noting that “a complaint about the preparation or quality of prison food . . . would generally be far removed from Eighth Amendment concerns”
How later courts described this case
- noting that “a complaint about the preparation or quality of prison food . . . would generally be far removed from Eighth Amendment concerns”
- providing that where a prisoner’s diet is sufficient to sustain the prisoner’s good health, no constitutional right has been violated
- holding that the deprivation of two out of three meals can support an Eighth Amendment claim when there is no evidence that the one meal served was nutritionally adequate
- finding that 27 the Eighth Amendment requires only that prisoners receive food adequate to maintain health; it need not be tasty or aesthetically pleasing
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
PECK, Circuit Judge
concurring.
I concur in the majority opinion in this case, in which the record clearly establishes that having established a prima facie case the plaintiff-appellant could not procure and offer further essential evidence which was readily available to the defendant-ap-pellee, thereby justifying a shifting of the burden of proof. I would fall short of holding, however, as the majority opinion appears to hold, that the burden of proof automatically shifts as a matter of law on the basis of judicial notice of circumstances pertaining to the essential evidence, e. g., the caloric content of a given diet. It seems to me that such a shift should be predicated upon a showing that the plaintiff has made some attempt to obtain the evidence without success, rather than upon judicial notice of that circumstance.