Filed: Dec. 04, 2019
Latest Update: Mar. 03, 2020
Summary: Case: 18-13619 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 18-13619 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-23013-DPG PLEADRO J. SCOTT, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus R. GOMEZ, C. WESTON, Defendants-Appellants. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida _ (December 4, 2019) Case: 18-13619 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 Page: 2 of 9 Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and ANDERSON, Circuit J
Summary: Case: 18-13619 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 Page: 1 of 9 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT _ No. 18-13619 Non-Argument Calendar _ D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-23013-DPG PLEADRO J. SCOTT, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus R. GOMEZ, C. WESTON, Defendants-Appellants. _ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida _ (December 4, 2019) Case: 18-13619 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 Page: 2 of 9 Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Ju..
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Case: 18-13619 Date Filed: 12/04/2019 Page: 1 of 9
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 18-13619
Non-Argument Calendar
________________________
D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cv-23013-DPG
PLEADRO J. SCOTT,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
R. GOMEZ, C. WESTON,
Defendants-Appellants.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
________________________
(December 4, 2019)
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Before MARTIN, ROSENBAUM, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Corporal Rolando Gomez and Lieutenant Constantina Weston, employees of
the Miami-Dade Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (“Department”)
appeal from the district court’s denial of summary judgment to them on the
grounds of qualified immunity. 1 The plaintiff in this case, Pleadro Scott, alleged
that Gomez and Weston violated the Eighth Amendment by failing to protect him
from violence at the hands of other inmates while he was in custody at the Turner
Guilford Knight Detention Center, run by the Department. We conclude that we
are without jurisdiction to address the issues raised by Gomez and Weston and
dismiss this appeal.
Our jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 is generally limited to “final
decisions” of district courts. For the most part, an order that denies a motion for
summary judgment is not a “final decision.” Johnson v. Jones,
515 U.S. 304, 309
(1995). The collateral order doctrine exempts from this rule orders that deny
qualified immunity, because “such orders conclusively determine whether the
defendant is entitled to immunity from suit.” Plumhoff v. Rickard,
134 S. Ct.
2012, 2019 (2014).
1
Our references in this opinion to the district court generally refer to rulings of the
Magistrate Judge, because the district court adopted the report of the Magistrate Judge without
additional substantive comment.
2
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However, as we explained in Koch v. Rugg, “Our jurisdiction to review a
denial of qualified immunity depends on the type of issue involved.”
221 F.3d
1283, 1295 (11th Cir. 2000). Where there are “legal issues underlying the
qualified immunity determination,” which is part of the “‘core qualified immunity’
analysis,” we properly exercise jurisdiction over the appeal.
Id. (quoting Cottrell
v. Caldwell,
85 F.3d 1480, 1484 (11th Cir. 1996)). But where the challenge is only
to “sufficiency of the evidence relative to a ‘predicate factual element of the
underlying constitutional tort,’” we may not exercise jurisdiction.
Id. (quoting
Dolihite v. Maughon ex rel. Videon,
74 F.3d 1027, 1033 n.3 (11th Cir. 1996)); see
also Johnson v.
Jones, 515 U.S. at 313. This includes, among other things, whether
the district court properly determined “what factual issues are ‘genuine’” under
Rule 56(c).
Johnson, 515 U.S. at 313.
We note at the outset that, because we determine that we are without
jurisdiction to hear this case, we need not adjudicate the merits of Scott’s claims.
Insofar as the nature of his claims is illustrative of Gomez and Weston’s appeal,
however, we note that the Eighth Amendment imposes duties on prison officials to,
inter alia, “take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.”
Farmer v. Brennan,
511 U.S. 825, 832 (1994) (quoting Hudson v. Palmer, 468 .S.
517, 526–27 (1984). Specifically, “prison officials have a duty . . . to protect
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prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners.”
Id. at 833 (quotation
omitted).
Accordingly, the key issue in this case—that is, the question on which
liability will likely be determined—is whether Gomez and Weston actually took
“reasonable measures” to guarantee Scott’s safety. Scott’s argument is essentially
that he warned many Department employees, including Gomez and Weston, about
the threat posed to him by fellow inmates at the Detention Center, and that they
failed to make the proper notation of his concern on his prison documentation.
This failure, he contends, ultimately led to a violent attack from another inmate
when he was impermissibly housed with that inmate in a cell. Gomez and Weston
dispute this argument on two grounds—first, they argue that the proper notation
was made on Scott’s documentation, and second, they argue that even if Scott’s
version of the facts is to be believed, it does not state a viable Eighth Amendment
claim.
After unsuccessfully moving to dismiss Scott’s claims, Gomez and Weston
moved for summary judgment on the grounds of qualified immunity. In ruling on
this motion, the district court—through accepting the magistrate judge’s report and
recommendation—voluminously recounted each party’s factual allegations and
arguments. It repeatedly noted that the parties differed on what the defendants’
conduct was at various points in the underlying chain of events, and concluded,
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“Defendants correctly argue that the version of events on which they rely do not
support an endangerment claim and warrant summary judgment in their favor
based on qualified immunity.” Ultimately, in denying summary judgment to
defendants, the district court noted that, “accepting the plaintiff’s version of events
as true, the defendants violated the plaintiff’s clearly established constitutional
right.”
In their appeal to us, Gomez and Weston frame their argument in two parts.
