Nolan Bizzell v. Franklin Tennis

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
___________
No. 11-1529
___________
NOLAN BIZZELL,
Appellant
v.
SUPERINTENDENT FRANKLIN J. TENNIS;
MAJOR MORRIS; CAPTAIN EDEN; C.O. PORTER
____________________________________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. Civil No. 3-09-cv-01353)
District Judge: Honorable Richard P. Conaboy
____________________________________
Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)
October 18, 2011
Before: SCIRICA, GREENAWAY, JR., and VAN ANTWERPEN, Circuit Judges
(Filed: October 24, 2011)
_________
OPINION OF THE COURT
_________
PER CURIAM.
Pro se plaintiff Nolan Bizzell appeals orders granting summary judgment in favor
of the defendants and denying a motion for reconsideration. Having reviewed the record,
we are in full accord with the District Court and will affirm its judgment.
The basic facts of this lawsuit are not in dispute. During the time in controversy,
Bizzell was incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution at Rockview, located in
Bellefonte, Pennsylvania. In early 2007, he was paired with a new cellmate, Baron
Powell, whose threatening remarks, erratic behavior, and racialist tendencies were cause
for some alarm. On several occasions, Bizzell complained to prison staff members
(including defendant Corrections Officer Porter) about his stormy relationship with
Powell—for example, informing a Sergeant that “my celly is crazy”—and was instructed
to “keep doing what you’re doing” and “stay out of trouble.” Bizzell, who was focused
on “get[ting his] GED” and “conduct[ing] [him]self as a positive citizen,” as well as on
keeping his prison job, followed this advice, and for some time the tension between the
two cellmates remained purely verbal.
On July 6, 2007, Bizzell discovered a four-inch-long bolt in his property box.
Recognizing that it was contraband—and, worse, contraband that could “be sharpened . .
. [into] a potential weapon”—Bizzell took the bolt to defendant Porter, informing him
that he “found this in [his] property and [he] did not put it there.” Bizzell further told
Porter that he suspected Powell to be the culprit, as no other inmate could have placed the
contraband in the cell. Bizzell suspected that Powell was “trying to set [him] up” (i.e. get
him cited for misconduct); he also may have told Porter that he was concerned about
personal safety. 1 Porter assured Bizzell that he would “take care of it.”
1
The facts as recounted by Bizzell in his deposition do not entirely correspond to what he
included in his pleadings. In the complaint and in his response to the defendants’ motion
2
The next day, Bizzell went to see defendant Major Morris. He again explained the
situation regarding the bolt, implicating Powell and emphasizing that he did not wish to
be sanctioned for this possible contraband. In response to Bizzell’s worries over Porter’s
apparent lack of action, Morris told Bizzell to “stop being paranoid,” advised him to see a
psychiatrist to “get [his] medication upped,” and walked away.
Undeterred, Bizzell continued to seek help, asking his work supervisor (Crispell, a
non-party) to call defendant Captain Eden. Crispell did so, informed Eden of the
for summary judgment, he described telling various employees of the prison (some of
whom are parties, some of whom are not) that he was concerned for his personal safety
and that Powell “would attack him as he was being bullied by him.” His deposition
testimony (which, we should note, is not reproduced in full in the defendants’
submissions, and does not contain much material associated with Bizzell’s non-party
discussions) was more equivocal, couched more in terms of the potential institutional and
collateral harm connected to being caught with contraband:
Q. Why, if he wanted to cause you harm, would he hide the bolt in your
stuff as opposed to his stuff?
A. Well, wouldn’t you think it would be easier if the shakedown came in
your cell and there’s an object in there, who would get in trouble? Either
way, whatever which way it goes; physically, mentally, emotionally or
whatever which way it will go, I would be harmed because everything I
did, my outside clearance, my education, my schoolwork. You have to
have a certain clearance to do what I was doing where there’s an outside
clearance. I can work outside without supervision, so I don’t have to
have a staff member with me. So if they go and find that in my cell, there’s
no, oh, I don't know how that got there. That’s a misconduct, you know
that. And I believe I did the right thing as the policy say[s], when you find
any contraband, because I’m responsible for what’s [] in that cell,
regardless if it’s mine or not mine, I am to take it up to the officer
immediately.
Dep. Tr. 42:22–43:19, ECF No. 19-2. Bizzell elsewhere admitted that his complaint
contained some factual inaccuracies. See, e.g., Dep. Tr. 62:10–14 (clarifying that his
“several days” of hospitalization was actually just “one day”).
3
situation, and told Bizzell of Eden’s advice: “not to worry about it.”
Later that day, after speaking to several other individuals—and apparently issuing
an agitated plea to non-party Nurse Paula, in which he described his fears of an
impending attack—Bizzell was assaulted in his cell by Powell. Bizzell sustained serious
injuries from the beating and was briefly hospitalized. During his convalescence, he met
with defendant Superintendent Tennis, with whom he had not previously spoken.
After exhausting his administrative grievances, 2 and following his release from
prison and his relocation to Florida, Bizzell initiated this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against
defendants Tennis, Morris, Eden, and Porter, alleging that they violated his rights under
the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution by displaying “deliberat[e]
indifferen[ce] to his personal safety by ignoring repeated complaints and requests for
assistance for protection from [Powell].” Compl. ¶ 1, ECF No. 1. The defendants moved
for summary judgment. The presiding Magistrate Judge issued a Report and
Recommendation (R&R) in favor of summary judgment; Bizzell filed objections, but did
not do so in a timely fashion. Accordingly, the District Court performed “clear error”
review of the R&R and granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants. Bizzell
moved for reconsideration of this outcome, after the denial of which he filed a timely
notice of appeal.
