White v. Kansas Department of Corrections

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS June 19, 2015
Elisabeth A. Shumaker
TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court
BOBBY BRUCE WHITE,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v. No. 14-3205
(D.C. No. 5:14-CV-03004-SAC)
KANSAS DEPARTMENT OF (D. Kan.)
CORRECTIONS; RAY ROBERTS; V.
BRUNGARDT, Secretary of
Corrections Designee, Kansas
Department of Corrections;
DOUGLAS BURRIS, Secretary of
Corrections Designee, Kansas
Department of Corrections; REX
PRYOR, Warden, Lansing
Correctional Facility; JAMES
HEIMGARTNER, Warden, El Dorado
Correctional Facility; MYRON
ALFORD, Unit Team Manager,
Lansing Correctional Facility; FNU
NANCE, Unit Team Manager, Lansing
Correctional Facility; FNU
ANDERSON, Correctional Counselor,
Lansing Correctional Facility; FNU
SKIDMORE, Correctional Counselor,
Lansing Correctional Facility; FNU
WATSON, Unit Team Manager, El
Dorado Correctional Facility; FNU
HISOR, Correctional Counselor,
Lansing Correctional Facility; FNU
THOMAS, Correctional Counselor,
Lansing Correctional Facility,
Defendants - Appellees.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before GORSUCH, MURPHY, and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.
Pro se 1 prisoner Bobby Bruce White sued Kansas Secretary of Corrections
Ray Roberts, the Kansas Department of Corrections (“KDOC”), and several
correctional employees (collectively, “Defendants”), bringing claims under 42
U.S.C. § 1983 and the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), 42 U.S.C.
§ 12132. The district court dismissed Mr. White’s amended complaint and denied
his various motions, including one for an injunction regarding medical care, but it
permitted him to file a second amended complaint addressing the adequacy of
medical care he has received while in custody. Mr. White now challenges the
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has
decided unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist the
determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G).
The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument.
This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the
doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cited,
however, for its persuasive value consistent with Federal Rule of Appellate
Procedure 32.1 and Tenth Circuit Rule 32.1.
1
Because Mr. White appears pro se, we afford his filings a liberal
construction. See Garza v. Davis, 596 F.3d 1198, 1201 n.2 (10th Cir. 2010); Yang
v. Archuleta, 525 F.3d 925, 927 n.1 (10th Cir. 2008).
2
district court’s denial of injunctive relief, 2 requests a certificate of appealability
(“COA”), and seeks leave to proceed in forma pauperis (“IFP”) on appeal.
Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1), we affirm the district
court’s denial of injunctive relief, dismiss Mr. White’s application for a COA,
and deny leave to proceed IFP.
I
Mr. White is presently incarcerated within the KDOC, where he is serving a
sentence for murder in the first degree. He alleges numerous health impediments,
including “carcinoma . . . , diagnosis of chronic Bipolar 1 disorder, and physical
impairment [brought on by a] leg injury.” R. at 57 (Am. Compl., filed Feb. 18,
2014). In addition, he asserts that he has been “committed” to various
correctional mental-health facilities for “chronic care.” Id.In January 2014, Mr. White filed a lawsuit in the United States District
Court for the District of Kansas. On initial screening pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§ 1915A(a), the district court ordered Mr. White to submit an amended complaint
containing specific facts to support each of his claims.
2
In his notice of appeal, Mr. White indicated that he also sought to
challenge rulings other than the district court’s denial of injunctive relief. We
may only exercise jurisdiction over final orders, see 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and certain
interlocutory and collateral orders—notably, including orders denying motions for
preliminary injunctions, see id. § 1292(a); Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(b); Cohen v.
Beneficial Indus. Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 546 (1949). These additional rulings
fall outside the scope of our appellate jurisdiction, so we do not address them.
