Gilbert v. Lessard

Case: 19-30748 Document: 00515810534 Page: 1 Date Filed: 04/06/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
FILED
April 6, 2021
No. 19-30748
Summary Calendar Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
O'Neil Gilbert,
Plaintiff—Appellee,
versus
Shannon Lessard, Major; Jarod Verrett, Lieutenant;
Eric Lane, Master Sergeant,
Defendants—Appellants.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Louisiana
USDC No. 3:16-CV-440
Before Davis, Stewart, and Dennis, Circuit Judges.
Per Curiam:*
O’Neil Gilbert, Louisiana prisoner # 121293, filed a civil rights action
under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that corrections officers applied excessive
force to punish him for prison rule violations. A jury returned a verdict for
*
Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this
opinion should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited
circumstances set forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 19-30748 Document: 00515810534 Page: 2 Date Filed: 04/06/2021
No. 19-30748
Gilbert and assessed damages, including punitive damages, against three
defendants. In connection with the incident, Gilbert had been convicted of
prison rule violations, and his punishment included the forfeiture of good-
time credits. But Gilbert did not seek restoration of the forfeited good-time
credits in his complaint or at trial.
In an amended motion under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59 filed
four months after the judgment, the defendants asserted for the first time that
Gilbert’s § 1983 action was barred by Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477 (1994),
because it impugned the validity of prison disciplinary convictions that
resulted in the loss of good-time credits and that had not been overturned in
a habeas corpus or other proceeding. The district court denied the Rule 59
motion, finding that Gilbert did not directly or indirectly challenge the
revocation of good-time credit, and further holding that, after hearing all of
the relevant evidence, including evidence that Gilbert was uncooperative, the
jury found that the defendants applied excessive force under the
circumstances.
“A motion to alter or amend the judgment under Rule 59(e) must
clearly establish either a manifest error of law or fact or must present newly
discovered evidence and cannot be used to raise arguments which could, and
should, have been made before the judgment issued.” Schiller v. Physicians
Res. Grp. Inc., 342 F.3d 563, 567 (5th Cir. 2003) (internal quotation marks and
citation omitted). We therefore review the district court’s denial of the
Rule 59 motion only for abuse of discretion. See Trevino v. City of Fort Worth,
944 F.3d 567, 570 (5th Cir. 2019); Benson v. Tyson Foods, Inc., 889 F.3d 233,
234 (5th Cir. 2018) (addressing a motion for a new trial under Rule 59).
“Under this standard, the district court’s decision and decision-making
process need only be reasonable.” Midland W. Corp. v. F.D.I.C., 911 F.2d
1141, 1145 (5th Cir. 1990). We review the district court’s factual findings only
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No. 19-30748
for clear error. Union Mechling Corp. v. Carmadelle, 624 F.2d 677, 679 (5th
Cir. 1980).
We need not decide whether the defendants raised the Heck defense
“at a pragmatically sufficient time” to avoid Gilbert’s potential prejudice.
Simon v. United States, 891 F.2d 1154, 1159 (5th Cir. 1990) (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). Rather, we hold that the entire record—
including the complaint, the evidence, the arguments, the jury instructions,
and the verdict itself—soundly refutes the defendants’ strained contention
that Gilbert’s action was based on an assertion of absolute innocence of all
wrongdoing. The defendants thus fail to show that the district court’s factual
findings were clearly erroneous or that its ruling was unreasonable or an
abuse of discretion. See Schiller, 342 F.3d at 567; Trevino, 944 F.3d at 570;
Midland W. Corp., 911 F.2d at 1145. Heck did not bar the action because
Gilbert’s “success in the action would not necessarily”—and indeed did not—
imply the unlawfulness of his forfeiture of good-time credits. Wilkinson v.
Dotson, 544 U.S. 74, 81 (2005); see Muhammad v. Close, 540 U.S. 749, 754-55
(2004).
The judgment is AFFIRMED.
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