Hamilton v. Leavy

Opinions of the United

2003 Decisions States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

2-28-2003

Hamilton v. Leavy

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential

Docket 01-3062

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PRECEDENTIAL

Filed February 28, 2003

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 01-3062

JEROME HAMILTON,

v.

FAITH LEAVY; PAMELA FAULKNER; WILLIAM QUEENER;

FRANCES LEWIS; GEORGE DIXON; JACK STEPHENSON;

DEBORAH CRAIG; JOANNE SMITH; DENNIS LOEBE;

ELDORA TILLERY; FRANCIS COCKROFT; JERRY BORGA;

RICHARD SHOCKLEY,

Appellants

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Delaware

(D.C. Civil Action No. 94-cv-00336)

District Judge: Honorable Gregory M. Sleet

Argued April 18, 2002

Before: NYGAARD, AMBRO, Circuit Judges

and O’NEILL,* District Judge

(Opinion filed: February 28, 2003)

________________________________________________________________

* The honorable Thomas N. O’Neill, United States District Court Judge

for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, sitting by designation.

Marc P. Niedzielski, Esquire (Argued)

Stuart B. Drowos, Esquire

Department of Justice

820 North French Street

Wilmington, DE 19801

Attorneys for Appellants

John W. Shaw, Esquire (Argued)

Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor

P.O. Box 391, 1000 West Street

Brandywine Building, 17th Floor

Wilmington, DE 19801-0391

Attorney for Appellee

OPINION OF THE COURT

AMBRO, Circuit Judge:

This 42 U.S.C. S 1983 case is before us on interlocutory

appeal. The defendants, members of the Gander Hill Prison

Multi-Disciplinary Team ("MDT") and the Delaware

Department of Corrections Central Institutional

Classification Committee ("CICC"), challenge the District

Court’s denial of their summary judgment motion for

absolute or qualified immunity from Delaware prisoner

Jerome Hamilton’s lawsuit alleging violations of the Eighth

Amendment. The defendants contend that they are entitled

to absolute immunity because they acted pursuant to a

court order or otherwise in a quasi-judicial capacity.

Alternatively, they argue that they should receive qualified

immunity because they did not violate Hamilton’s Eighth

Amendment rights or because their actions were objectively

reasonable. We agree with the District Court that on this

record the defendants are not absolutely immune on the

ground that they acted pursuant to a court order. We

remand, however, for the District Court to analyze under

the legal tests noted below whether the defendants are

entitled either to absolute immunity for acting in a quasi-

judicial capacity or to qualified immunity.

2

FACTS1

On August 5, 1992, Hamilton’s cellmate in Delaware’s

Gander Hill prison attacked and injured him.2 Hamilton

alleges that his cellmate was able to commit this assault

because the defendant prison officials acted with deliberate

indifference to his safety.

Hamilton has been the victim of numerous attacks from

other inmates throughout his lengthy stint in the Delaware

prison system, some of which we described in a prior

appeal in this case. See Hamilton v. Leavy, 117 F.3d 742,

744-45 (3d Cir. 1997) (Hamilton I). For Hamilton’s safety,

prison officials have transferred him among various prisons

both in and outside Delaware and have placed him in

protective custody.

In 1986 Hamilton cooperated with a drug trafficking

investigation at the Gander Hill prison that ended with the

arrest of prison officials and inmates. He became known as

a "snitch" and, as a result, prison officials repeatedly had to

place him in protective custody. In 1990 prison officials

transferred Hamilton to a Virginia prison "[b]ecause there

appeared to be no safe place for Hamilton in the Delaware

prisons." Id. at 745.

After the move to Virginia, however, Hamilton initiated

two civil lawsuits in Delaware state courts, and he was

returned in December 1991 to the Gander Hill prison to

enable him to prosecute those actions effectively. He

brought one of the lawsuits against state officials. Deputy

Attorney General John Polk defended that case. Judge

Clarence Taylor of the Delaware Superior Court, who

_________________________________________________________________

1. The District Court ruled on the defendants’ motion for summary

judgment and so viewed the facts in the light most favorable to

Hamilton, the non-moving party. As we explain below, we do not have

jurisdiction to review the District Court’s fact-finding in this case. We

therefore rely upon its opinion to lay out the facts upon which we rule,

as well as our prior opinion in Hamilton v. Leavy, 117 F.3d 742 (3d Cir.

