Tenth Reinstates Gay Prisoner's Civil Rights Claims Against Prison Officials
Howard v. Wade, et al, 2008 WL 2814821 - The 10th reverses summary judgment in favor of most prison official defendants in this Eighth Amendment failure to protect civil rights case.
The plaintiff, who is openly gay and of slight build, was repeatedly sexually abused and generally terrorized by members of a prison gang. He was transferred from one facility to another to get away from the gang, but the gang existed at the second facility, too, and members there found out about the plaintiff from members at the first facility and picked up where they left off.
Applying Farmer v. Brennan,511 U.S. 825 (1994), the 10th found that, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the evidence showed that the conditions of plaintiff's incarceration presented an objective substantial risk of serious harm, and that the officials had subjective knowledge of the risk of harm. The district court applied the wrong standard in evaluating the subjective knowledge prong, which requires that "an official 'must both be aware of the facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.' Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837. This knowledge may be proved 'in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence, and a fact-finder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious.' Id. at 842 (citation omitted)." The 10th did affirm the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of the Complaint against one defendant, who was only a grievance review official at the central facility who never met the plaintiff, and whose knowledge of the circumstances was limited to what the plaintiff wrote in his official grievance forms.
The plaintiff, who is openly gay and of slight build, was repeatedly sexually abused and generally terrorized by members of a prison gang. He was transferred from one facility to another to get away from the gang, but the gang existed at the second facility, too, and members there found out about the plaintiff from members at the first facility and picked up where they left off.
Applying Farmer v. Brennan,511 U.S. 825 (1994), the 10th found that, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the evidence showed that the conditions of plaintiff's incarceration presented an objective substantial risk of serious harm, and that the officials had subjective knowledge of the risk of harm. The district court applied the wrong standard in evaluating the subjective knowledge prong, which requires that "an official 'must both be aware of the facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference.' Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837. This knowledge may be proved 'in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence, and a fact-finder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious.' Id. at 842 (citation omitted)." The 10th did affirm the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of the Complaint against one defendant, who was only a grievance review official at the central facility who never met the plaintiff, and whose knowledge of the circumstances was limited to what the plaintiff wrote in his official grievance forms.
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