The opinion
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UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 22-6903
RICKY BUTLER,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
SUPERINTENDENT EDWARD HULL, a/k/a Superintendent Ted Hull; NURSE
HRYN; ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT PHYLLIS BACK, a/k/a Deputy
Superintendent Back, a/k/a Major Back; CORRECTIONAL OFFICER LAW, JR.;
CORRECTIONAL OFFICER LAW, SR.; CORRECTIONAL OFFICER BUNTIN;
CORRECTIONAL OFFICER WILLIAMS; NURSE VAUGHAN; SERGEANT
TYLER TAYLOR, a/k/a Sergeant Taylor; CHIEF OF SECURITY DARYL
TURNER, a/k/a Captain Daryl Turner, a/k/a Captain Turner; DR. JAMES
DUDLEY, Medical Director at Northern Neck Regional Jail and Physician at
Riverside Tappahannock Hospital; LIEUTENANT J. NEWSOME, a/k/a Lieutenant
Newsome; LIEUTENANT ELEAZAR LUNA, a/k/a Lieutenant Luna; AMY
DAMERON, a/k/a Medical Director Amy Dameron, Inmate Services Director;
JAMES BARNES, a/k/a EMT Barnes, Emergency Medical Technician/Assistant
Medical Director; EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN JETER, a/k/a EMT
Jeter; EMERGENCY MEDICAL TECHNICIAN SHELTON, a/k/a EMT Shelton;
KEITH JOHNSON, a/k/a Counselor Johnson, Mental Health Counselor;
CORRECTIONAL OFFICER HARRIS; OFFICER IAN HOUCHIN, a/k/a
Correctional Officer Houchin; OFFICER ANTHONY T. GRAY, a/k/a Correctional
Officer Gray; SERGEANT ENGLISH; OFFICER ALEX WILLIAMS; OFFICER
DORIAN GARNER; OFFICER CHASITY JONES, a/k/a Chasity Taylor; OFFICER
DIVINE VENEY; OFFICER ASHLEY VENEY; OFFICER BERNARD NELSON;
LIEUTENANT BURRELL; OFFICER JOHNTIEUS BALL; OFFICER R. RAY;
OFFICER R. WALKER; OFFICER C. THOMAS; OFFICER SMITH; OFFICER
GIBSON; OFFICER JOHNATHAN DAVIS; OFFICER MALCOLM PARKER;
OFFICER WESTON SHROPSHIRE; OFFICER BRYAN TINDER; OFFICER
SIGIFREDO A. LUNA; OFFICER E. FREDERICK; OFFICER E. HALL;
OFFICER DANIEL BROWN; OFFICER ESAW LEE; OFFICER J. VIARS;
OFFICER RICHARD ROSE; OFFICER ANTHONY DARBY; OFFICER
CONNOR JERNIGAN; OFFICER MELINDA BEST; OFFICER J. DEGAETANI;
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SERGEANT W. CHATHAM; SERGEANT M. MOORE; SERGEANT R.
KNIGHT; SERGEANT SAMUEL BRINKLEY; LIEUTENANT CURTIS
BURTON; DR. JEFFREY M. HASKINS, Urologist at Riverside Tappahannock
Hospital; RIVERSIDE TAPPAHANNOCK HOSPITAL; RIVERSIDE HEALTH
SYSTEM, as parent company at Riverside Tappahannock Hospital; DR. EMMETH
A. DANIEL, Riverside Tappahannock Hospital Doctor,
Defendants - Appellees,
and
NORTHERN NECK REGIONAL JAIL; NORTHERN NECK REGIONAL JAIL
BOARD,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at
Alexandria. Michael Stefan Nachmanoff, District Judge. (1:18-cv-01525-MSN-JFA)
Submitted: August 18, 2025 Decided: October 7, 2025
Before THACKER, QUATTLEBAUM, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.
Vacated and remanded by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ON BRIEF: Richard B. Katskee, Margaret Ash, Sarah Grace Hudson, Timothy J.
