Cox v. Allen et al
Filing
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MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER signed by Judge Joseph H. McKinley, Jr on 4/18/19; denying 20 Motion for Summary Judgment cc: Counsel, Plaintiff(pro se) (DJT)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
WESTERN DISTRICT OF KENTUCKY
AT LOUISVILLE
RANCE L. COX
PLAINTIFF
v.
CIVIL ACTION NO. 3:18-CV-P147-JHM
DANNY ALLEN et al.
DEFENDANTS
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court upon a motion by Defendants for summary judgment
(DN 20). Fully briefed, this matter is ripe for adjudication. For the following reasons,
Defendants’ motion for summary judgment will be denied.
I.
Pro se Plaintiff Rance L. Cox initiated this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 prisoner civil rights action
by filing a complaint, and then an amended complaint, both signed under penalty of perjury
(DNs 1 & 9). In these pleadings, Plaintiff states that, when he was a pretrial detainee
incarcerated at the Hardin County Detention Center (HCDC), he was attacked by another inmate.
In the complaint, he specifically writes as follows:
On February 26, 2018, I [] was assaulted in my protective custody cell by [] a state
inmate over a roll of toilet tissue! . . . I was beaten in head, hit in the face, slammed
to the ground and kicked! It took medical 4 dazes to see me and only gave me
Ibeprofen for the pain in my middle + lower back that I still am suffering from!
[Defendant] Reynolds had photos taken of my torn shirt, back, right side of face
and [the other inmate’s] fingernail he lost while beaten me.
In his amended complaint, Plaintiff continues:
I am housed in a seg. unit along with medical inmates and seg. inmates! The
medical inmate has a state inmate watching him, he is the one who attacked me
after my shower! [Defendants] are at fault for not housing the medical inmate . . .
where he belonged. If he had been there the state inmate would never had have
been able to try and steal my toilet paper and then assault me when I said no to him!
Me being in P/C in seg. and getting beaten up [is the fault of] Defendants Allen and
Reynolds.
Based upon these allegations, the Court allowed Fourteenth Amendment failure-toprotect claims to proceed against HCDC Jailer Danny Allen and “Lt. Reynolds” in both their
official and individual capacities.
II.
Before the Court may grant a motion for summary judgment, it must find that there is no
genuine dispute as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). The moving party bears the initial burden of specifying the
basis for its motion and identifying that portion of the record that demonstrates the absence of a
genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). Once the
moving party satisfies this burden, the non-moving party thereafter must produce specific facts
demonstrating a genuine issue of fact for trial. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242,
247-48 (1986).
Assuming the moving party satisfies its burden of production, the nonmovant “must—by
deposition, answers to interrogatories, affidavits, and admissions on file—show specific facts
that reveal a genuine issue for trial.” Laster v. City of Kalamazoo, 746 F.3d 714, 726 (6th Cir.
2014) (citing Celotex, 477 U.S. at 324). Statements in a verified complaint that are based on
personal knowledge may function as the equivalent of affidavit statements for purposes of
summary judgment. Weberg v. Franks, 229 F.3d 514, 526 n.13 (6th Cir. 2000); Williams v.
Browman, 981 F.2d 901, 905 (6th Cir. 1992). “The pivotal question is whether the party bearing
the burden of proof has presented a jury question as to each element in the case.” Hartsel v.
Keys, 87 F.3d 795, 799 (6th Cir. 1996). The evidence of the non-moving party is to be believed,
Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255, and all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the facts placed
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before the Court must be drawn in favor of the opposing party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd.
v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986).
III.
Section 1983 creates no substantive rights, but merely provides remedies for deprivations
of rights established elsewhere. Flint ex rel. Flint v. Ky. Dep’t of Corr., 270 F.3d 340, 351
(6th Cir. 2001). Two elements are required to state a claim under § 1983. Gomez v. Toledo, 446
U.S. 635, 640 (1980). “A plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the
Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the alleged deprivation was
committed by a person acting under color of state law.” West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48 (1988).
“Absent either element, a section 1983 claim will not lie.” Christy v. Randlett, 932 F.2d 502,
504 (6th Cir. 1991).