1997), to which the District Court referred readers for further factual

background.

2. We follow the practice of the parties and the District Court by referring

to the prison by its colloquial name, Gander Hill; its official title is the

Multi-Purpose Criminal Justice Facility.

3

presided over the case, held a hearing on December 13,

1991, and addressed the question where Hamilton could be

housed while discovery took place.

Deputy A.G. Polk suggested to the Court that Hamilton

be kept in Delaware for a "month or so." When Judge

Taylor expressed concern that the Delaware prison system

be able to take the "special precautions" necessary for

Hamilton, Polk volunteered to check with the appropriate

officials whether this was possible, and the Court granted

a recess for him to do so. After the recess, Polk informed

the Court that an official from the Delaware Department of

Corrections Compact had "reiterated to [him] that Mr.

Hamilton is in need of protective custody," but that the

Department could "accommodate" Hamilton for two months

at either Gander Hill or the Sussex Correctional Institution.

Polk then stated that he had requested that the

Department keep Hamilton at Gander Hill.3

_________________________________________________________________

3. The exchange went as follows:

The Court: . . . [O]n your suggestion that he be kept here in

Delaware for the next month or so, I think that ought to be cleared

with the prison people because it involves special precautions . . . ,

whether they are in a position to maintain those-- that precaution

during the period you’re talking about.

Deputy A.G.: I would undertake that task of clearing it with the

Department, Your Honor.

. . .

The Court: . . . [I]f it doesn’t pose a problem to the prison

administration for him to be detained up here for a month or longer

in order for him to have access to the lawbooks and get out his

discovery and so on while he’s up here, then that would seem like

the best solution to move this case forward from where it is today.

. . .

[Recess held to allow the Deputy A.G. to check with prison officials

regarding housing Hamilton in Delaware.]

Deputy A.G.: Your Honor, I’ve called the deputy administrator for the

Delaware Department of Corrections Compact and they’ve indicated

that a one to two-month stay by Mr. Hamilton in Delaware is

something they can accommodate.

4

The Court next informed Hamilton:

Let’s leave it that way, then. So, you’ll -- you are to be

detained up here at the State Gander Hill Prison for a

length of time up to two months, and it will be

dependent [on] what reports I get back from the Deputy

Attorney General, from you and what progress is made

toward resolving this thing without further trial. .. .

Prison will have you up to two months and during that

time Mr. Polk will cooperate with you and try to work

out something . . . .

The docket entry for December 13 states: "Detained at

Gander Hill up to 2 months in protective custody."

Hamilton was still at the Gander Hill prison on March 5,

1992, almost three months later, when Judge Taylor sent a

letter to the Deputy A.G.:

At a hearing held on December 13, 1991, you were

ordered to supply petitioner Jerome Hamilton with

answers to petitioner’s requests for admissions by

December 27, 1991 . . . .

[T]he Interstate Corrections Compact Administrator

has contacted my office to see if the petitioner can be

returned to the prison from which he had been

transferred for the purpose of resolving this case.

You have failed to comply with my order of December

13, 1991. If Gander Hill Prison needs action, then you

should take immediate action to comply with the order

of December 13, 1991. Until you comply with the

Order, there is no alternative but to keep petitioner

Hamilton at the Gander Hill facility.

_________________________________________________________________

The Court: They can?

Deputy A.G.: They can accommodate. She reiterated to me that Mr.

Hamilton is in need of protective custody, and I said can you

accommodate him in Delaware. She said he can be accommodated

in Gander Hill or SCI [Sussex Correctional Institution]. My request

of the Department -- and I don’t think that there would be a

problem in adhering to this -- is that he be housed up here in

Gander Hill.

