explaining that an affirmative defense is “a defense that may be pled in a case which is already within the court’s authority to decide, and the ability of a party to assert such a defense has nothing to do with the court’s power to resolve the case.”
How later courts described this case
- explaining that an affirmative defense is “a defense that may be pled in a case which is already within the court’s authority to decide, and the ability of a party to assert such a defense has nothing to do with the court’s power to resolve the case.”
- allowing supervisors to be held liable for the unconstitutional acts of their subordinates if “facts support an inference that the supervisor directed the subordinates to act unlawfully or knew that the subordinates would act unlawfully and failed to stop them from doing so”
- holding that named defendants were properly dismissed when the complaint's factual allegations did not associate those defendants with the constitutional violation alleged
- holding that dismissal of claims was appropriate where the plaintiff failed to allege facts associating certain defendants with a particular con- stitutional violation
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
[PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT FILED
________________________ U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
No. 07-10518 JULY 28, 2008
________________________ THOMAS K. KAHN
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 06-00151-CV-5-MCR-EMT
LAWRENCE W. DOUGLAS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
YATES, Assistant Warden,
KELLOWAY, Chief of Security,
TERRANT, Addiction Treatment Counselor,
FORD, Classification Supervisor,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
_________________________
(July 28, 2008)
Before EDMONDSON, Chief Judge, PRYOR, Circuit Judge, and JOHNSON,*
District Judge.
*
Honorable Inge P. Johnson, United States District Judge for the Northern District
of Alabama, sitting by designation.
PRYOR, Circuit Judge:
This appeal of the dismissal with prejudice of a complaint by a prisoner,
Lawrence W. Douglas, against four prison officials presents two questions: (1)
whether the limitation of prisoners’ complaints for emotional injury under the
Prison Litigation Reform Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e), deprived the district court of
subject-matter jurisdiction to consider whether Douglas’s complaint states a claim
for relief; and (2) whether the district court erred when it concluded that Douglas’s
complaint fails to state a claim for relief. Douglas’s complaint alleges that prison
officials violated his civil rights by subjecting him to verbal abuse, more severe
confinement, false disciplinary reports, and threats of further injury after he filed a
grievance. Because section 1997e(e) provides an affirmative defense against a
prisoner’s complaint for emotional injury, the district court had jurisdiction to
consider whether Douglas’s complaint states a claim for relief. We affirm the
dismissal with prejudice of that complaint against three of the prison officials but
conclude that the complaint states a claim against one official, Assistant Warden
James A. Yates. We reverse the dismissal with prejudice of the complaint against
Yates and remand with instructions to dismiss that complaint without prejudice.
I. BACKGROUND
2
Douglas, an inmate at the Bay Correctional Facility in Florida, filed as a
pauper a complaint that alleges that prison officials violated his rights under the
Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. Douglas’s
complaint requests damages and injunctive relief under the Civil Rights Act of
1871, 42 U.S.C. § 1983. A magistrate judge concluded that the complaint failed to
state a claim for relief and notified Douglas that he had the opportunity to amend
his complaint to clarify his allegations. Douglas filed an amended complaint.
Douglas alleged in the amended complaint that he was housed in the
Addiction Treatment Unit of the prison and shared a cell with an individual who
was engaged in income tax fraud. Douglas asked an addiction treatment counselor,
whom Douglas identifies only as “Mr. Terrant,” to relocate Douglas to another cell
so that Douglas would not be implicated in the tax-fraud scheme. Terrant told
Douglas that his requested relocation was not an option and Douglas could not be
moved unless he left the treatment program.
After Douglas left the treatment program, prison officials prepared a
disciplinary report against him. Douglas received a disciplinary hearing, after
which he was found guilty of leaving the treatment program and was deprived of
more than 210 days of “gain-time,” which is “time credited to reduce a prisoner’s
prison term.” Weaver v. Graham, 450 U.S. 24, 24 n.1, 101 S. Ct. 960, 962 n.1
3
(1981) (citing Fla. Stat. § 944.275). Douglas filed a grievance about his
punishment.
Douglas alleges that, following the filing of his grievance, he has suffered
“mental abuse” and physical intimidation. According to the complaint, he has been
harassed and verbally threatened with injury and has been the subject of unfounded
disciplinary reports in retaliation for filing the grievance. Douglas’s complaint
also alleges that he suffered a more severe form of confinement and, after his
release, was threatened with more punishment if he did not “drop all action” about
his grievances. Douglas’s complaint alleges that this mental abuse has caused him
to suffer migraines and will cause “further brain damage,” even though he alleges
that he is currently “100% mentally disabled.”
