James Solomon v. Deputy U.S. Marshal Thomas

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 11-3486

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James Clayton Solomon

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

Hunter Petray, Captain, Benton County Detention Center; Sheriff Keith Ferguson;

Sgt. Tomlin; Sgt. Robbins; Sgt. Torrez; Deputy Johnson; Deputy Johnston;

Deputy Morrison; Deputy Roland; Deputy Rankin; Deputy Wales; Deputy

Elkington; Deputy Lockhhart; Deputy Engleman; Deputy Wright; Deputy Fry;

Deputy Reyes; Deputy Holly; Deputy Carlton; Deputy Lowther; Deputy Duncan;

Deputy Hernandez; Deputy Bryson; Major Gene Drake; Lt. Carter; Sgt. Vaughn

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Deputy U.S. Marshal Cory Thomas; Deputy U.S. Marshal Susan Jones

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants - Appellants

John Does, Unknown U.S. Marshals; Benton County Deputy Stickland

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

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Appeal from United States District Court

for the Western District of Arkansas - Fayetteville

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Submitted: September 20, 2012

Filed: November 9, 2012

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Before BYE, GRUENDER, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.

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BYE, Circuit Judge.

James Clayton Solomon brought suit against Deputy United States Marshals

Susan Jones and Cory Thomas, amongst others, alleging retaliation for exercising his

free speech rights under the First Amendment, and violations of his rights to due

process and to be free from excessive force. Jones and Thomas each moved for

summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court denied the

motions and denied Jones’s and Thomas’s subsequent motions to amend or alter the

order denying their motions for summary judgment. They now appeal. We remand

the case to allow the district court to set forth a sufficient explanation of its analysis

of the claims of qualified immunity to provide an adequate basis for review.

I

After taking James Clayton Solomon into custody on an unrelated matter, U.S.

marshals transferred him from the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center to the

United States Marshal Service (USMS) office in Fort Smith, Arkansas, on April 24,

2008. Officers of the Benton County Sheriff’s Department then transferred Solomon

that same day to the Benton County Criminal Detention Center (BCCDC), where he

was housed until September of 2008 while awaiting disposition of the matter for

which he had been taken into custody. In 2010, while incarcerated in a different

facility, Solomon filed his pro se complaint alleging numerous violations of his

constitutional rights and expressly naming as defendants the USMS, the BCCDC, the

Benton County Sheriff’s Department, and twenty-four individual staff members of

either the BCCDC or the Benton County Sheriff’s Department. To assist it in

screening Solomon’s pro se complaint, the district court provided Solomon with an

addendum to fill out, which he completed and filed.

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In the addendum to the complaint, Solomon named for the first time Deputy

U.S. Marshal Susan Jones and Deputy U.S. Marshal Cory Thomas as defendants. He

also supplemented his allegations in the complaint by alleging U.S. marshals had (1)

housed him in the BCCDC, rather than another facility, in retaliation for a letter he

had written about a local judge; (2) taunted him while transporting him from the

Oklahoma Federal Transfer Center to the USMS office in Fort Smith and then to the

BCCDC; and (3) arranged for adverse treatment he had received at the BCCDC,

including a beating he alleged he had been subjected to shortly after he had initially

arrived there. In the paragraph in which he indicated he intended to add Jones and

Thomas as named defendants, Solomon claimed Jones and Thomas had each violated

his rights to due process and to be free from excessive force.

After screening the complaint and the addendum to the complaint, the district

court concluded Solomon had stated cognizable claims of (1) retaliation against

Jones, Thomas, and other unknown U.S. marshals, (2) inhumane conditions of

confinement against unknown U.S. marshals and BCCDC defendants, and (3) two

claims of excessive force against “the various named Defendants.” It then issued an

order adding Jones and Thomas as named defendants.

Prior to the commencement of discovery, Jones and Thomas each filed

individual motions to dismiss all of Solomon’s claims against them with prejudice,

arguing Solomon had failed to state a claim against either of them and that they were

entitled to qualified immunity. Each also moved in the alternative for summary

judgment, arguing qualified immunity entitled them to judgment as a matter of law.

In support of their motions, Jones and Thomas each submitted a declaration by

Supervisory Deputy United States Marshal Mark Spellman. The declaration indicated

neither Jones nor Thomas had been involved in assigning Solomon to be housed in

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the BCCDC and, of the two, only Jones had been assigned to transport Solomon and

then only from Oklahoma City to the USMS office in Fort Smith on April 24, 2008.1

Solomon opposed the motions. In his briefs in response, he asserted a new

allegation that, while he was being transported from Oklahoma City to the BCCDC,

Thomas had struck him without provocation.

The district court, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(d), treated

Jones’s and Thomas’s motions as motions for summary judgment, which it denied.

To the extent the district court set forth its analysis, it indicated only that Jones and

Thomas had failed to prove they were entitled to summary judgment as a matter of

law because they had not submitted evidence to prove they had not used excessive

force against Solomon.

Jones and Thomas then filed motions to amend or alter the order denying their

motions for summary judgment, which the district court denied as well. They then

filed this appeal, challenging the denial of their motions for summary judgment.2

1

In the screening order, the district court found Solomon’s allegations of having

been taunted referred to events occurring four days later on April 28, 2008, while he

was being transported from the federal building in Fort Smith, where he had appeared

in court, to the BCCDC.

2

In their notice of appeal, Jones and Thomas also indicated they intended to

appeal the order denying their motions to amend or alter. However, they did not

include the denial of the motions to amend or alter in their statement of issues on

appeal or argue the district court had erred in denying those motions in their brief.