5

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Later that month, Hamilton, still in the Gander Hill

prison, filed a grievance against a correctional officer there

for calling him in front of other prisoners "a good telling

mother f_____g snitcher." Witnesses confirmed this incident.

The Resident Grievance Resolution Committee, composed of

five prison officials, recommended to the Deputy Warden

that "a thorough investigation" take place because

comments that a prisoner is a "snitch" have the potential to

cause "a major disturbance and require[ ] immediate

action." The Deputy Warden concluded on June 15, 1992,

that the correctional officer did make the statement.

Three days later, the MDT -- made up of defendants

Faith Leavy, Pamela Faulkner (now Minor), and William

Queener -- reviewed Hamilton’s file, summarized his

situation in a written report, and unanimously

recommended that he be placed in protective custody. After

reviewing the MDT report and recommendation, the CICC,

which had the authority to place Hamilton in protective

custody, decided on June 24, 1992, to take "no action" on

the report, which meant that Hamilton remained without

additional safety precautions in the Gander Hill general

prison population. The members of the CICC are also

defendants in this lawsuit.

A month after the "no action" decision, inmate Steven

Clayton joined the prison population at Gander Hill and

sometime before August 5, 1992, became Hamilton’s

cellmate. That day, Clayton attacked Hamilton, fracturing

his jaw and sending him to the hospital, where he had two

metal plates inserted. Clayton pled guilty to the assault and

stated that he attacked Hamilton because he was"a

snitcher on inmates and officers" at Gander Hill.

Coincidentally, on the same day as the assault (August

5), Judge Haile Alford, who had taken over Hamilton’s civil

case in the Delaware Superior Court when Judge Taylor

retired, wrote a letter to Hamilton, informing him:

Judge Taylor ordered you held at Gander Hill until the

Deputy Attorney General had attempted to resolve this

matter with you without further trial. A review of the

file in this case reveals that Deputy Attorney General

6

John Polk, after writing to the Court anticipating a

settlement of this claim[,] has requested a trial date

and that a Scheduling Order in this matter has been

entered, setting a trial date of March 31, 1993.

The letter from the Court dated March 5, 1992, does

not order that you are to be held at Gander Hill until

the completion of your case. Because this case is now

set down for trial, the conditions that caused you to be

incarcerated at Gander Hill have changed, and there is

no longer a reason in [this case] for you to remain at

that specific facility.

PROCEEDINGS

Hamilton filed this S 1983 lawsuit on June 20, 1994, in

the District Court for the District of Delaware against MDT

members Leavy, Faulkner, and Queener, and against

Frances Lewis, chair of the CICC, alleging deliberate

indifference to Hamilton’s safety in violation of his Eighth

Amendment right to be free of cruel and unusual

punishment. The Court entered summary judgment in favor

of the MDT defendants because they "were without

authority to effectuate their own recommendation that

Hamilton be placed in protective custody, [and therefore]

they could not be found to have deliberately disregarded

serious risks to his safety." Hamilton I, 117 F.3d at 748.

The Court also granted summary judgment to defendant

Lewis on the ground that no reasonable factfinder could

find that she knew that keeping Hamilton in the Gander

Hill general prison population without additional safety

precautions put Hamilton in substantial risk of suffering

serious harm.

Hamilton appealed, and in June 1997 our Court

reversed. See id. at 744. As to the MDT defendants, we

noted Hamilton’s argument that the MDT could have

provided him with additional protection by, for instance,

putting him in administrative segregation, even if the MDT

did not have the authority to place him in protective

custody. See id. at 748. We concluded that the "failure of

the MDT defendants to take additional steps beyond the

recommendation of protective custody could be viewed by a

7

factfinder as the sort of deliberate indifference to inmate

safety that the Constitution forbids." Id. at 749. As to

defendant Lewis, we explained that she "was made aware of

a substantial risk to Hamilton’s safety when she reviewed

the MDT’s unanimous recommendation to place Hamilton

in protective custody" and, accordingly, that"a factfinder

could infer that Lewis knew that the threat to Hamilton’s

safety was imminent." Id. at 747.

