Filed: Mar. 06, 2020
Latest Update: Mar. 06, 2020
Summary: NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 6 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LESTER CANADA, No. 19-15606 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:16-cv-00601-MMD- WGC v. GENE BEITLER, C.O.; JEFFREY MEMORANDUM* HOWELL, C.O., Defendants-Appellants, and ISIDRO BACA, Warden; et al., Defendants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Miranda M. Du, District Judge, Presiding Submitted March 3, 2020** Before: MURGUIA, CHRIS
Summary: NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 6 2020 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT LESTER CANADA, No. 19-15606 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:16-cv-00601-MMD- WGC v. GENE BEITLER, C.O.; JEFFREY MEMORANDUM* HOWELL, C.O., Defendants-Appellants, and ISIDRO BACA, Warden; et al., Defendants. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada Miranda M. Du, District Judge, Presiding Submitted March 3, 2020** Before: MURGUIA, CHRIST..
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NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS MAR 6 2020
MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
LESTER CANADA, No. 19-15606
Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:16-cv-00601-MMD-
WGC
v.
GENE BEITLER, C.O.; JEFFREY MEMORANDUM*
HOWELL, C.O.,
Defendants-Appellants,
and
ISIDRO BACA, Warden; et al.,
Defendants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Nevada
Miranda M. Du, District Judge, Presiding
Submitted March 3, 2020**
Before: MURGUIA, CHRISTEN, and BADE, Circuit Judges.
Appellants appeal from the district court’s order denying in part their motion
*
This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
**
The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision
without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).
for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity in Canada’s 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983 action alleging a failure-to-protect claim. We have jurisdiction under 28
U.S.C. § 1291. We review de novo. Pauluk v. Savage,
836 F.3d 1117, 1120 (9th
Cir. 2016). We affirm in part and dismiss in part.
We lack jurisdiction to consider appellants’ arguments challenging the
district court’s factual conclusions regarding their subjective awareness of a risk of
harm to Canada. See Knox v. Sw. Airlines,
124 F.3d 1103, 1107 (9th Cir. 1997)
(“[W]e do not have jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal that focuses on
whether there is a genuine dispute about the underlying facts.”). Accordingly, we
dismiss this portion of the appeal.
The only reviewable issue in this appeal is the purely legal question of
“whether or not certain given facts showed a violation of clearly established law.”
Foster v. City of Indio,
908 F.3d 1204, 1210 (9th Cir. 2018) (citation and internal
quotation marks omitted). As to this issue, the district court properly concluded
that appellants were not entitled to qualified immunity on Canada’s failure-to-
protect claim. Viewing the facts in the light most favorable to Canada, as we are
required to do, Canada was among a group of inmates targeted for assault and
robbery by other inmates; Canada asked appellants to move him because plaintiff
was being targeted; appellants did not move plaintiff or otherwise respond to
Canada’s request; and appellants left an overcrowded prison floor unattended,
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during which time Canada was assaulted.
As of 2016, the law was clearly established that appellants’ actions would
violate Canada’s Eighth Amendment rights. See Ashcroft v. al-Kidd,
563 U.S. 731,
735, 741 (2011) (for purposes of qualified immunity, “[a] government official’s
conduct violates clearly established law when, at the time of the challenged
conduct, [t]he contours of [a] right [are] sufficiently clear that every reasonable
official would have understood that what he is doing violates that right” (citation
and internal quotation marks omitted)); Farmer v. Brennan,
511 U.S. 825, 834
(1994) (a prison official is deliberately indifferent in violation of the Eighth
Amendment if the official knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious
harm to the inmate); see also, e.g., Robinson v. Prunty,
249 F.3d 862, 867 (9th Cir.
2001) (prison guards were not entitled to qualified immunity where the prisoner
alleged that prison guards were aware that “placing inmates of different races in
the yard at the same time present[ed] a serious risk of violent outbreaks,” made
jokes of this effect to plaintiff, and then failed to intervene when plaintiff was
attacked by another inmate).
AFFIRMED in part, DISMISSED in part.
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