# Stephen Jarriett v. Julius Wilson

> Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit · July 7, 2005 · 414 F.3d 634

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9498157

## Case

- **Full name:** Stephen JARRIETT, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Julius WILSON Et Al., Defendants-Appellees
- **Court:** Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
- **Decided:** July 7, 2005
- **Citations:** 414 F.3d 634; 162 F. App'x 394; 162 Fed. Appx. 394; 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 13661; 2005 WL 1594334
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Moore
- **Judges:** Moore, Gibbons, Edmunds
- **Cited by:** 35 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9498157

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- 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
- 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)
- finding swelling, pain, and cramps not producing medical findings constituted no more than de minimis injury

## Opinion text

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.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9498157. Public record. Not legal advice.