Back in the District Court, Hamilton amended his

complaint to add additional defendants: George Dixon, Jack

Stephenson, Deborah Craig, Joanne Smith, Dennis Loebe,

Eldora Tillery, Francis Cockroft, Jerry Borga, and Richard

Shockley, all members of CICC when the assault occurred.

On July 27, 2001, the District Court denied the defendants’

second motion for summary judgment. They timely

appealed.

JURISDICTION

We generally have jurisdiction to review only "final

decisions" of district courts. 28 U.S.C. S 1291. A denial of

summary judgment, from which the defendants appeal

here, usually does not qualify as a final decision for

purposes of S 1291 because, far from finally deciding the

case, it is a decision to permit the litigation to continue. See

Giuffre v. Bissell, 31 F.3d 1241, 1245 (3d Cir. 1994). Under

the collateral order doctrine, however, we have jurisdiction

to review the District Court’s decision if it (1) conclusively

determines a disputed question, (2) resolves an important

issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and

(3) is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final

judgment. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 524-25

(1985) (citing Cohen v. Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337

U.S. 541, 546 (1949)).

Pre-trial denials of absolute or qualified immunity are

frequently appropriate for appellate review under the

collateral order doctrine. An appeal from such a denial may

conclusively determine the disputed question of the

defendants’ entitlement to immunity, a question that is

conceptually separate from the merits of the case. See id. at

527-28. And because immunity is intended to protect the

8

defendant "from suit," id. at 526 (emphasis in original) --

not simply from an adverse judgment at the conclusion of

litigation -- a grant of immunity after a final judgment

"would come too late." Johnson v. Jones , 515 U.S. 304, 312

(1995).

We have jurisdiction to review a pre-trial denial of

immunity under the collateral order doctrine only to the

extent that it raises questions of law. See Giuffre, 31 F.3d

at 1245 ("[A]n order denying qualified or absolute

immunity, to the extent that the order turns on an issue of

law, is immediately appealable under the collateral order

doctrine.") (citation omitted). We may not review the District

Court’s "identification of the facts that are subject to

genuine dispute," but instead we review the legal issues in

light of the facts that the District Court determined had

sufficient evidentiary support for summary judgment

purposes. See Ziccardi v. City of Philadelphia , 288 F.3d 57,

59, 61 (3d Cir. 2002).4 And, of course, we give de novo

review to those legal issues. Giuffre, 31 F.3d at 1251.

DISCUSSION

A. Absolute immunity for actions taken pursuant to a

court order

The defendants assert that they should receive absolute

immunity from Hamilton’s claim that they violated the

Eighth Amendment because the conduct (or lack thereof)

for which they are sued was taken pursuant to a court

order. As the defendants see it, the Superior Court’s orders

-- Judge Taylor’s December 13 oral decision and docket

order and his March 5 letter to the Deputy A.G.--

prohibited the defendants from moving Hamilton from the

Gander Hill prison. The defendants argue that the Delaware

prison system did not at that time provide for protective

_________________________________________________________________

4. The facts sufficiently proven for summary judgment purposes include

those facts not subject to genuine dispute as well as those facts that are

subject to such dispute, viewed in the light most favorable to Hamilton,

the non-moving party. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242,

255 (1986) ("The evidence of the non-movant is to be believed, and all

justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor.").

9

custody at Gander Hill, so they could not have placed

Hamilton in protective custody without violating the

Superior Court’s order to keep him at Gander Hill.

The defendants are correct that action taken pursuant to

a facially valid court order receives absolute immunity from

S 1983 lawsuits for damages. See Wolfe v. City of Pittsburgh,

140 F.3d 236, 240 (3d Cir. 1998); Richman v. Sheahan, 270

F.3d 430, 437 (7th Cir. 2001).5 The District Court so

recognized but nonetheless denied the defendants’ motion

for absolute immunity because they had not established

that they acted pursuant to a court order. The Court

concluded instead that the Superior Court’s orders did not

prohibit the defendants from moving Hamilton from the

Gander Hill prison to another facility in order to place him

in protective custody and that, even if the orders had

prohibited such action, they did not also prevent the

defendants from otherwise providing Hamilton with effective

protection at Gander Hill.