A. Official-Capacity Claims
“Official-capacity suits . . . ‘generally represent [] another way of pleading an action
against an entity of which an officer is an agent.’” Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 166
(1985) (quoting Monell v. New York City Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 n.55 (1978)).
Thus, Plaintiff’s official-capacity claims against Defendants are actually against their employer,
which is Hardin County. See, e.g., Lambert v. Hartman, 517 F.3d 433, 440 (6th Cir. 2008)
(stating that civil rights suit against county clerk of courts in his official capacity was equivalent
of suing clerk’s employer, the county).
In order to establish municipal liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a plaintiff must show
that the alleged constitutional violation occurred because of a municipal policy or custom.
Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. at 694. A plaintiff can make this showing “by
demonstrating one of the following: (1) the existence of an illegal official policy or legislative
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enactment; (2) that an official with final decision making authority ratified illegal actions; (3) the
existence of a policy of inadequate training or supervision; or (4) the existence of a custom of
tolerance or acquiescence of federal rights violations.” Burgess v. Fischer, 735 F.3d 462, 478
(6th Cir. 2013).
In their motion for summary judgment, Defendants state that “it is absolutely clear that
there is no evidence of record that Hardin County had adopted a specific policy, procedure, or
custom of failing to protect its inmates.”1 Defendants, however, present no evidence in support
of this statement. They also fail to directly address Plaintiff’s actual claim – that he was
assaulted and injured by another inmate, even though he was in protective custody, because
HCDC has a custom or policy of failing to separately house inmates with different security
classifications.
Thus, the Court finds that Defendants have failed to meet their burden and will, therefore,
deny summary judgment as to Plaintiff’s official-capacity claims.
B. Individual-Capacity Claims
As noted above, the Court also allowed failure-to-protect claims, or claims of deliberate
indifference to Plaintiff’s safety, to proceed against Defendants Allen and Reynolds in their
individual capacities. While the Eighth Amendment provides an inmate the right to be free from
cruel and unusual punishment, it is the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment that
provides the same protections to pretrial detainees. Richmond v. Huq, 885 F.3d 928, 937
(6th Cir. 2018) (citing Richko v. Wayne Cty., 819 F. 3d 907, 915 (6th Cir. 2016)). “The Sixth
Defendants also argue that the official-capacity claims against them fail because “there is not evidence, and not
even an allegation, to support that proposition that anyone’s training program was inadequate to the tasks an officer
must perform.” The Court, however, need not address this argument because, as Defendants note, Plaintiff did not
make such an allegation. Moreover, the Court did not allow the official-capacity claims to proceed based upon a
failure-to-train theory of liability.
1
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Circuit has historically analyzed Fourteenth Amendment pretrial detainee claims and Eighth
Amendment prisoner claims ‘under the same rubric.’” Id. (quoting Villegas v. Metro Gov’t of
Nashville, 709 F.3d 563, 568 (6th Cir. 2013)). At this time, the only explicit exception in the
Sixth Circuit to the general rule that rights under the Eighth Amendment are co-extensive with
rights under the Fourteenth Amendment pertains to excessive-force claims brought by pretrial
detainees. Id. at 938 n.3 (recognizing that Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 135 S. Ct. 2466 (2015),
abrogated the subjective intent requirement for Fourteenth Amendment excessive-force claims
and that the standard which governs pretrial detainee claims may be shifting, but declining to
apply the Kingsley standard to a pretrial detainee claim of deliberate indifference to a serious
medical need). Therefore, the Court will analyze Plaintiff’s claims under the Eighth Amendment
standard.
The Eighth Amendment imposes a duty on corrections officers to take reasonable
measures “to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners.” Farmer v.
Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994) (citation omitted). To maintain an Eighth Amendment claim
based on a failure to prevent harm, an inmate must prove both an objective and subjective
component. Id. With regard to the objective component, the plaintiff “must show that he [was]
incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm.” Id. The subjective
component requires the plaintiff to prove that the defendant acted with “deliberate indifference”
to that risk. Id. Under this subjective prong, a plaintiff must show that “the official being sued
subjectively perceived facts from which to infer substantial risk to the prisoner, that he did in fact
draw the inference, and that he then disregarded that risk.” Rouster v. Cty. of Saginaw, 749 F.3d
437, 446 (6th Cir. 2014) (quoting Comstock, 273 F.3d at 703).
