Estate of Jason Jerry Owens v. Geo Group, Inc.

660 F. App'x 763
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 25, 2016
Docket15-10474
StatusUnpublished
Cited by48 cases

This text of 660 F. App'x 763 (Estate of Jason Jerry Owens v. Geo Group, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Jason Jerry Owens v. Geo Group, Inc., 660 F. App'x 763 (11th Cir. 2016).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

This appeal arises out of an inmate-on-inmate attack in a Florida prison that resulted in the death of Jason Owens. Gretchen Leeper, as the personal representative of Owens’s estate, sued GEO Group, Inc. (“GEO”), Warden Mark Henry, Assistant Warden Tony Stewart, teacher Greg Davis, and security guard Jessie E. Strickland (collectively, the “Defendants”), in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida, alleging a deliberate indifference claim under the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution and a wrongful death claim under Florida law. Initially, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the Defendants on Leeper’s deliberate indifference claim, but denied it as to her Florida wrongful death claim and retained supplemental jurisdiction over that matter. Two months later, the district court sua sponte reconsidered its order, declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the wrongful death claim, and dismissed the remainder of the case without prejudice so that *766 Leeper could refile the wrongful death claim in state court.

Leeper appealed, challenging the district court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of the Defendants on her deliberate indifference claim. The Defendants cross-appealed, in turn, arguing that the district court wrongfully denied summary judgment as to Leeper’s Florida wrongful death claim, and abused its discretion by declining to retain supplemental jurisdiction over that claim. Leeper then moved us to dismiss the Defendants’ cross-appeal, which a panel of this Court granted in part; we dismissed the cross-appeal from the district court’s order which denied summary judgment on the state wrongful death claim. 1 However, we allowed the cross-appeal from the district court’s order declining to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim to proceed. After thorough review, and having the benefit of oral argument, we affirm the judgment of the district court granting summary judgment to the Defendants on the Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference claim and we also affirm the district court’s determination to decline to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claim.

I.

A.

First, we are unpersuaded by Leeper’s claim that the district court erred by granting summary judgment in favor of the Defendants on her Eighth Amendment deliberate indifference claim. We review de novo the district court’s decision on a motion for summary judgment, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff. Terrell v. Smith, 668 F.3d 1244, 1249-60 (11th Cir. 2012). Summary judgment is proper when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (quotation omitted); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 66(a). “A party asserting that a fact ... is genuinely disputed must support the assertion by .., citing to particular parts of materials in the record,... ” Fed. R. Civ. P. 66(c)(1)(A). Summary judgment is, therefore, warranted “against a party who fails to make a. showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party’s case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial.” Celotex, 477 U.S. at 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548.

Section 1983 creates a private civil rights cause of action for the deprivation of federal rights by persons acting under col- or of state law. 42 U.S.C. § 1983. “It is undisputed that the treatment a prisoner receives in prison and the conditions under which he is confined are subject to scrutiny under the-Eighth Amendment.” Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 31, 113 S.Ct. 2475, 125 L.Ed.2d 22 (1993). “The Eighth Amendment imposes a duty on prison officials to take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.” Caldwell v. Warden, FCI Talladega, 748 F.3d 1090, 1099 (11th Cir. 2014) (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994)) (alterations and quotations omitted). “Having incarcerated *767 ‘persons [with] demonstrated proclivities] for antisocial criminal, and often violent, conduct,’ having stripped them of virtually every means of self-protection and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the government and its officials are not free to let the state of nature take its course.” Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (citation omitted). Thus, it has long been recognized that “prison officials have a duty to protect prisoners from violence at the hands of other prisoners.” Id. (quotation and alteration omitted). However, 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.” Id. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970; Purcell v. Toombs County, 400 F.3d 1313, 1321 (11th Cir. 2005) (“[A] prison custodian is not the guarantor of a prisoner’s safety.” (quotation omitted)).

“A prison official violates the Eighth Amendment when a substantial risk of serious harm, of which the official is subjectively aware, exists and the official does not respond reasonably to the risk.” Caldwell, 748 F.3d at 1099 (quoting Carter v. Galloway, 352 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir. 2003)) (quotation and emphasis omitted). To prevail on this kind of § 1983 claim, the plaintiff must establish: (1) a substantial risk of serious harm; (2) the defendants’ deliberate indifference to that risk; and (3) a causal connection between the defendants’ conduct and the Eighth Amendment violation. Brooks v. Warden, 800 F.3d 1295, 1301 (11th Cir. 2015). The determination of a substantial risk of serious harm is measured against an objective standard. Caldwell, 748 F.3d at 1099. The alleged condition must be “so extreme that it poses an unreasonable risk of serious damage to the prisoner’s health or safety.” Richardson v. Johnson, 598 F.3d 734, 737 (11th Cir. 2010). Thus, there must be a “strong likelihood” of injury, “rather than a mere possibility,” before an official’s failure to act can constitute deliberate indifference. Brown v. Hughes, 894 F.2d 1533, 1537 (11th Cir. 1990) (quotations omitted), Moreover, the risk must be actual, rather than potential or speculative. See Carter, 352 F.3d at 1349-50. So, for example, a prisoner’s exposure to the potential for a fight does not, in and of itself, constitute substantial risk of harm. Purcell, 400 F.3d at 1323 (“In the jail setting, a risk of harm to some degree always exists by the nature of its being a jail.”).

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