3
Mr. White did file an amended complaint in February 2014. The specific
claims advanced in his amended complaint were: (1) that Defendants violated his
rights under the ADA and the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
Constitution by “discrimination and lack of enforcement and/or making policy to
protect prisoners it has deemed as mentally ill,” R. at 60; (2) that his
constitutional rights were violated when another prisoner stole his property; (3)
that KDOC officials were deliberately indifferent to prisoners, and recklessly and
maliciously harassed them; (4) that KDOC officials were deliberately indifferent
to him by failing to identify officers who allegedly assaulted him during a March
2013 cell extraction; (5) that he received inadequate medical care for injuries he
sustained during that cell extraction and experienced cruel conditions when “held
in isolation” afterward, id. at 62; and (6) that Defendants violated his
constitutional rights by failing to expedite his administrative grievances. 3
Approximately one week after submitting his amended complaint, Mr.
White filed a document styled “Injunction for Medical Relief,” claiming
“excruciating” and “chronic” ankle and leg pain and asking the district court to
3
Liberally construing the language of the amended complaint, as
germane here, Mr. White appears to be seeking injunctive relief from the
individual Defendants in their official capacities. This category of action has a
solid footing in the law. See Roe No. 2 v. Ogden, 253 F.3d 1225, 1233 (10th Cir.
2001) (“An individual may bring an ADA or § 1983 action against a state official
in federal court for injunctive relief . . . .”); see also Branson Sch. Dist. RE-82 v.
Romer, 161 F.3d 619, 631 (10th Cir. 1998) (“[A] suit against a state official in his
or her official capacity seeking prospective injunctive relief is not . . . a suit
against the state for Eleventh Amendment purposes.”).
4
order Secretary Roberts, as principal administrator of KDOC, to refer him to a
“doctor of specialized medical care.” Id. at 94–95 (Inj. Mot., filed Feb. 26,
2014); see id. at 97 (Ex. A to Inj. Mot.) (“The Principal Administrator should
have provided me with a doctor for treatment and pain relief.”).
The district court ruled on all of Mr. White’s claims for relief in a single
order on September 16, 2014, and did not enter final judgment. As relevant here,
it concluded that Mr. White’s claims under the ADA (and, liberally construed,
under the Rehabilitation Act as well) failed to state a claim for relief. It likewise
found that Mr. White’s remaining claims, construed as arising under 42 U.S.C.
§ 1983, should be dismissed with one exception: his claim asserting inadequate
medical care following his March 2013 cell-extraction injuries. With regard to
that claim, the court granted Mr. White an additional opportunity to amend his
complaint to explain the alleged constitutional violation and his theory of
causation. The court set a deadline of October 16, 2014, to present a second
amended complaint concerning only the claim of constitutionally insufficient
medical care, noting that failure to amend would subject that claim to dismissal.
Further, ostensibly in light of its conclusion that Mr. White had deficiently
pleaded his medical-care claim, the court denied his motion for injunctive relief.
5
Mr. White did not file a second amended complaint. Instead, on September
30, 2014, he filed a notice of interlocutory appeal. His briefing before us is
styled as a “combined opening brief and application for a certificate of
appealability.” 4 Aplt. Combined Opening Br. at 1 (capitalization altered).
II
A
Liberally construing Mr. White’s “Injunction for Medical Relief” as a
motion for a preliminary injunction, we review the district court’s denial of such
relief for an abuse of discretion. See Little v. Jones, 607 F.3d 1245, 1250 (10th
Cir. 2010). This standard generally militates in favor of affirmance. See RoDa
Drilling Co. v. Siegal, 552 F.3d 1203, 1208 (10th Cir. 2009) (noting that the
hurdle to demonstrate an abuse of discretion is “high”). Indeed, we have
explained that “[a]n abuse of discretion occurs only when the trial court bases its
decision on an erroneous conclusion of law or where there is no rational basis in
the evidence for the ruling.” Wilderness Workshop v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt.,
531 F.3d 1220, 1223–24 (10th Cir. 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted); see
Winnebago Tribe of Neb. v. Stovall, 341 F.3d 1202, 1205–06 (10th Cir. 2003)
(“We have previously described abuse of discretion as an arbitrary, capricious,
whimsical, or manifestly unreasonable judgment.” (internal quotation marks
4
In his opening brief, Mr. White also asks us to appoint him counsel.