Hamilton contends, however, that the question whether

the defendants acted pursuant to an order of the Superior

Court is one of fact and therefore an issue we cannot

address. In the end, whether a defendant is entitled to

absolute immunity is a question of law, see Carver v.

Foerster, 102 F.3d 96, 99 (3d Cir. 1996) ("Absolute

immunity is an issue of law . . . ."); In re Montgomery

County, 215 F.3d 367, 372 (3d Cir. 2000) ("Absolute

immunity is a purely legal question . . . ."), but we agree

with Hamilton that this ultimately legal issue can also

involve factual questions.

Indeed, in Lockhart v. Hoenstine, 411 F.2d 455 (3d Cir.

1969), we treated the question whether a defendant acted

pursuant to a court order -- the question presented here --

as one of fact. Id. at 460. The disputed question there

concerned whether a court had issued an order to the

defendant -- the court’s prothonotary -- not to accept the

_________________________________________________________________

5. This type of immunity is sometimes referred to as "quasi-judicial"

immunity. We reserve this moniker, however, for another form of

immunity asserted by the defendants (for acting in a role that is

functionally comparable to that of a judge, rather than under the

authority of a court order), discussed in Section B below.

10

plaintiff ’s papers for filing. Id. at 457-58. Here, in contrast,

the key issue is not factually whether the Superior Court

entered an order at all, but is instead what the Superior

Court’s orders mean. This is a question of law, see Apex

Fountain Sales, Inc. v. Kleinfeld, 818 F.2d 1089, 1097 (3d

Cir. 1987) (The "construction of . . . [a] court order" is "a

purely legal issue."), which we can review. We turn now to

that question.

The defendants repeat to this Court their contention,

rejected by the District Court, that the Superior Court’s

orders forbade them from moving Hamilton from the

Gander Hill prison to another facility where he could be

placed in protective custody. We agree with the District

Court’s conclusion.

The Superior Court’s order of December 13, 1991, did not

by itself prohibit moving Hamilton. To recap, on December

13 Judge Taylor agreed to the Deputy A.G.’s request that

Hamilton be detained in a Delaware prison only after

receiving assurances that the Delaware Department of

Corrections could take the "special precautions" necessary

for Hamilton’s safety. It was at the Deputy A.G.’s request

that the Superior Court ordered that Hamilton be kept at

Gander Hill rather than at the Sussex Correctional

Institution. And the December 13 docket entry states that

Hamilton is to be housed at Gander Hill "up to 2 months in

protective custody."

The December 13, 1991 colloquy with Judge Taylor

(which in his March 5, 1992 letter he referred to as an

order) did not require Hamilton’s detention for more than a

period of two months at Gander Hill, instead of at Sussex

or another prison. But especially it cannot be interpreted to

have required his detention at Gander Hill if the prison

officials there became unable (or unwilling) to keep

Hamilton in "protective custody" or to provide some other

form of "special precautions" for his safety. Accordingly, the

order did not prohibit the MDT or the CICC in the summer

of 1992 (the key time period) from placing Hamilton in a

facility that could provide him with protective custody.

We reach the same conclusion as to the March 5 letter.

Again, that letter, addressed to Deputy A.G. Polk,

11

concluded: "Until you comply with the Order, there is no

alternative but to keep petitioner Hamilton at the Gander

Hill facility." This statement did not require that the

defendants keep Hamilton at Gander Hill indefinitely, as

they seem to argue. Instead, it explicitly states that it will

operate only until the time that the Deputy A.G. complied

with "the Order." Read in context, the "Order" with which

the Deputy A.G. must comply refers to the Superior Court’s

December 13 order that the Deputy A.G. participate in

discovery, communicate with Hamilton, and inform the

Court of the results of this process.

