# Donald Leach v. T Drew > Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit · June 28, 2010 · 385 F. App'x 699 URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/149645 ## Case - **Full name:** Donald Robin LEACH, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. T. DREW, Correctional Officer; Et Al., Defendants-Appellants, and Lowe, Correctional Officer, Defendant - **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit - **Decided:** June 28, 2010 - **Citations:** 385 F. App'x 699 - **Precedential status:** Unpublished - **Opinion:** Opinion - **Judges:** Tashima, Bea, Reade - **Cited by:** 1 later opinions in the Frix Law Library ## Citator (automated) - No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases. - Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/149645 ## Opinion text FILED NOT FOR PUBLICATION JUN 28 2010 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS U .S. C O U R T OF APPE ALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT DONALD ROBIN LEACH, No. 08-15692 Plaintiff - Appellee, DC No. CV 00-6139 LJO v. MEMORANDUM * T. DREW, Correctional Officer; et al., Defendants - Appellants, and LOWE, Correctional Officer, Defendant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California Lawrence J. O’Neill, District Judge, Presiding Submitted June 18, 2010 ** San Francisco, California * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Cir. R. 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2)(C). Before: TASHIMA and BEA, Circuit Judges, and READE, District Judge.*** Appellants Carey, Drew, Schroeder, and Haws (collectively, “Appellants”) appeal for the second time the district court’s denial of their motion for summary judgment on the issue of qualified immunity. Appellee, California inmate Donald R. Leach (“Leach”), alleges that Appellants violated 42 U.S.C. § 1983 when they failed to protect him after they were forewarned that he was the target of an imminent assault. Our review of the district court’s order is limited to a single question: whether Leach’s Eight Amendment rights were clearly established at the time he was assaulted. We review this question of law de novo, Brooks v. City of Seattle, 599 F.3d 1018, 1021 (9th Cir. 2010), and we affirm. The assault on Leach, as well as its prior warning, occurred in August 1999. As early as June 1994, it was clearly established that “prison officials have a duty . . . to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners,” and that a prison official violates an inmate’s Eighth Amendment rights when the prison official exhibits deliberate indifference to the inmate’s safety. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 833-34 (1994). By 1996, our decisions had made clear that prison *** The Honorable Linda R. Reade, Chief United States District Judge, Northern District of Iowa, sitting by designation. -2- officials have a duty to “take reasonable measures to protect inmates from violence at the hands of other prisoners.” Robinson v. Prunty, 249 F.3d 862, 866 (9th Cir. 2001). These and other cases had established that the failure of a prison official to respond to a known, credible threat to an inmate’s safety constituted a violation of the inmate’s Eighth Amendment rights. See Berg v. Kincheloe, 794 F.2d 457, 460- 61 (9th Cir. 1986). Appellants were explicitly warned that an assault on Leach was imminent, and there are facts in the record upon which a reasonable jury may find that the warning was credible. The guards did not protect Leach; they neither placed him in administrative segregation nor warned him of the threat to his life. See 15 Cal. Code Reg. § 3335(a) (mandating immediate administrative segregation when an inmate’s safety is threatened); Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 744 (2002) (relying in part on Alabama Department of Corrections regulation to conclude that use of “hitching post” violated an inmate’s clearly established Eighth Amendment rights). Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Leach, Appellants received credible information about a serious and immediate threat to Leach’s safety but took no meaningful steps to address it. A reasonable officer would have understood that delaying a response to the threat would constitute deliberate -3- indifference.1 Accordingly, the district court’s order denying Appellants’ motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity is AFFIRMED. 1 Appellants contend that they were unsure whether the informant was reliable. The reliability of the informant, however, is a controverted issue of fact that we cannot review on this interlocutory appeal. See Jeffers v. Gomez, 267 F.3d 895, 903 (9th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). -4- --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/149645. Public record. Not legal advice.