Because we affirm the district court, under the circumstances of this case, we
deny this request as moot.
6
omitted)). In our review, “we consider the merits of the case only as they affect
th[e court’s] exercise of discretion,” and we “examine the district court’s legal
determinations de novo[] and its underlying factual findings for clear error.”
Att’y Gen. of Okla. v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 565 F.3d 769, 776 (10th Cir. 2009).
B
The relief requested in Mr. White’s preliminary-injunction motion is an
order directing Secretary Roberts to exercise his power as head of KDOC to
“give[] [Mr. White] relief from” chronic pain by referring him to a “speciali[st]”
physician to “diagnose and treat” his claimed leg and ankle injuries. R. at 94–95.
Stated otherwise, Mr. White asked the district court to remedy a perceived
constitutional injury by ordering Secretary Roberts, as the official in charge of
KDOC, to ensure that the course of medical treatment Mr. White considered
appropriate was provided to him. That purported constitutional injury implicates
a § 1983 claim of deliberate indifference to Mr. White’s serious medical needs in
violation of the Eighth Amendment. See Boutwell v. Keating, 399 F.3d 1203,
1208 (10th Cir. 2005) (“[A] § 1983 action is a proper remedy for a state prisoner
who is making a constitutional challenge to the conditions of his prison life . . . .”
(quoting Preiser v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 475, 499 (1973)) (internal quotation
marks omitted)).
A movant seeking a preliminary injunction to remedy such an alleged
constitutional violation must establish “four factors: (1) a likelihood of success on
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the merits [of his described claim]; (2) a likelihood that [he] will suffer
irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief; (3) that the balance of
equities tips in [his] favor; and (4) that the injunction is in the public interest.”
RoDa Drilling Co., 552 F.3d at 1208; see Winter v. Natural Res. Def. Council,
Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008). The first of these factors—likelihood of success on
the merits—resolves the instant appeal; accordingly, we confine our analysis to
that issue. Cf. Republican Party of N.M. v. King, 741 F.3d 1089, 1092 (10th Cir.
2013) (resolving disposition of the injunction at the first step of our traditional
test). Because we find it exceedingly unlikely that Mr. White could prevail on the
merits of his Eighth Amendment claim, we conclude that the first factor is not
satisfied. Consequently, there was no legally cognizable predicate for the
issuance of an injunction.
Based on the allegations in Mr. White’s amended complaint, it is clear that
his claimed physical injuries date back to March 1, 2013, when he was scheduled
to begin serving fourteen days in administrative segregation for a disciplinary
violation. By his own admission, Mr. White was forcibly removed from his cell
after he refused two meals and dove under a bed to avoid the correctional officers
entering his cell. He has said that an officer “grabbed [his] left leg” to extract
him from underneath the bed, where he “was wedged in pretty tight[ly].” R. at
70.
8
Mr. White’s amended complaint also states that no prison employee
examined his leg and ankle when he visited the medical clinic after the cell
extraction, and that he “ha[s] been unable to find out . . . who denied [him]
medical care for” these ailments. Id. at 71. His allegations of physical injury
otherwise bear on the purported failure of Secretary Roberts, as KDOC’s principal
administrator, to heed approximately twelve requests for pain relief—presumably
by sending a physician Mr. White’s way, or by directing prison employees to
prescribe specific analgesics. Yet, Mr. White has averred, he was permitted to
see “a nurse or nurse practitioner,” and he received Tylenol and Meloxicam (i.e.,
another anti-inflammatory medication) to treat his pain. Id. at 79.
Absent from all of the foregoing averments is any identification by Mr.
White of a KDOC employee who knowingly disregarded an excessive risk to his
health. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 845–46 (1994); Blackmon v.
