concluding that the plaintiff suffered only de minimis injuries where he suffered only “swelling, pain, and cramps, which were not serious enough to mention to medical staff” when he saw them the day of and two days after the incident
How later courts described this case
- concluding that the plaintiff suffered only de minimis injuries where he suffered only “swelling, pain, and cramps, which were not serious enough to mention to medical staff” when he saw them the day of and two days after the incident
- assuming without deciding that physical pain is a mental or emotional injury and that plaintiffs claims, when they alleged only pain associated with the moderate swelling of a toe that required no medical treatment, were insufficient to overcome the PLRA bar
- concluding that injuries such as swelling, pain, and cramps resulting from 12- hour confinement in a “strip cage” are merely de minimis injuries for purposes of the PLRA
- finding that swelling, pain, and cramps which produced no medical findings was “nothing more than a de minimis injury for purposes of § 1997e(e).” (citations omitted)
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KAREN NELSON MOORE, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Although I agree with the majority’s statement that the court must “view the evidence and draw all reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the non-moving party,” Maj. Op. at-(quoting Little v. BP Exploration & Oil Co., 265 F.3d 357, 361 (6th Cir.2001)), I do not believe that the majority has done so in this case. Instead, the majority repeatedly credits witnesses for the officers despite contrary assertions made by Jarriett and Quentin Nicholson under oath. Taking the facts in the light most favorable to Jarriett, we must conclude that he was forced to stand in a two-and-a-half-foot by two-and-a-half-foot cage for approximately thirteen hours (naked for the first eight to ten hours, and unable to sit for more than thirty or forty minutes of the total time), in acute pain, with clear, visible swelling in a portion of his leg that had previously been injured in a motorcycle accident. 10 During this time, Jarriett repeatedly requested to see a doctor in regard to his injured leg, but his requests were ignored. He was not even examined by a nurse until at least three days after the incident, and was never actually given the opportunity to be put in a larger cage. These events resulted in more than de minimis physical injury, see Hudson v. McMillian, 503 U.S. 1, 9-10 , 112 S.Ct. 995 , 117 L.Ed.2d 156 (1992), including excruciating physical pain and severe swelling of his leg that would be obvious even to a lay person. As it was clearly established at the time that the Eighth Amendment (as applied to the states through the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause) prohibits “unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain,” Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 327 , 106 S.Ct. 1078 , 89 L.Ed.2d 251 (1986), and requires that inmates be provided with adequate medical care, Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-05 , 97 S.Ct. 285 , 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), the officers should not be entitled to qualified immunity. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
. Jarriett was approximately 40 years old at the time, stood five-feet-ten-and-a-half inches tall, and weighed 230 pounds.