Southam, DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW, Durham, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Jeff W. Rosen, Lisa Ehrich, PENDER & COWARD, PC, Virginia Beach,
Virginia, for Appellees.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
Ricky Butler, a former pretrial detainee at Northern Neck Regional Jail, appeals the
district court’s orders granting summary judgment to several defendants in this 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 action. 1 Butler alleges that the defendants failed to protect him and were
deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs in violation of his Fourteenth
Amendment rights. 2
The constitutional rights of pretrial detainees like Butler are protected by the
Fourteenth Amendment, not the Eighth Amendment. See Mays v. Sprinkle, 992 F.3d 295,
1
In his verified complaint, Butler named twenty-five defendants. The district court
dismissed nine defendants and granted summary judgment to thirteen defendants, leaving
three defendants. Butler has not served the three defendants. We have jurisdiction over
appeals from final orders of district courts. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. “Ordinarily, a district court
order is not ‘final’ until it has resolved all claims as to all parties.” Fox v. Balt. City Police
Dep’t, 201 F.3d 526, 530 (4th Cir. 2000) (citation omitted). But we do not view finality
rigidly. Est. of Cunningham v. Mayor of Balt., 128 F.4th 238, 242 (4th Cir. 2025). For
instance, an unpublished opinion of this Court has indicated that a “judgment which
disposes of all claims as to all parties served in an action, but does not dispose of claims
against a remaining unserved defendant, is a final appealable order, at least when the claims
against the remaining defendant are ultimately disposed of.” Fugate v. Borg Textile Corp.,
881 F.2d 1069, 1989 WL 87651, at *2 (4th Cir. 1989) (unpublished table decision) (per
curiam). Other circuits have concluded that the presence of unserved defendants does not
preclude a district court from entering a final order, even where a district court does not
ultimately dispose of the unserved defendants. See, e.g., Sider v. Valley Line, 857 F.2d
1043, 1045–46 (5th Cir. 1988) (per curiam) (collecting cases). As decisions like Fugate
and Sider suggest, notwithstanding the presence of the unserved defendants, we may
exercise jurisdiction over this appeal.
2
The district court construed Butler’s complaint as asserting six types of claims:
violations of the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause, deliberate indifference
to his serious medical needs in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, failure to protect
in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, use of excessive force in violation of the
Fourteenth Amendment, conditions of confinement under the Fourteenth Amendment and
negligence under Virginia law. Butler has appealed only the district court’s decisions as to
his deliberate indifference and failure-to-protect claims.
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300 (4th Cir. 2021). But when the district court entered its orders, our precedent required
it to evaluate Butler’s failure-to-protect and deliberate indifference claims using the
standard governing deliberate indifference claims raised by prisoners pursuant to the
Eighth Amendment as instructive guidance in the Fourteenth Amendment context. See,
e.g., Younger v. Crowder, 79 F.4th 373, 381–82, 381 n.11 (4th Cir. 2023). The Eighth
Amendment standard includes objective and subjective components. Id. at 382
(recognizing that a plaintiff must first show that he was exposed to an objectively
substantial risk of serious harm and then must show that a defendant subjectively
recognized and ignored the risk). In resolving Butler’s failure-to-protect and deliberate
indifference claims, the district court applied this Eighth Amendment standard. The district
court concluded that Butler’s injuries and risk of harm satisfied the objective seriousness
prongs of the standard, but Butler had not shown that the defendants acted with subjective
deliberate indifference.
After the district court entered its orders, our decision in Short v. Hartman, 87 F.4th
593 (4th Cir. 2023), held that the Supreme Court’s decision in Kingsley v. Hendrickson,
576 U.S. 389 (2015), had abrogated our precedent that required the application of the
subjective element of the Eighth Amendment standard to a pretrial detainee’s deliberate
indifference claims under the Fourteenth Amendment. Short, 87 F.4th at 610–11. Now, a
pretrial detainee may “state [a] Fourteenth Amendment claim[] for deliberate indifference
to a serious risk of harm on the purely objective basis that the ‘governmental action’ they
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challenge is not ‘rationally related to a legitimate nonpunitive governmental purpose’ or is
‘excessive in relation to that purpose.’” Id. at 611 (quoting Kingsley, 576 U.S. at 398). 3
Because the district court did not have the benefit of our decision in Short when it
granted summary judgment to the defendants, we vacate the district court’s orders and
remand for the district court to consider the defendants’ motions in light of Short in the
first instance. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are
adequately presented in the materials before us and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
VACATED AND REMANDED
3
Post-Short, a pretrial detainee may still succeed under the Eighth Amendment
standard, but that showing “is no longer necessary.” 87 F.4th at 611.
5