United States District Court, M.D. Alabama, Northern Division
OPINION
R.
AUSTIN HUFFAKER, JR. UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
The
Plaintiff is a state prisoner who filed this action alleging
claims for excessive force, due process and deliberate
indifference premised upon his lack of medical care and
conditions of confinement. This case is before the Court on
the United States Magistrate Judge's recommendation that
Defendants' motions for summary judgment be granted. The
Plaintiff has filed objections to the recommendation. The
Court has conducted an independent and de novo review of the
record including the Plaintiff's objections. In his
objections, the Plaintiff argues that the recommendation
fails to address a specific claim dealing with a two-day
period from October 18, 2016 through October 20, 2016 when he
was unable to get to the bathroom because of his back pain
and, as a result, defecated and urinated on himself. In
support of this claim, the Plaintiff points to the affidavits
of fellow inmates. After due consideration, the Court
concludes that summary judgment is due to be granted in favor
of the Defendants on the specific conditions claim addressed
below and on all other claims presented by the Plaintiff for
the reasons stated in the recommendation.
The
Eleventh Circuit has made clear that “the deprivation
of basic sanitary conditions can constitute an Eighth
Amendment violation.” Brooks v. Warden, 800
F.3d at 1295, 1305 (11th Cir. 2015) (Eighth Amendment
violation occurred where plaintiff claimed “that he was
‘forced to lie in direct and extended contact with his
own feces without an ability to clean himself, while confined
to a hospital bed in maximum security
restraints.'”) The law is well-settled that
establishment of both objective and subjective elements are
necessary to demonstrate a violation of the protections
afforded by the Eighth Amendment. Caldwell v. Warden, FCI
Talladega, 748 F.3d 1090, 1099 (11th Cir. 2014).
With
respect to the requisite objective elements of a deliberate
indifference claim, an inmate must first show “an
objectively substantial risk of serious harm . . . exist[ed].
Second, once it is established that the official [was] aware
of this substantial risk, the official must [have] react[ed]
to this risk in an objectively unreasonable manner.”
Marsh v. Butler Cnty., Ala., 268 F.3d 1014 at
1028-29 (11th Cir. 2001), abrogated on other grounds, by
Bell Atl. Corp v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007). As to
the subjective elements, “the official must both be
aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a
substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also
draw the inference. . . . The Eighth Amendment does not
outlaw cruel and unusual ‘conditions'; it outlaws
cruel and unusual ‘punishments.' . . . [A]n
official's failure to alleviate a significant risk that
he should have perceived but did not, while no cause for
commendation, cannot under our cases be condemned as the
infliction of punishment.” Farmer v. Brennan,
511 U.S. 825, 837-38 (1994); Campbell v. Sikes, 169
F.3d 1353, 1364 (11th Cir. 1999) (citing Farmer, 511
U.S. at 838) (“Proof that the defendant should have
perceived the risk, but did not, is insufficient.”);
Cottrell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1491 (11th Cir.
1996) (same). The conduct at issue “must involve more
than ordinary lack of due care for the prisoner's
interests or safety. . . . It is obduracy and wantonness, not
inadvertence or error in good faith, that characterize the
conduct prohibited by the Cruel and Unusual Punishments
Clause, whether that conduct occurs in connection with
establishing conditions of confinement, supplying medical
needs, or restoring official control over a tumultuous
cellblock.” Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312,
319 (1986).
To be deliberately indifferent, Defendants must have been
“subjectively aware of the substantial risk of serious
harm in order to have had a ‘“sufficiently
culpable state of mind.”'” Farmer,
511 U.S. at 834-38, 114 S.Ct. at 1977-80; Wilson v.
Seiter, 501 U.S. 294, 299, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 2324-25, 115
L.Ed.2d 271 (1991). . . . Even assuming the existence of a
serious risk of harm and legal causation, the prison official
must be aware of specific facts from which an inference could
be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists - and
the prison official must also “draw that
inference.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837, 114 S.Ct.
at 1979.
Carter v. Galloway, 352 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir.
2003). A defendant's subjective knowledge of the risk
must be specific to that defendant because “imputed or
collective knowledge cannot serve as the basis for a claim of
deliberate indifference. . . . Each individual Defendant must
be judged separately and on the basis of what that person
[knew at the time of the incident].” Burnette v.
Taylor, 533 F.3d 1325, 1331 (11th Cir. 2008).
With
respect to this two-day period, the Plaintiff alleges that
upon being carried to his dorm by prison guards “they
both just laid me on the floor and Sgt. Mills went into the
D-dorm office got a mattress and laid it beside me and left
the Dorm. Other inmates helped me get on the mattress and
slid me over to my assigned bed. I laid on the mattress in
the floor for 2# days unable to go to the bathroom or even go
to the chow hall to eat, for these 2# days I pissed all over
myself and defecated on myself until inmate Miller started
helping me get cleaned up to take a shower and go to the chow
hall.” (Doc. 89-1, pp. 3-4). The affidavits of the
Plaintiff's fellow inmates, which this court has
independently reviewed, support these allegations. Indeed,
one inmate stated that “a lot of inmates were
complaining about Alverson smelling because for 2# days
Alverson had pissed and also pooped on himself.” (Doc.
91-1, p. 2).
However,
nowhere in the Plaintiff's own filings does he allege
that he asked any of the Defendants for assistance to go to
the bathroom during these two days. Nor do these affidavits
contain any testimony that such a request occurred.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that any of the Defendants
were aware of his inability go to the bathroom. Even were the
Court to read the inmate's statement about the
Plaintiff's smell and his fellow prisoners'
complaints as creating some evidence of notice to the
Defendants of the Plaintiff's condition, the Court is
left to guess which guards, if any, received complaints or
were aware of any smell. Thus, the Court concludes that the
Plaintiff fails to satisfy the subjective component of this
deliberate indifference claim because he fails to plead any
facts which this Court could read in his favor as
demonstrating that any defendant was “plainly
aware” of his condition. See Brooks, 800 F.3d
at 1305 (11th Cir. 2015) (Subjective component of the
deliberate indifference claim established where the plaintiff
“specifically alleged that he repeatedly begged Powell
(Defendant Deputy Warden} to let him remove his jumpsuit and
use the toilet”). Accordingly, the Court concludes that
summary judgment is due to be entered on the Plaintiff's
specific conditions claim and on all other claims presented
by the Plaintiff for the reasons stated in the Magistrate
Judge's recommendation.
An
appropriate ...