Judge Alford’s letter of August 5 is in accord with our

understanding of the March 5 letter. She explained that

"Judge Taylor ordered [Hamilton] held at Gander Hill until

the Deputy Attorney General had attempted to resolve this

matter with [Hamilton] without further trial." And further:

"The letter from the Court dated March 5, 1992, does not

order that [Hamilton was] to be held at Gander Hill until

the completion of [the civil] case." Finally, Judge Alford’s

letter also tells us that by August 5 the Deputy A.G. had

reported to the Superior Court on the progress of the civil

suit litigation and that trial had been set, putting an end to

the March 5 requirement that Hamilton stay at Gander Hill.

Accordingly, neither of the Superior Court orders explains

adequately the defendants’ failure to remove Hamilton from

Gander Hill. They are therefore not entitled to absolute

immunity on this ground.

The District Court also held that the Superior Court’s

orders "would not have prevented the defendants from

providing Hamilton with effective protection at Gander Hill"

and thus, on this ground as well, the orders did not provide

absolute immunity to the defendants. We again agree with

the District Court.

The Tenth Circuit has addressed an analogous issue. In

Turney v. O’Toole, 898 F.2d 1470 (10th Cir. 1990), also a

S 1983 case, a state court ordered the seventeen-year-old

plaintiff confined at a state hospital for mental health

treatment. Id. at 1471. At the hospital, the plaintiff was

placed in the adult maximum security unit. Id. at 1472.

"When efforts to find a more suitable placement failed," the

12

plaintiff obtained a writ of habeas corpus ordering his

release. Id. The plaintiff then sued the superintendent and

a psychologist at the hospital, alleging violations of S 1983.

The District Court granted absolute immunity to the

defendants on the ground that they were acting pursuant

to the court order. Id.

The Tenth Circuit reversed in part, holding that the

defendants "were absolutely immune from liability arising

from the fact of [the plaintiff ’s] confinement, but that they

were only qualifiedly immune from liability arising from the

conditions in which he was held." Id. The Court explained:

[T]his absolute immunity [for the plaintiff ’s

confinement] extended only to acts prescribed by[the

court’s] order, . . . and . . . all the order decreed was

[the plaintiff ’s] confinement at [the hospital]. It did not

dictate any specific placement or treatment within the

facility. Therefore, the defendants are not absolutely

immune from liability arising from [the plaintiff ’s]

placement in the maximum security ward.

Id. at 1474 (citations omitted); see also Nixon v. Fitzgerald,

457 U.S. 731, 755 (1982) ("In defining the scope of an

official’s absolute privilege, this Court has recognized that

the sphere of protected action must be related closely to the

immunity’s justifying purposes.").

The Superior Court’s orders entered in this case did not

direct the defendants -- expressly or otherwise-- to confine

Hamilton in conditions that they knew posed a substantial

risk of serious harm. The Superior Court’s concern that a

Delaware facility take "special precautions" to ensure

Hamilton’s safety and the December 13 docket entry noting

that Hamilton was to be kept in "protective custody" made

clear that he must remain safe.

Even if the Superior Court had not stated such explicit

concern for Hamilton’s safety (indeed ordered that he be

placed in protective custody), nothing else in the Court’s

orders provides a basis to interpret them as having

prohibited any of the defendants from taking steps to

provide Hamilton with effective protection. In accord with

the Tenth Circuit’s decision in Turney, we hold that the

Superior Court’s December 13 and March 5 orders cannot

13

immunize the defendants for their allegedly

unconstitutional failure to take action to protect Hamilton.

* * *

We conclude that the defendants are not entitled to

absolute immunity from Hamilton’s Eighth Amendment

claim on the basis of the Superior Court’s orders

concerning Hamilton’s confinement in Delaware. We

therefore affirm the District Court’s decision denying the

defendants’ motion for summary judgment on this ground.

