William H. Melendez v. Robert Brown

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 20, 2024
Docket23-12685
StatusUnpublished

This text of William H. Melendez v. Robert Brown (William H. Melendez v. Robert Brown) 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
William H. Melendez v. Robert Brown, (11th Cir. 2024).

Opinion

USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 1 of 19

[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-12424 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

WILLIAM H. MELENDEZ, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus SECRETARY OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al.,

Defendants,

BARRY REDDISH, Warden of Florida State Prison, ERIC HUMMEL, Regional Director, JOHN PALMER, USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 2 of 19

2 Opinion of the Court 23-12424

Assistant Regional Director, P. HUNTER, Classification Officer, KEVIN TOMLINSON, Classification Supervisor, et al.,

Defendants-Appellants.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 3:20-cv-01023-BJD-JBT ____________________

No. 23-12685 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________

WILLIAM H. MELENDEZ, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus WARDEN, FLORIDA STATE PRISON, et al., USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 3 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 3

ROBERT BROWN, WILLIAM HALL, DANIEL PHILBERT, Correctional Officers,

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 3:20-cv-01023-BJD-JBT ____________________

Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: This appeal invites us to decide whether various officials em- ployed by the Florida Department of Corrections (the “FDC”) are entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The FDC officials (collectively, the “Defendants”) appeal the denial of their summary judgment motion, in which they asserted qualified immunity as to William Melendez’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims that they subjected him to unconstitutional conditions of confinement. The district court denied summary judgment because it USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 4 of 19

4 Opinion of the Court 23-12424

determined that the record raised a genuine issue of material fact. Because the Defendants’ appeal hinges on issues of evidentiary suf- ficiency, which we lack interlocutory jurisdiction to review, we dis- miss this appeal. I. BACKGROUND Before his release from prison in February 2024, Melendez, now sixty-four-years-old, was an inmate of the Florida penal sys- tem. 1 While incarcerated in 2021, he filed a second amended com- plaint for damages and injunctive relief against the Defendants, the FDC and other state officials. Melendez brought claims under § 1983, alleging violations under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as violations of the Americans with Disabili- ties Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. At issue in this appeal are Melendez’s Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claims against Defendants Davis, Hum- mel, Palmer, McClellan, Reddish, Hunter and Tomlinson (the “Managerial Defendants”); and Defendants Brown, Hall, and Phil- bert (the “Officer Defendants”). The conditions-of-confinement claims against the Manage- rial and Officer Defendants have been thoroughly litigated through preliminary injunction proceedings. A previous panel of our Court affirmed the district court’s entry of a preliminary injunction, find- ing that the district court did not clearly err in determining that

1 Melendez’s brief notes that he was released from prison in February 2024 but

that he remains on mandatory supervised release until September 2024. USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 5 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 5

Menendez was likely to succeed on the merits of his Eighth Amendment claim. See Melendez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 21- 13455, 2022 WL 1124753 (11th Cir. Apr. 15, 2022) (“Melendez I”). The factual allegations that are relevant to this appeal remain largely the same as in Melendez I. Melendez was first placed in FDC custody in October 2011. In his second amended complaint, Melendez claimed that, for much of his time in prison, the Defendants classified him as “Close Management” (“CM”), which FDC uses to isolate inmates that FDC has determined cannot remain in the general prison popula- tion without abusing the rights and privileges of others. See Melen- dez I, 2022 WL 1124753, at *1. Melendez also claimed that he was kept in “CM I,” the most restrictive level of CM. Id. He alleged that the Defendants, through their CM-related practices and poli- cies, subjected him “to a substantial risk of serious harm and de- prived him of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities and basic human dignity by exposing him to excessive periods of isola- tion in deplorable conditions.” Id. And he alleged that the Defend- ants knew of these deprivations but remained deliberately indiffer- ent to them by failing to respond in a reasonable manner, in viola- tion of the Eighth Amendment. Id. Following our decision in Melendez I and after extensive dis- covery, the Managerial and Officer Defendants moved for sum- mary judgment on all counts, arguing, among other things, that they were entitled to qualified immunity on Melendez’s Eighth Amendment claim. Of relevance to this appeal, the district court USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 6 of 19

6 Opinion of the Court 23-12424

denied the summary judgment motions on Melendez’s Eighth Amendment claim after concluding that a reasonable jury could find that the Managerial and Officer Defendants knowingly sub- jected Melendez to conditions of confinement that were clearly es- tablished to be unconstitutional. Both sets of Defendants then filed interlocutory appeals, which we consolidated for review. II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW “We review de novo a district court’s denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, applying the same legal standards that governed the district court.” Feliciano v. City of Mi- ami Beach, 707 F.3d 1244, 1247 (11th Cir. 2013). This requires us to construe the evidence and draw all inferences in the light most fa- vorable to the plaintiff. Id. We also review our jurisdiction de novo. Cavalieri v. Avior Airlines C.A., 25 F.4th 843, 848 (11th Cir. 2022). III. ANALYSIS “We have a threshold obligation to ensure that we have ju- risdiction to hear an appeal.” Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc., 965 F.3d 1222, 1227 (11th Cir. 2020). When qualified immunity is denied at summary judgment, “the type of issue involved” determines whether we have interlocutory jurisdiction. Koch v. Rugg, 221 F.3d 1283, 1295 (11th Cir. 2000). When an appellant raises “core quali- fied immunity” questions, which involve legal issues underlying the analysis, we have jurisdiction over the appeal. Id. (quoting Cot- trell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1484 (11th Cir. 1996)). But we lack jurisdiction when the “issue presented in the qualified immunity USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 7 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 7

context challenges only sufficiency of the evidence relative to a ‘predicate factual element of the underlying constitutional tort.’” Id. at 1296 (quoting Dolihite v. Maughon ex rel. Videon, 74 F.3d 1027, 1033 n.3 (11th Cir. 1996)).

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William H. Melendez v. Robert Brown, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/william-h-melendez-v-robert-brown-ca11-2024.