Therefore, they did not preserve this argument for appeal. See Hays v. Hoffman, 325

F.3d 982, 987 n.2 (8th Cir. 2003) (citing Fed.R.App.P. 28(a)(5)).

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II

Before addressing the parties’ arguments, we must first determine whether this

court has jurisdiction to hear this interlocutory appeal. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.

662 (2009) (“Subject-matter jurisdiction cannot be forfeited or waived and should be

considered when fairly in doubt.”). This court has jurisdiction to hear an appeal of

an order denying summary judgment based on qualified immunity only “to the extent

that it turns on an issue of law.” Jones v. McNeese, 675 F.3d 1158, 1160-61 (8th Cir.

2012) (citing Fields v. Abbott, 652 F.3d 886, 889-90 (8th Cir. 2011)). To the extent

an order denying summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity turns on a

determination whether there exists a genuine issue of material fact for trial, this court

does not have jurisdiction to hear an appeal of such an order. Id. (citing Johnson v.

Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 320 (1995)). Accordingly, we must first determine whether the

issues Jones and Thomas raise on appeal challenge the sufficiency of the evidence

submitted by Solomon or turn solely on issues of law. Id.

After careful review, we conclude the issues raised on appeal comprise an

amalgamation of challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence submitted by Solomon

and assertions the district court erred as a matter of law by not granting their motions

for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. We lack jurisdiction to

consider the deputies’ challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence submitted by

Solomon. Id. However, to the extent the challenge to the district court’s denial of

summary judgment turns solely on the application of the legal principles of qualified

immunity, this court has jurisdiction to hear the appeal. Id. (citing Heartland Acad.

Cmty. Church v. Waddle, 595 F.3d 798, 806 (8th Cir. 2010)). This court reviews a

district court’s denial of summary judgment as a matter of law de novo. Id. (citing

Johnson v. Phillips, 664 F.3d 232, 236 (8th Cir. 2011)).

Qualified immunity “is an immunity from suit rather than merely a defense to

liability.” Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 526 (1985). It entitles an individual to

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not be subject to trial or the other burdens of litigation and “is effectively lost if a case

is erroneously permitted to go to trial.” Id. Accordingly, it is important that the

question of qualified immunity be resolved as early as possible in the proceedings.

O’Neil v. City of Iowa City, 496 F.3d 915, 917 (8th Cir. 2007) (citing Saucier v.

Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201 (2001); Schatz Family ex rel. Schatz v. Gierer, 346 F.3d

1157, 1160 (8th Cir. 2003)).

Analyzing a claim of qualified immunity requires a two-step inquiry. Jones,

675 F.3d at 1161. In one step, the deciding court determines whether the facts

demonstrate a deprivation of a constitutional right. Id. (citing Parrish v. Ball, 594

F.3d 993, 1001 (8th Cir. 2010)). In the other, the court determines whether the

implicated right was clearly established at the time of the deprivation. Id. (citing

Parrish, 594 F.3d at 1001). In considering those steps at the summary judgment

phase, a district court is required to view the genuinely disputed facts in the light

most favorable to the non-moving party, provided the record does not so contradict

the facts as to render so viewing them unacceptable to any reasonable juror. O’Neil,

496 F.3d at 917. On review, we then determine “whether the official is entitled to

qualified immunity based on the summary judgment facts as described by the district

court.” Id. at 1162 (citing Nelson v. Shuffman, 603 F.3d 439, 446 (8th Cir. 2010)).

However, when the district court’s order being appealed sets forth an analysis

insufficient to provide a meaningful basis for review, we have found it necessary to

remand the order for a detailed consideration of the issue of qualified immunity. See,

e.g., Jones, 675 F.3d at 1162. For example, in Jones we remanded for a more detailed

consideration a denial of summary judgment which did not set forth an analysis of the

claim of qualified immunity in the appealed order but instead only referenced the

analysis the district court had set forth in an earlier order regarding a motion to

dismiss. Jones, 675 F.3d at 1162. In O’Neil, we remanded for a more detailed

consideration a denial of summary judgment which, in a generous reading, set forth

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an analysis of at most only one step of the qualified immunity inquiry. O’Neil, 496

F.3d at 918.

Here, the cursory nature of the district court’s denial of summary judgment

requires that we remand this case for a more detailed consideration of the claims of

qualified immunity. The order contains no findings of fact, viewed in the light most

favorable to Solomon or otherwise. It is not even apparent from the text of the order

whether the district court considered the claim of personal use of excessive force by

Thomas, which Solomon raised for the first time in his brief in response to the

motions for summary judgment. However, the absence of findings of fact is not the

infirmity which requires us to remand the case. See Johnson, 515 U.S. at 319

(opining that, absent findings of fact made by the district court, an appellate court

may review the record to determine what facts the district court, in the light most

favorable to the nonmoving party, likely assumed). It is instead the complete absence

in the order of any explicit reference to, or analysis of, Jones’s and Thomas’s claims

of qualified immunity which leaves us unable to determine whether the district court

even considered the issue of qualified immunity before denying the motions for

summary judgment.

We express no opinion regarding the merits of Jones’s and Thomas’s claims

of qualified immunity. However, “we are certain, and the case law is clear, that they

are entitled to a thorough determination of their claim[s] of qualified immunity if that

immunity is to mean anything at all.” O’Neil, 496 F.3d at 918.

III

We vacate the denial of summary judgment and remand this case to the district

court for a more detailed consideration and explanation of the validity of Jones’s and

Thomas’s claims of qualified immunity.

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