B. Quasi-judicial absolute immunity

The defendants also argue that they are entitled to

absolute immunity because they acted in quasi-judicial

capacities when, in the case of the CICC defendants, they

decided to take "no action" on the MDT’s recommendation

that Hamilton be placed in protective custody, and when, in

the case of the MDT defendants, they chose to take no

steps to secure Hamilton’s safety other than the

recommendation they made to the CICC. The District

Court, citing Cleavinger v. Saxoner, 474 U.S. 193 (1985),

held that the defendants could not receive quasi-judicial

absolute immunity because "this type of immunity generally

does not extend to prison officials."

Quasi-judicial absolute immunity attaches when a public

official’s role is "functionally comparable" to that of a judge.

Butz v. Economou, 438 U.S. 478, 513 (1978). To determine

this, a court must consider whether the official acted

independently and what procedural safeguards attended

his/her decision-making process. See Cleavinger , 474 U.S.

at 202. Cleavinger concerned whether members of a prison

disciplinary committee could receive quasi-judicial

immunity. Before holding that they could not, the Supreme

Court analyzed the independence and safeguards

accompanying the committee’s decision-making process. Id.

at 202-06. In so doing, the Court did not hold per se that

prison officials can never receive quasi-judicial immunity.

Though the District Court may be correct that prison

officials generally cannot receive quasi-judicial immunity,

Cleavinger requires that it analyze whether the particular

defendants here are entitled to that immunity. The District

14

Court did not do so. Also, we do not know what facts

pertaining to the committees’ independence and safeguards

were sufficiently proven for summary judgment purposes.

We recently announced in Forbes v. Township of Lower

Merion, 313 F.3d 144, 146 (3d Cir. 2002), a supervisory

rule requiring district courts to set out what facts they

relied on and the legal reasoning they used to determine

whether to grant a summary judgment motion for qualified

immunity. We now extend this rule to require district

courts to provide the same information when deciding

motions for summary judgment based on absolute

immunity defenses. Accordingly, we remand to the District

Court in order for it to reconsider whether the defendants

are entitled to quasi-judicial absolute immunity. 6

C. Qualified immunity

Finally, the defendants contend that they are entitled to

qualified immunity either because Hamilton has not raised

a genuine issue of material fact whether the defendants

violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel

and unusual punishment or because no clearly established

law prohibited the defendants’ conduct at the time they

acted. The District Court rejected this claim, and we

remand for further consideration of the issues.

In determining whether to grant summary judgment on

qualified immunity grounds, a court must first consider

whether "[t]aken in the light most favorable to the party

asserting the injury, do the facts alleged show the officer’s

conduct violated a constitutional right." Saucier v. Katz,

533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001). "[I]f a violation could be made

out on a favorable view of the parties’ submissions, the

next, sequential step is to ask whether the right was clearly

established." Id.

The defendants violated Hamilton’s Eighth Amendment

rights only if they acted with deliberate indifference to his

_________________________________________________________________

6. On remand, if the defendants direct the Court to any evidence

pertaining to the independence and safeguards of their decision-making

processes (they did not do so here), it may be useful to compare this

evidence with the independence and safeguards considered insufficient

in Cleavinger to warrant quasi-judicial immunity.

15

safety; in other words, to be liable, the defendants must

have known that Hamilton "face[d] a substantial risk of

serious harm" and they must have "disregard[ed] that risk

by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it." Farmer

v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 847 (1994). As noted above, in

Hamilton I, 117 F.3d at 745-49, we held that Hamilton had

raised a genuine issue of material fact whether defendants

Leavy, Faulkner, Queener, and Lewis acted with deliberate

indifference to Hamilton’s safety in violation of the Eighth

Amendment.

The District Court’s opinion did not discuss whether a

constitutional violation occurred other than to note that we

held in Hamilton I that a genuine issue of material fact

existed as to the reasonableness of the defendants’

conduct. The Court then skipped ahead to address the

second prong in the qualified immunity analysis. It seems

to us likely that, in so doing, the Court tacitly applied the

law of the case doctrine, reasoning that Hamilton I had

conclusively resolved for summary judgment purposes the

first prong of the qualified immunity analysis.