Terrant is the only defendant mentioned outside of the caption in Douglas’s
complaint, but allegations against two other named defendants appear in a
“Memorandum of Law” by Douglas, which “became part of his allegations” when
he attached it to his amended complaint. Miller v. Tanner, 196 F.3d 1190, 1192
n.4 (11th Cir. 1999). According to that memorandum, Ford, a classification
supervisor, informed Douglas, after Douglas filed a grievance form about
disciplinary reports against him, that the disciplinary reports had been destroyed
and that Ford had no power to restore Douglas’s lost gain time. Douglas alleged
4
that his family informed Yates, an assistant warden, that prison officials had
retaliated against him for filing grievances with harassment, threats, and verbal and
physical intimidation but Yates declined to investigate and correct these problems.
Douglas does not attribute any conduct to “Mr. Kelloway” in his complaint or his
memorandum.
Douglas requested relief in the form of money damages for his
“psychological pain” and equitable relief in the form of “restoring of gain time.”
Douglas later abandoned his request for equitable relief. Before any defendant was
served, the district court adopted the report and recommendation by the magistrate
judge that concluded that Douglas’s complaint failed to state a claim on which
relief may be granted and dismissed Douglas’s complaint with prejudice under the
Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). Douglas appealed.
II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review a dismissal under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, 28 U.S.C. §
1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), de novo and view the allegations in the complaint as true. The
standards that govern a dismissal under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6)
apply, and Douglas’s complaint is construed liberally because he filed it pro se.
Alba v. Montford, 517 F.3d 1249, 1252 (11th Cir. 2008).
III. DISCUSSION
5
We address two of the several grounds for the dismissal of Douglas’s
complaint mentioned by the district court. First, the district court concluded that,
because Douglas was a prisoner when he filed his complaint, Douglas could not
bring a complaint for damages “for mental or emotional injury suffered while in
custody without a prior showing of physical injury.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e).
Second, the district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice on the ground
that it “fails to state a claim on which relief may be granted.” 28 U.S.C. §
1915(e)(2)(B)(ii). We first discuss whether the limitation of a prisoner’s complaint
for emotional injury, under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, deprived the district
court of subject-matter jurisdiction to consider Douglas’s complaint on the merits,
and we then turn to the question whether Douglas’s complaint fails to state a claim
on which relief may be granted.
A. The District Court Had Jurisdiction To Consider the Sufficiency of Douglas’s
Complaint.
The Prison Litigation Reform Act provides, “No Federal civil action may be
brought by a prisoner confined in a jail, prison, or other correctional facility, for
mental or emotional injury suffered while in custody without a prior showing of
physical injury.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e). We have interpreted this statute to require
the dismissal of several prisoners’ complaints for emotional injury “without
prejudice to their being re-filed at a time when the plaintiffs are not confined.”
6
Harris v. Garner, 216 F.3d 970, 985 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc). Although another
circuit has read our decision in Harris as holding that section 1997e(e) deprives a
district court of subject-matter jurisdiction, Positive Black Talk, Inc., v. Cash
Money Records, Inc., 394 F.3d 357, 366 n.6 (5th Cir. 2004), we have not
addressed that question in a published decision.
Our understanding of section 1997e(e) is guided by a recent decision of the
Supreme Court about the meaning of another subsection of that statute. In Jones v.
Bock, the Supreme Court held that the limitation of complaints brought by
prisoners who have not exhausted administrative remedies, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a),
is an affirmative defense, not a jurisdictional limitation. 127 S. Ct. 910, 921
(2007). The Act casts the limitation that the Supreme Court interpreted in Jones in
language that is materially indistinguishable from the language of the limitation of
actions for emotional injury: “No action shall be brought with respect to prison
conditions under section 1983 of this title, or any other Federal law, by a prisoner
confined in any jail, prison, or other correctional facility until such administrative
remedies as are available are exhausted.” 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a); see Jones, 127 S.
Ct. at 925 (“Section 1997e(e) contains similar language [to section 1997e(a)].”).
In the light of Jones, we conclude that the limitation of complaints by
prisoners for emotional injury, 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(e), provides an affirmative
7
defense, not a jurisdictional limitation. To interpret the language of section
1997e(e) to mean something different from the same language in section 1997e(a)
“would contravene our normal rules of statutory construction.” Jones, 127 S. Ct. at
925. “[S]imilar language contained within the same section of a statute must be
accorded a consistent meaning.” Nat’l Credit Union Admin. v. First Nat’l Bank &
Trust Co., 522 U.S. 479, 501, 118 S. Ct. 927, 939 (1998).
Because section 1997e(e) creates an affirmative defense, the district court
had the power to consider whether Douglas’s complaint states a valid claim.
Davenport Recycling Assocs. v. Comm’r, 220 F.3d 1255, 1259 (11th Cir. 2000).
We have explained that an affirmative defense is a “defense that may be pled in a
case which is already within the court’s authority to decide, and the ability of a
party to assert such a defense has nothing to do with the court’s power to resolve
the case.” Id. The district court had subject-matter jurisdiction to consider the
dismissal of Douglas’s complaint with prejudice.