First, they argue that the district court misunderstood the facts—namely, the
documents used by the Department and the policies that govern the Department’s
activities—and therefore made “irrelevant and immaterial” findings of fact.
Accordingly, if these factual errors are corrected, they are entitled to summary
judgment as a matter of law. Second, they argue that even if Scott’s version of the
facts is accepted, they are still entitled to qualified immunity because he fails to
state a cognizable violation of the Eighth Amendment.
However, after a careful reading of their briefs, we determine that Gomez
and Weston misstate their actual arguments—they solely challenge the factual
determinations made by the district court, though they cloak their challenges in the
guise of legal issues. After ostensibly assuming that Scott’s version of the facts is
true, they purport to raise two legal arguments that are actually backdoor means of
relitigating the district court’s assumptions of fact. First, they argue that “the most
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that [Corporal] Gomez and [Lieutenant] Weston’s actions amount to is
negligence.” Second, they argue that the constitutional violation alleged by Scott
was not “clearly established law.”
If this were the substance of what they actually argued, it is clear that they
would be challenging more than the district court’s determination of evidentiary
sufficiency—they would be challenging the legal conclusions made by the district
court, thereby conferring the jurisdiction we need to hear their arguments. But this
is not the case. The substance of their actual arguments does not match how they
label their arguments. They do not, in fact, take Scott’s version of events as true.
Instead, they explicitly assume their version of a critical disputed fact—that they
“made a keep separate notation on [Scott’s] safety cell profile prior to the incident
in question”—on the basis that Scott did not properly dispute the fact under Rule
56(c).
Rule 56(c) requires that a party “asserting that a fact . . . is genuinely
disputed must support the assertion by: (A) citing to particular parts of materials in
the record, . . . or (B) showing that the materials cited do not establish the absence .
. . of a genuine dispute, or that an adverse party cannot produce admissible
evidence to support the fact.” Gomez and Weston argue that Scott merely
responded to this fact by stating that he was “without knowledge as to weather
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[sic] Defendant Weston updated any document,” and that such a response is
inadequate under Rule 56(c).
We disagree with defendants’ characterization of Scott’s response. As we
have repeatedly held, “Pro se pleadings are held to a less stringent standard than
pleadings drafted by attorneys and will, therefore, be liberally construed.”
Tannenbaum v. United States,
148 F.3d 1262, 1263 (11th Cir. 1998). With that in
mind, Scott sufficiently articulated the nature of his dispute of that fact. It is true
that, as Gomez and Weston note, Scott stated that he was “[w]ithout knowledge” as
to whether Weston updated his safety cell profile. However, Scott went on to raise
a more specific dispute, which noted that the sheet was inauthentic because “it
does not have a seal as being filed in Miami Dade Corrections files, at the time of
its filing” and was untrustworthy because it misstated Scott’s date of birth. Within
a liberally construed pro se filing, this statement is clearly sufficient for Rule 56(c)
purposes.
Moreover, Rule 56(e) grants district courts broad discretion when a party
fails to properly address another party’s assertion of fact. See generally Fed. R.
Civ. P. 56 advisory committee’s note to 2010 amendment of subdivision (e). One
option at the district court’s disposal is that it may deem that fact undisputed. Fed.
R. Civ. P. 56(e)(2). However, the district court here did not consider it undisputed
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that Gomez and Weston made the “keep separate” notation on Scott’s safety
profile.
In addition, there was other evidence on the basis of which a jury could
conclude that there was no “keep separate” notation on Scott’s jail documents at
the crucial time on May 15, 2013. The Magistrate Judge assumed Scott’s version
of relevant facts, including that Scott complained to the transporting officer on
May 15, 2013, about being put in a holding cell with Dean, his attacker, and the
officer responded that his jail documents did not reflect the “keep separate”
notation. Moreover, the official response to Scott’s grievance about the incident
indicated that Scott was not a “keep separate” inmate at the time. As the
Magistrate Judge found, “Plaintiff states that the ‘keep separate’ notation on his
safety cell profile sheet, which defendants allege was attached to the jail card at the
time of the incident in this case, was not added until after he filed a grievance
about the incident.”
In effect, Gomez and Weston say one thing—that they accept Scott’s version
of relevant events as true—and do another—namely, assume their own version of,
rather than Scott’s version of, a critical disputed fact, and then argue that, on such
facts, the district court was legally incorrect. In so doing, they misstate the law and
fail to demonstrate that we may properly exercise jurisdiction over their claims.
As mentioned previously, issues regarding the district court’s determination of
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genuinely disputed issues of material fact are not reviewable by us in isolation. 2
See
Johnson, 515 U.S. at 313. Holding otherwise would entirely undermine the
purpose of the collateral order doctrine and the exception created for denials of
qualified immunity.
Accordingly, we reject this attempt to manufacture appellate jurisdiction
where it does not exist. Despite their assertions to the contrary, Gomez and
Weston’s appeal of the district court’s order is entirely concerned with the
sufficiency of the evidence. Accordingly, we may not exercise jurisdiction over
this case. We DISMISS this appeal and REMAND the case for further
proceedings in the district court.
2
It may well be the case that Scott did not properly dispute Gomez and Weston’s statement
of facts under Rule 56(c), but we are without jurisdiction to decide that issue at this stage of the
proceedings.
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