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Although Defendants reference this standard in their motion, they do not present any
evidence with regard to either the objective or subjective component. As to the subjective
component, they argue that they were “not aware of any facts that [the other inmate] would harm
anyone, including [Plaintiff], and they could not have drawn any such inference.” However, they
fail to provide any evidence in support of this argument. Thus, because Defendants have failed
to present any evidence, such as affidavits, related to either component of this standard, they
have not met their burden under Rule 56.
The Court next turns to Defendants argument that they are entitled to summary judgment
because the evidence shows that Plaintiff was not injured when he was allegedly attacked by the
other inmate. Defendants cite to Wilson v. Yaklich, in which the Sixth Circuit dismissed a
failure-to-protect claim because the complaint contained no allegations that the inmates who
threatened the plaintiff “actually injured him physically.” 148 F.3d. 596, 600-01 (6th Cir. 1998).
In support of this argument, Defendants point to video surveillance footage from HCDC which
ostensibly shows the hallway outside of Plaintiff’s cell before, during, and after the alleged
attack (DN 16). According to Defendants, the “Tape clearly shows that [Plaintiff] was not
assaulted as alleged. [Plaintiff] is clearly seen at the end of the tape standing in the doorway
uninjured, and perhaps even casually speaking to [the other inmate]. Regardless, the video
depicts an uninjured [Plaintiff].” Plaintiff, however, does not agree with this interpretation of the
footage. Rather, he argues that the “photos”2 show the other inmate inside the cell block where
Plaintiff was being held in protective custody and then show this inmate enter Plaintiff’s cell,
where Plaintiff claims he was assaulted. Upon review of the video, the Court agrees with
2
It seems that Defendants did not send Plaintiff the actual video, but rather still photographs from that video. If the
Court were ruling against Plaintiff, the Court would be concerned that Plaintiff was unable to view the video itself.
However, because the Court is denying Defendants’ motion, the Court need not address this issue.
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Plaintiff that this video actually seems to support his version of the alleged attack and that it does
not conclusively prove that he was not injured as a result of the alleged attack.
The other evidence that Defendants rely upon to show that Plaintiff was not injured are
three sick call slips that Plaintiff submitted following the alleged attack on February 26, 2018.
The first sick call slip states, “My Back was injured yesterday when I was thrown to the floor by
a state inmate! Lower Back!!!” (DN 20-5, Inmate Sick Call Slip, 2/27/18). The portion of the
slip that was ostensibly completed by medical staff is illegible (Id.). The second sick call slip
states, “Lower Back hurts Bad from the assault on me from state inmate!” (DN 20-6, Inmate Sick
Call Slip, 3/5/18). The portion of the slip to completed by medical staff is blank (Id.). On the
third sick call slip Plaintiff has written, “[Illegible] . . . I need to see Doctor and have x-rays
done” (DN 20-7, Inmate Sick Call Slip, 3/19/18). Plaintiff also indicates that that he has had
“this problem . . . since I was assaulted by state inmate” (Id.) The portion of the slip that
indicates it is to be completed by medical staff is also blank (Id.). The Court is unsure how
Defendants believe these medical sick call slips support their argument that Plaintiff was not
injured during the alleged assault. Rather, these slips actually appear to support Plaintiff’s
argument that he was injured and that he repeatedly sought medical treatment for his injury.
In sum, Defendants have not submitted any evidence which shows that they were not
deliberately indifferent to Plaintiff’s safety, and the evidence they submitted regarding whether
Plaintiff was injured in the alleged attack is ambiguous at best. Thus, because Defendants have
failed to meet their burden by showing that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and
that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law, the Court will deny summary judgment on
the individual-capacity claims as well.
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IV.
For the foregoing reasons, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Defendants’ motion for
summary judgment (DN 20) is DENIED.
Date:
April 18, 2019
cc:
Plaintiff, pro se
Counsel of Record
4414.011
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