Lee Lucas v. Jerry Goodwin

Case: 18-30407 Document: 00515111776 Page: 1 Date Filed: 09/10/2019

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

No. 18-30407 FILED

September 10, 2019

Lyle W. Cayce

LEE LUCAS, Clerk

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

JERRY GOODWIN, individually and in his official capacity; PAULA

MILWEE, individually and in her official capacity; ROBERT RACHAL,

individually and in his official capacity; RAHMAN SINGH, individually and in

his official capacity,

Defendants-Appellants

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Western District of Louisiana

USDC No. 5:16-CV-425

Before KING 1, HIGGINSON and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges:

PER CURIAM: *

Lee Lucas, Louisiana prisoner # 338382, filed suit under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983 complaining that officials at the David Wade Correctional Center and

Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections were deliberately

indifferent to his serious medical needs, in violation of the Eighth Amendment,

1 Judge King concurs in the judgment only.

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

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No. 18-30407

because they denied him a root canal treatment allegedly “prescribed” by a

prison dentist. The district court rejected appellants’ assertions of qualified

immunity and denied their motion for summary judgment on the individual

capacity claims that Lucas asserted against them. They now appeal.

A district court’s denial of a motion for summary judgment is ordinarily

not immediately appealable, but the denial of a motion for summary judgment

based upon qualified immunity is a collateral order that is capable of

immediate review. See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985); Kinney

v. Weaver, 367 F.3d 337, 346 (5th Cir. 2004) (en banc). However, in such an

appeal, this court’s jurisdiction is limited to issues of law. Kinney, 367 F.3d at

346. “That is, [this court] has jurisdiction only to decide whether the district

court erred in concluding as a matter of law that officials are not entitled to

qualified immunity on a given set of facts.” Id. at 347.

Here, appellants attack only factual disputes that lie beyond our

jurisdiction on interlocutory appeal. They contest the district court’s finding

that, read in the light most favorable to Lucas, the record establishes a factual

dispute as to whether Lucas was “prescribed” a specific dental treatment or

whether tooth extraction was instead appropriate. We lack jurisdiction on

interlocutory appeal to consider a “challenge [to] the district court’s

assessments regarding the sufficiency of the evidence.” Kinney, 367 F.3d at

347. By contrast, appellants have not properly raised any challenge to the

materiality of the factual dispute found by the district court, which we would

have jurisdiction to review. See id. (explaining that we have jurisdiction to

review “the materiality of any factual disputes, but not their genuineness”)

(quotation marks and citation omitted). That is, appellants have not argued

that they would still be entitled to qualified immunity and summary judgment

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No. 18-30407

even if the prison dentist “prescribed a treatment other than extraction,” the

“given set of facts” on which the district court’s decision was based.

Because appellants have neglected to identify a legal issue that we may

review in this interlocutory appeal, see Kinney, 367 F.3d at 346, they have

failed to invoke this court’s jurisdiction, see SCF Waxler Marine, L.L.C. v. ARIS

T M/V, 902 F.3d 461, 464 (5th Cir. 2018). Accordingly, we DISMISS the appeal

for lack of jurisdiction. See id.

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