“We exercise plenary review of the district court’s grant of defendants’ motion for
2
See 42 U.S.C. § 1997e(a).
4
summary judgment.” Fontroy v. Owens, 150 F.3d 239, 242 (3d Cir. 1998). 3 In so doing,
we apply “the same standard that the lower court should have applied.” Farrell v.
Planters Lifesavers Co., 206 F.3d 271, 278 (3d Cir. 2000); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a)
(summary judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact
and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law”). 4 In determining whether
summary judgment is appropriate, we must “view all evidence and draw all inferences in
the light most favorable to the non-moving party.” Startzell v. City of Phila., 533 F.3d
183, 192 (3d Cir. 2008). “[T]he non-moving party must rebut the [summary-judgment]
motion with facts in the record and cannot rest solely on assertions made in the pleadings
[or in] legal memoranda . . . .” Berckeley Inv. Group, Ltd. v. Colkitt, 455 F.3d 195, 201
3
Our selection of a standard of review is complicated somewhat by Bizzell’s untimely
filing of objections to the R&R; indeed, he specifically asks us to deem his objections
timely and remand the case to the District Court for de novo review. His argument to this
end, which is based on the “confusing” nature of the local and Federal rules, is
unavailing. See Ogden v. San Juan Cnty., 32 F.3d 452, 455 (10th Cir. 1994) (observing
that pro se status is no excuse for failure to follow Federal Rules); see also McNeil v.
United States, 508 U.S. 106, 113 (1993) (“[W]e have never suggested that procedural
rules in ordinary civil litigation should be interpreted so as to excuse mistakes by those
who proceed without counsel.”). However, despite “denying” Bizzell’s motion for
reconsideration, the District Court functionally analyzed his objections de novo;
therefore, we need not determine what effect his failure to timely object may have had on
our standard of review. See Brightwell v. Lehman, 637 F.3d 187, 193 n.7 (3d Cir. 2011);
Henderson v. Carlson, 812 F.2d 874, 878 n.4 (3d Cir. 1987). As the sole focus of the
motion for reconsideration was in fact achieved in all but name, we will not discuss it
further herein.
4
The R&R issued on November 29, 2010, and the District Court entered its order on
December 20, 2010. In the interim, the 2010 revisions to the Federal Rules went into
effect. We cite above to the December 2010 revision, but the differences between the old
and new Rule 56 do not affect the substantive summary-judgment standard. See Fed. R.
Civ. P. 56 advisory committee’s 2010 note.
5
(3d Cir. 2006) (internal citations and quotations omitted).
We agree that the defendants were entitled to summary judgment. The Eighth
Amendment’s prohibition on “cruel and unusual punishments” has “been interpreted to
impose a duty upon prison officials to take reasonable measures to protect prisoners from
violence at the hands of other prisoners.” Hamilton v. Leavy, 117 F.3d 742, 746 (3d Cir.
1997) (citations and quotations omitted). But “a prison official cannot be found liable
under the Eighth Amendment for denying an inmate humane conditions of confinement
unless the official knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety.”
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994) (emphasis added); see also Betts v. New
Castle Youth Dev. Ctr., 621 F.3d 249, 256 (3d Cir. 2010). “Consequently, to survive
summary judgment on an Eighth Amendment claim asserted under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, a
plaintiff is required to produce sufficient evidence of (1) a substantial risk of serious
harm; (2) the defendants’ deliberate indifference to that risk; and (3) causation.”
Hamilton, 117 F.3d at 746 (emphasis added). Here, there is no indication that the
defendants were aware of a serious risk posed to Bizzell by Powell. The two had not
previously fought; Bizzell’s pre-July complaints focused on Powell’s instability and not
his potential for (and threats of) violence. Even if we were to follow the July events as
Bizzell describes them in his complaint and memorandum of law, his expressions of fear
upon finding the bolt were mixed with concerns over disciplinary sanctions for
contraband. The bolt itself, as Bizzell admits, was not fashioned into a weapon, and had
been confiscated by the defendants before the assault. Powell’s disciplinary history,
6
meanwhile, suggests a troublemaker with violent tendencies—hardly an ideal cellmate
for Bizzell 5—but (as the District Court explained) his citations for fighting were from
September 2005, and therefore did not suggest an immediate risk of violence. See
Brennan, 511 U.S. at 837 (“[T]he official must both be aware of facts from which the
inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also
draw the inference.”); Carter v. Galloway, 352 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2003) (in case
with similar fact pattern, “before Defendants’ awareness arises to a sufficient level of
culpability, there must be much more than mere awareness of [a cellmate’s] generally
problematic nature”); cf. Verdecia v. Adams, 327 F.3d 1171, 1175–76 (10th Cir. 2003)
(distinguishing Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference from situations in which a
defendant is “negligent in assessing [a] risk”). Finally, Bizzell has shown no personal
involvement by defendant Tennis in any aspect of a potential constitutional violation, and
§ 1983 liability cannot be premised solely on respondeat superior. Evancho v. Fisher,
423 F.3d 347, 353 (3d Cir. 2005) (citing Rode v. Dellarciprete, 845 F.2d 1195, 1207 (3d
Cir. 1988)).
In sum, while we agree with the defendants that the assault was tragic, we also
believe that they did not demonstrate the deliberate indifference to a serious risk of harm
required for liability under the Eighth Amendment. We will therefore affirm the
judgment of the District Court.
5
Of course, Bizzell had no constitutional right to a cellmate of his choosing. See Murray
v. Bledsoe, ___ F.3d ___, No. 10-4397, 2011 WL 2279428, at *1 (3d Cir. June 10, 2011).
7