The law of the case doctrine "limits relitigation of an

issue once it has been decided" in an earlier stage of the

same litigation. In re Continental Airlines, Inc., 279 F.3d

226, 232 (3d Cir. 2002). We apply the doctrine with the

intent that it will promote finality, consistency, and judicial

economy. In re City of Philadelphia Litig., 158 F.3d 711,

717-18 (3d Cir. 1998). Reconsideration of a previously

decided issue may, however, be appropriate in certain

circumstances, including when the record contains new

evidence. Id. at 718; Bridge v. United States Parole Comm’n,

981 F.2d 97, 103 (3d Cir. 1992). This exception to the law

of the case doctrine makes sense because when the record

contains new evidence, "the question has not really been

decided earlier and is posed for the first time." Bridge, 981

F.2d at 103. But this is so only if the new evidence differs

materially from the evidence of record when the issue was

first decided and if it provides less support for that

decision. City of Philadelphia Litig., 158 F.3d at 720.

Accordingly, if the evidence at the two stages of litigation is

"substantially similar," or if the evidence at the latter stage

provides more support for the decision made earlier, the

law of the case doctrine will apply. Id.

16

Our decision in Hamilton I that the record evidence did

not permit the entry of summary judgment in favor of the

defendants in the case at that time (Leavy, Faulkner,

Queener, and Lewis) does constitute the law of the case as

to that evidence and those defendants. Between Hamilton I

and the District Court’s rejection of the qualified immunity

defense, however, the parties engaged in discovery and

supplemented the record. If the record now contains

evidence materially deviating from the evidence in the

record when we decided Hamilton I, the application of the

law of the case doctrine may be inapplicable to the

defendants in Hamilton I. Because of the factual nature of

this determination, and because we cannot be certain that

the District Court applied the law of the case doctrine, we

remand for the Court to decide in the first instance whether

that doctrine applies.

Between Hamilton I and the District Court’s decision,

Hamilton also amended the complaint to include additional

defendants. We agree with the Seventh Circuit that"[t]he

law of the case doctrine should not be read so rigidly that

it precludes a party from raising an argument that it had

no prior opportunity to raise." United States v. Dexter, 165

F.3d 1120, 1124 (7th Cir. 1999) (quoting Bagola v. Kindt,

131 F.3d 632, 637 (7th Cir. 1997)). The defendants added

since Hamilton I lacked the opportunity to argue that they

had not violated Hamilton’s Eighth Amendment rights. On

remand, they will have the opportunity to do so. We

recognize, however, that the Hamilton I decision, though

"not controlling, . . . is highly persuasive authority for the

issues it addressed." Id.

Turning to the second prong of the qualified immunity

defense, the District Court held that "Hamilton’s right to be

protected from known risks was clearly established in

August 5, 1992." As we have previously explained, however,

"to defeat qualified immunity it is not sufficient that the

right at issue be clearly established as a general matter.

Rather, the question is whether a reasonable public official

would know that his or her specific conduct violated clearly

established rights." Grant v. City of Pittsburgh, 98 F.3d 116,

121 (3d Cir. 1996) (citing Anderson v. Creighton , 483 U.S.

635, 636-37 (1987)) (emphasis in original); Saucier, 533

17

U.S. at 202. Because we do not know what "specific

conduct" the District Court on remand will consider

sufficiently established for summary judgment purposes,

we remand without addressing the question whether

Hamilton can withstand the defendants’ summary

judgment motion to the extent it argues that they did not

violate any clearly established law.

CONCLUSION

The District Court correctly concluded that the

defendants have not established that they are entitled to

absolute immunity on the ground that the Superior Court’s

orders prohibited them from providing Hamilton with

effective safety measures. We remand, however, for the

Court to reconsider whether they are entitled to quasi-

judicial absolute immunity. Finally, the District Court on

remand should address also the applicability of the law of

the case doctrine and whether the defendants should

receive qualified immunity.

A True Copy:

Teste:

Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

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