Sutton, 734 F.3d 1237, 1244 (10th Cir. 2013). That glaring deficiency forecloses
him from enunciating a proper claim of Eighth Amendment deliberate
indifference, which has a subjective component under which a plaintiff must show
that an official (a) was “aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn
that a substantial risk of serious harm exist[ed]” and (b) drew the inference. Self
v. Crum, 439 F.3d 1227, 1231 (10th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Specifically, Mr. White’s generalized allegations of dissatisfaction with the
prison medical team’s prescribed course of treatment—viz., the nurses’ and nurse
9
practitioners’ dispensation of two anti-inflammatory medications for pain relief,
and the fact that providers other than a pain-medicine physician examined
him—do not signal a likelihood of success on the merits of an Eighth Amendment
§ 1983 claim. It is well-settled in this circuit that basic disagreements with
medical professionals and complaints of failure to be referred to a specialist do
not satisfy the subjective aspect of a deliberate-indifference claim. See, e.g., Self,
439 F.3d at 1232; Oxendine v. Kaplan, 241 F.3d 1272, 1277 n.7 (10th Cir. 2001);
Ledoux v. Davies, 961 F.2d 1536, 1537 (10th Cir. 1992); Ramos v. Lamm, 639
F.2d 559, 575 (10th Cir. 1980).
Likewise, binding § 1983 medical-care jurisprudence demonstrates that
mere negligent treatment of Mr. White’s alleged injuries by KDOC
employees—which Mr. White may be asserting, under a reasonable construction
of his amended complaint’s averments—is insufficient to prove the state of mind
that will give rise to a cognizable constitutional violation. See Farmer, 511 U.S.
at 835; Blackmon, 734 F.3d at 1244–45. Consequently, because Mr. White’s
statements do not satisfy this mandatory subjective component of our deliberate-
indifference test, it is apparent that they do not demonstrate a likelihood of
success on the merits with regard to demonstrating a constitutional violation.
With no reasonable likelihood of prevailing on a claim that any KDOC
employee had the requisite state of mind to constitute deliberate indifference, we
cannot say that Mr. White has identified a true ongoing constitutional violation
10
upon which a preliminary injunction could be predicated. In other words, we find
that Mr. White lacks any legal basis to demand that the district court order
Secretary Roberts, acting on behalf of KDOC, to remedy the problem Mr. White
perceives. And we therefore reiterate our view that, due to Mr. White’s failure to
satisfy the threshold element of our preliminary-injunction test, the district
court’s denial of injunctive relief was not infected by any clear legal error. It
follows ineluctably that the court did not abuse its discretion; we therefore affirm.
C
Turning to the additional requests lodged by Mr. White in this appeal, we
note that his request for a COA is not properly before us. A COA is necessary
when a litigant wishes to appeal from “the final order in a habeas corpus
proceeding in which the detention complained of arises out of process issued by a
State court.” 28 U.S.C. § 2253(c)(1)(A); see Miller-El v. Cockrell, 537 U.S. 322,
335–36 (2003) (“Before an appeal may be entertained, a prisoner who was denied
habeas relief in the district court must first seek and obtain a COA . . . .”
(emphasis added)). However, because Mr. White’s case is not a habeas
proceeding, it is not subject to the same COA constraints. We therefore dismiss
his application because no COA is necessary for the determination of this appeal.
Finally, we address Mr. White’s motion for leave to proceed IFP. We
conclude that Mr. White has not offered any “reasoned, nonfrivolous argument on
the law and facts in support of the issues raised on appeal.” Watkins v. Leyba,
11
543 F.3d 624, 627 (10th Cir. 2008) (emphasis added) (quoting McIntosh v. U.S.
Parole Comm’n, 115 F.3d 809, 812 (10th Cir. 1997)) (internal quotation marks
omitted). As a result, we find that he is not entitled to IFP status on appeal and
deny his motion.
III
We AFFIRM the district court’s denial of injunctive relief, DISMISS Mr.
White’s application for a COA, and DENY leave to proceed IFP. We remind Mr.
White that he must continue making payments until the entire balance of his
appellate filing fee is paid.
Entered for the Court
JEROME A. HOLMES
Circuit Judge
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