.
Some of Herron’s argument reads like an appeal to the
medical-‐‑care principle of Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976),
and Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994). But Herron, who
was proceeding without the assistance of counsel, should
not be held to a lawyer’s standard of articulating (and being
bound by) a legal theory. His grievance more naturally
sounds like a contention that Meyer decided to hand out on-‐‑
the-‐‑spot punishment to an inmate who filed too many griev-‐‑
ances and objected to potential cellmates.
It would violate the Due Process Clause or the Eighth
Amendment, if not both, for a guard to clobber an inmate
with a truncheon in order to penalize a request to correct
prison records. Punishment is limited to that authorized by
the judgment of conviction and the ordinary conditions of
confinement, plus discipline that must be preceded by pro-‐‑
cedural safeguards. See Wolff v. McDonnell, 418 U.S. 539
(1974). The facts narrated by Herron suggest that Meyer,
knowing that a blow was out of the question, decided to
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achieve the same effect by moving Herron to a cell where he
was likely to suffer an injury. And given the clearly estab-‐‑
lished law that guards may not administer their personal
brand of punishment, see Hudson v McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 6–7
(1992); Gilbert v. Cook, 512 F.3d 899 (7th Cir. 2008), it follows
that guards are not entitled to qualified immunity when they
seize on what seems to them a clever way of achieving the
same result.
Meyer insists that he was implementing a policy of mov-‐‑
ing every inmate who objects to a new cellmate, in order to
prevent inmates from reserving one-‐‑person cells. Meyer says
that he expected guards near Herron’s new cell to assist him
when necessary and believed that no harm would come to
him. He told the district court that he did not say anything
similar to the language Herron imputes to him—and that
Herron, far from objecting to the new cell, consented to the
placement. If the jury believes this, then Meyer will prevail.
But on motion for summary judgment we must take Her-‐‑
ron’s view of matters, and if a jury believes Herron and con-‐‑
cludes that Meyer moved him to a new cell hoping that he
would be injured, then Herron is entitled to damages.
Herron maintains that Meyer violated the Free Speech
Clause (or perhaps the Petition Clause) of the First Amend-‐‑
ment, in addition to the Due Process and Cruel and Unusual
Punishments Clauses. Piling up the legal theories would not
add to the remedies, and the instructions in a case such as
this should not tell the jurors about different legal theories.
Jurors should be told what facts they need to find in order to
support a decision for one side rather than another—and we
have already explained that, if the jury finds the facts in Her-‐‑
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ron’s favor, then he wins. This makes it unnecessary to say
much more about the First Amendment theory.
The district court dismissed the First Amendment theory
on the pleadings after observing that, although inmates have
a right to speak, they do not have a right to one-‐‑person cells.
Justice Holmes would have approved. He once remarked:
“The petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk poli-‐‑
tics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.”
McAuliffe v. New Bedford, 155 Mass. 216, 220 (1892). Modern
doctrine asks, however, whether a price has been attached to
protected speech. Arizona Free Enterprise Club’s Freedom Club
PAC v. Bennett, 564 U.S. 721, 741–43 (2011); Board of County
Commissioners v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668, 673–75 (1996).
Herron and the district court refer to this as a “retalia-‐‑
tion” theory, but we avoid that word. All penalties for
speech could be called retaliatory, so the word does not add
anything and has some potential to confuse matters, as it did
in Fairley v. Andrews, 578 F.3d 518, 525 (7th Cir. 2009).
If Meyer set out to punish Herron for his grievances, then
a price has been attached to speech. The district court
thought otherwise in part because Herron had not attached
his grievances to the complaint, but that was not necessary; a
complaint narrates a claim and need not supply the proof.
That comes later. Pratt v. Tarr, 464 F.3d 730, 732–33 (7th Cir.
2006). And if, as we doubt, an amendment to the complaint
was required, the district court should have allowed it rather
than dismissing the claim. See, e.g., Runnion v. Girl Scouts of
Greater Chicago, 786 F.3d 510, 519–23 (7th Cir. 2015).
Whether a penalty has been attached to protected speech
is potentially more difficult. Many decisions assume that es-‐‑
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sentially everything a prisoner says in the grievance sys-‐‑
tem—if not everything a prisoner says to a guard—is pro-‐‑
tected by the First Amendment. See, e.g., DeWalt v. Carter,
224 F.3d 607, 618 (7th Cir. 2000); Pearson v. Welborn, 471 F.3d
732, 741 (7th Cir. 2006). These decisions do not discuss a par-‐‑
allel line of cases about grievances that public workers make
about the conditions of their employment. That line of cases
attempts to distinguish statements on topics of public im-‐‑
portance (protected) from personal gripes (unprotected) and
statements that disrupt the workplace (also unprotected).
Compare Connick v. Myers, 461 U.S. 138 (1983), with Rankin
v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378 (1987); see Pickering v. Board of Ed-‐‑
ucation, 391 U.S. 563 (1968). The decisions in the prison-‐‑
grievance line do not explain why the First Amendment of-‐‑
fers greater protection to prisoners than to public employees.
We do not get into that here, because the subject has not
been addressed in the briefs. It is enough to flag the subject
as worth attention, either in some future litigation or in this
case if, contrary to our expectations, the First Amendment
theory turns out to matter.
The judgment of the district court is vacated, and the case
is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
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