# Davidson v. Cannon

> Supreme Court of the United States · January 21, 1986 · 474 U.S. 344

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430262

## Case

- **Full name:** DAVIDSON v. CANNON Et Al.
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** January 21, 1986
- **Citations:** 474 U.S. 344; 54 U.S.L.W. 4095; 106 S. Ct. 668; 88 L. Ed. 2d 677; 1986 U.S. LEXIS 44
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Brennan
- **Judges:** Rehnquist, Burger, White, Powell, O'Connor, Stevens, Brennan, Blackmun, Marshall
- **Cited by:** 1,768 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- **Yellow flag:** Declined to follow by Ronnie Cross v. Virginia Beach Correctional Center, 865 F.2d 1257 (1989).
- Negative treatments: 1
- Distinguished by: 1
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430262

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that a prison official’s “lack of due care” in preventing a prisoner from attacking the plaintiff “simply does not approach the sort of abusive government conduct that the Due Process Clause was designed to prevent”
- holding that mere neglect for prisoner's safety does not amount to a substantive due process violation, implying that intent to do harm would be an abuse of government power and amount to a substantive due process violation
- holding that Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is not triggered by “mere negligent” lack of due care by prison officials who fail to protect an inmate from injury at the hands of other inmates
- holding prison official is only liable if "deliberately indifferent to the need to protect an inmate from a substantial risk of serious harm from other inmates"

## Opinion text

*349 Justice Brennan,
dissenting.
I agree with the Court that merely negligent conduct by a state official, even though causing personal injury, does not constitute a deprivation of liberty under the Due Process Clause. I do believe, however, that official conduct which causes personal injury due to recklessness or deliberate indifference, does deprive the victim of liberty within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
As Justice Blackmun persuasively demonstrates in his dissent, the record in this case strongly suggests that the prison officials’ failure to protect petitioner from attack was reckless and not merely negligent. Accordingly, like Justice Blackmun, I would vacate the judgment and remand this case so that the Court of Appeals may review the District Court’s holding that respondents’ conduct was not reckless.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9430262. Public record. Not legal advice.