Brandon Carrier v. Matt Patterson

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
• Decided: October 18, 2024
• Docket: 23-5872
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION File Name: 24a0411n.06

No. 23-5872

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT FILED Oct 18, 2024 ) KELLY L. STEPHENS, Clerk BRANDON CARRIER, ) Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ON APPEAL FROM U.S. ) v. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE ) EASTERN DISTRICT OF ) MATT PATTERSON, Captain of Carter County Jail, ) TENNESSEE

Defendant-Appellee. ) OPINION )

Before: McKEAGUE, KETHLEDGE, and NALBANDIAN, Circuit Judges.

KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge. Brandon Carrier sued Captain Matt Patterson for alleged

constitutional violations related to Carrier’s conditions of confinement in the Carter County Jail.

The district court dismissed Carrier’s pro se complaint under the Prison Litigation Reform Act’s

prescreening mechanism. See 28 U.S.C. § 1915A. Now represented by counsel, Carrier appeals.

We affirm.

I.

According to Carrier’s complaint, Captain Patterson placed Carrier in administrative

segregation as early as April 2023. There, Carrier spent most of each day in an isolation cell “used

for medical watch or short term lockdown” and took meals and recreation time alone. On May 22,

2023, Carrier was alone in the recreation area while jail staff served lunch to inmates inside their

cells. Corrections Officer Rymer (not a defendant here) opened inmate Bobby Lee Porter Jr.’s cell

door, which gave Porter access to the recreation area and thus to Carrier. Porter attacked Carrier, No. 23-5872, Carrier v. Patterson

threatened to “knock [him] out” and “F— [him],” and then pulled down his own pants and tried

“to mount” Carrier. Carrier’s complaint does not state what happened next but says the incident

caused him to experience “flashbacks an[d] nightmares” related to sexual abuse he suffered as a

child.

Carrier sued Patterson under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for placing him in isolation, for failing to

protect him from Porter, and for preventing him from pressing charges against Porter. The district

court screened Carrier’s complaint under the PLRA and dismissed it for failure to state a claim.

See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1915(e)(2)(B), 1915A; Benson v. O’Brian, 179 F.3d 1014 (6th Cir. 1999). This

appeal followed.

II.

We review de novo a district court’s dismissal of a prisoner’s complaint under the PLRA’s

screening mechanism. Thomas v. Eby, 481 F.3d 434, 437 (6th Cir. 2007). “In determining whether

a prisoner has failed to state a claim, we construe his complaint in the light most favorable to him,

accept his factual allegations as true, and determine whether he can prove any set of facts that

would entitle him to relief.” Wershe v. Combs, 763 F.3d 500, 505 (6th Cir. 2014).

Carrier argues that the district court applied the wrong standard to his failure-to-protect

claim, and he is probably right. The Eighth Amendment’s protection against “cruel and unusual

punishment” imposes a duty on prison officials “to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of

other prisoners.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 833 (1994). “The Due Process Clause of the

Fourteenth Amendment provides the same protections to pretrial detainees.” Westmoreland v.

Butler County, 29 F.4th 721, 727 (6th Cir. 2022). Although Carrier’s complaint invokes the Eighth

Amendment’s protections against cruel and unusual punishment, it also indicates that his “place

of present confinement” was the “Carter County Jail” and references “Sheriff Mike Frayley.”

-2- No. 23-5872, Carrier v. Patterson

Given the liberality with which we read pro se complaints, we agree that the district court should

have applied the Fourteenth Amendment to these facts. See Williams v. Curtin, 631 F.3d 380, 383

(6th Cir. 2011).

Until recently we analyzed Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment claims under the same two-

prong analysis, which required the inmate to show that he was, “objectively speaking, incarcerated

under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm” and that the defendant “was

subjectively aware of the risk and failed to take reasonable measures to abate it.” Reedy v. West,

988 F.3d 907, 912 (6th Cir. 2021) (cleaned up). But we have since held that the different

amendments require different standards for the subjective component of the test. See Brawner v.

Scott County, 14 F.4th 585, 596 (6th Cir. 2021). The objective component remains the same for

both. See Westmoreland, 29 F.4th at 729.

We need only address the objective component here. Under that component, to bring a

failure-to-protect claim, a plaintiff must plead facts to show that his conditions of confinement

posed “a substantial risk of serious harm.” Id. at 726. Not “every injury suffered by one prisoner

at the hands of another . . . translates into constitutional liability for prison officials responsible for

the victim’s safety.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834. Thus, “[e]ven where a serious injury occurs, the

objective prong of a failure-to-protect claim requires an analysis of the risk to the injured party

before the alleged injury occurred.” Zakora v. Chrisman, 44 F.4th 452, 469 (6th Cir. 2022).

Relatedly, a plaintiff must plausibly allege that the defendant “act[ed] intentionally in a manner

that” created those conditions of confinement and that his injury resulted from the defendant’s act

or omission. Westmoreland, 29 F.4th at 729.

Carrier alleges that Patterson placed him in administrative segregation at least one month

before Porter’s assault. Those conditions of confinement did not expose Carrier to a substantial

-3- No. 23-5872, Carrier v. Patterson

risk of serious harm. Indeed, Patterson apparently recognized that Carrier was at risk and isolated

him for his own protection. Even so, Carrier insists that “he faced a substantial risk of serious

harm in the moments before Porter attacked him.” Appellant Br. at 13. But that risk arose from

Rymer’s conduct—not Patterson’s isolation order. Thus, Porter’s access to Carrier was not a

condition of confinement that Patterson—the only defendant here—created. Nor does that

condition of confinement still exist. Despite Carrier’s insistence that a “substantial risk persists”

because he and Porter live on the same cell block, nothing in the complaint suggests that the

proximity of their cells presents the same risk of harm that existed when Porter was released with

Carrier in the recreation area. Thus, even though the district court technically should have applied

the Fourteenth rather than the Eighth Amendment, it correctly held that Carrier failed to state a

claim. And we can affirm here on any basis supported by the record. Murphy v. Nat’l City Bank,

560 F.3d 530, 535 (6th Cir. 2009).

Carrier also argues that the district court erred by entering a dismissal with prejudice—on

a pre-service screening—without first giving him the opportunity to amend. Appellant Br. at 20.

We review the dismissal with prejudice for abuse of discretion. Evans v. Pearson Enters., 434

F.3d 839, 853 (6th Cir. 2006).

On this point, Carrier’s arguments support only the proposition that, if Carrier had asked

for leave to amend, the court could have granted it. But Carrier never asked for such leave, and “a

district court does not abuse its discretion in failing to grant a party leave to amend where such

leave is not sought.” Sinay v. Lamson & Sessions Co., 948 F.2d 1037, 1042 (6th Cir. 1991). Nor

do we see any miscarriage of justice resulting from the dismissal. The district court did not abuse

its discretion.

The district court’s judgment is affirmed.

-4-