Our conclusion that the limitation contained in section 1997e(e) is an
affirmative defense does not mean that the district court erred when it considered
the applicability of that section on its own initiative. See Jones, 127 S. Ct. at 921.
A complaint is subject to dismissal for failure to state a claim “when its allegations,
on their face, show that an affirmative defense bars recovery on the claim.”
8
Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1357 (11th Cir. 2003). Because the complaint
discloses that Douglas was a prisoner when the complaint was filed and requests
damages for emotional injury without a prior showing of physical injury, the
district court had the authority, see 28 U.S.C. § 1915(e)(2)(B)(ii), to dismiss the
complaint without prejudice under section 1997e(e). But the district court was also
free to determine that the complaint fails to state a claim for relief on other
grounds.
B. Douglas’s Complaint States a Claim for Relief.
Our conclusion that section 1997e(e) supports a dismissal without prejudice
does not end the matter because the district court dismissed Douglas’s complaint
with prejudice. We must consider whether the district court erred when it
concluded that Douglas’s complaint fails to allege a constitutional violation by any
named defendant. We conclude that the complaint fails to state a claim against
Ford, Kelloway, and Terrant, but the complaint states a claim against Yates.
We have explained that “First Amendment rights to free speech and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances are violated when a prisoner is
punished for filing a grievance concerning the conditions of his imprisonment.”
Boxer X v. Harris, 437 F.3d 1107, 1112 (11th Cir. 2006). “To state a retaliation
claim, the commonly accepted formulation requires that a plaintiff must establish
9
first, that his speech or act was constitutionally protected; second, that the
defendant’s retaliatory conduct adversely affected the protected speech; and third,
that there is a causal connection between the retaliatory actions and the adverse
effect on speech.” Bennett v. Hendrix, 423 F.3d 1247, 1250 (11th Cir. 2005).
Douglas’s complaint must contain enough facts to state a claim of retaliation by
prison officials that is “plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 127 S.
Ct. 1955, 1974 (2007).
Douglas’s complaint contains plausible allegations of retaliation. The
complaint alleges that Douglas was exposed to mental abuse, physical intimidation,
harassment, and verbal threats of injury and punishment in retaliation for the
grievance that he filed. Douglas’s complaint also describes unfounded disciplinary
reports that were filed against him, an incident of more severe confinement, and
threats, after his release from that confinement, that he would be exposed to more
punishment if he continued to pursue his grievance.
Although Douglas’s complaint alleges that a constitutional violation
occurred, the complaint fails to allege facts that associate Terrant, Ford, or
Kelloway with that violation. See Pamel Corp. v. P.R. Highway Auth., 621 F.2d
33, 36 (1st Cir. 1980) (“While we do not require technical niceties in pleading, we
must demand that the complaint state with some minimal particularity how overt
10
acts of the defendant caused a legal wrong.”); 5 Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R.
Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 1234, at 381–85 (3d ed. 2004) (“[A]
complaint will be held defective . . . if [it] fails to connect the defendant with the
alleged wrong.”). Neither Douglas’s complaint nor his attached memorandum
contains any allegations that associate Terrant or Ford with any of the retaliatory
conduct that Douglas alleged, and neither document mentions Kelloway at all
outside of the caption.
The memorandum attached to the complaint alleges sufficient facts to state a
claim against Yates. As a supervisor, Yates is liable under the Civil Rights Act, 42
U.S.C. § 1983, for the unconstitutional acts of his subordinates if he “personally
participated in the allegedly unconstitutional conduct or if there is ‘a causal
connection between [his] actions . . . and the alleged constitutional deprivation.’”
West v. Tillman, 496 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir. 2007) (quoting Cottone, 326 F.3d
at 1360 (second alteration in original)). A causal connection can be established
when a history of widespread abuse puts the responsible supervisor on notice of the
need to correct the alleged deprivation and he fails to do so; when the supervisor’s
improper custom or policy leads to deliberate indifference to constitutional rights;
or when facts support an inference that the supervisor directed the subordinates to
act unlawfully or knew that the subordinates would act unlawfully and failed to
11
stop them from doing so. Id. at 1328–29. Douglas’s complaint alleges that his
family informed Yates of ongoing misconduct by Yates’s subordinates and Yates
failed to stop the misconduct. These allegations allow a reasonable inference that
Yates knew that the subordinates would continue to engage in unconstitutional
misconduct but failed to stop them from doing so. The district court erred when it
dismissed Douglas’s complaint against Yates with prejudice.
IV. CONCLUSION
The dismissal by the district court with prejudice of the claims against Ford,
Kelloway, and Terrant is AFFIRMED. The dismissal with prejudice of the claim
against Yates is REVERSED. We REMAND to the district court with
instructions to dismiss the claim against Yates without prejudice.
AFFIRMED in part, REVERSED in part, and REMANDED.
12