PER CURIAM
WILKINS V. GADDY
559 U. S. ____ (2010)
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
JAMEY L. WILKINS
v. OFFICER GADDY
on petition for writ of certiorari to the united
states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
No. 08–10914. Decided February 22, 2010
Per Curiam.
In
Hudson v.
McMillian,
503 U. S. 1, 4 (1992),
this Court held that “the use of excessive physical force against a
prisoner may constitute cruel and unusual punishment [even] when
the inmate does not suffer serious injury.” In this case, the
District Court dismissed a prisoner’s excessive force claim based
entirely on its determination that his injuries were “
de
minimis.” Because the District Court’s approach, affirmed on
appeal, is at odds with
Hudson’s direction to decide
excessive force claims based on the nature of the force rather than
the extent of the injury, the petition for certiorari is granted,
and the judgment is reversed.
I
In March 2008, petitioner Jamey
Wilkins, a North Carolina state prisoner, filed suit in the United
States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina
pursuant to 42 U. S. C. §1983. Wilkins’
pro se
complaint alleged that, on June 13, 2007, he was “maliciously and
sadistically” assaulted “[w]ithout any provocation” by a
corrections officer, respondent Gaddy.[
Footnote 1] App. to Pet. for Cert. C–4. According to the
complaint, Gaddy, apparently angered by Wilkins’ request for a
grievance form, “snatched [Wilkins] off the ground and slammed him
onto the concrete floor.”
Ibid. Gaddy “then proceeded to
punch, kick, knee and choke [Wilkins] until another officer had to
physically remove him from [Wilkins].”
Ibid. Wilkins
further alleged that, “[a]s a result of the excessive force used by
[Gaddy], [he] sustained multiple physical injuries including a
bruised heel, lower back pain, increased blood pressure, as well as
migraine headaches and dizziness” and “psychological trauma and
mental anguish including depression, panic attacks and nightmares
of the assault.”
Ibid.
The District Court, on its own
motion and without a response from Gaddy, dismissed Wilkins’
complaint for failure to state a claim. Citing Circuit precedent,
the court stated that, “[i]n order to state an excessive force
claim under the Eighth Amendment, a plaintiff must establish that
he received more than a
de minimus [sic] injury.”
No. 3:08–cv–00138 (WD NC, Apr. 16, 2008), pp. 1, 2 (citing
Taylor v.
McDuffie, 155 F. 3d 479, 483 (CA4
1998);
Riley v.
Dorton, 115 F. 3d 1159, 1166 (CA4
1997) (en banc); footnote omitted). According to the court,
Wilkins’ alleged injuries were no more severe than those deemed
de minimis in the Circuit’s
Taylor and
Riley decisions. Indeed, the court noted, Wilkins nowhere
asserted that his injuries had required medical attention.
In a motion for reconsideration, Wilkins
stated that he was unaware that the failure to allege medical
treatment might prejudice his claim. He asserted that he had been
prescribed, and continued to take, medication for his headaches and
back pain, as well as for depression. And he attached medical
records purporting to corroborate his injuries and course of
treatment.
Describing reconsideration as “an
extraordinary remedy,” the court declined to revisit its previous
ruling. No. 3:08–cv–00138 (WD NC, Aug. 25, 2008), p. 1. The
medical records, the court observed, indicated that some of
Wilkins’ alleged injuries “were pre-existing conditions.”
Id., at 3. Wilkins had sought treatment for high blood
pressure and mental health issues even before the assault. The
court acknowledged that Wilkins received an X ray after the
incident “to examine his ‘bruised heel,’ ” but it “note[d] that
bruising is generally considered a
de minimus
[sic] injury.”
Id., at 4. The court similarly
characterized as
de minimis Wilkins’ complaints of back
pain and headaches. The court denied Wilkins leave to amend his
complaint. In a summary disposition, the Court of Appeals affirmed
“for the reasons stated by the district court.” No. 08–7881 (CA4,
Jan. 23, 2009).
II
In requiring what amounts to a
showing of significant injury in order to state an excessive force
claim, the Fourth Circuit has strayed from the clear holding of
this Court in
Hudson. Like Wilkins, the prisoner in
Hudson filed suit under §1983 alleging that corrections
officers had used excessive force in violation of the Eighth
Amendment. Evidence indicated that the officers had punched Hudson
in the mouth, eyes, chest, and stomach without justification,
resulting in “minor bruises and swelling of his face, mouth, and
lip” as well as loosened teeth and a cracked partial dental plate.
503 U. S., at 4. A Magistrate Judge entered judgment in Hudson’s
favor, but the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed,
holding that an inmate must prove “a significant injury” in order
to state an excessive force claim.
Hudson v.
McMillian, 929 F. 2d 1014, 1015 (1990)
(per
curiam). According to the Court of Appeals, Hudson’s injuries,
which had not required medical attention, were too “minor” to
warrant relief.
Ibid.
Reversing the Court of Appeals,
this Court rejected the notion that “significant injury” is a
threshold requirement for stating an excessive force claim. The
“core judicial inquiry,” we held, was not whether a certain quantum
of injury was sustained, but rather “whether force was applied in a
good-faith effort to maintain or restore discipline, or maliciously
and sadistically to cause harm.” 503 U. S., at 7; see also
Whitley v.
Albers,
475 U. S. 312, 319–321
(1986). “When prison officials maliciously and sadistically use
force to cause harm,” the Court recognized, “contemporary standards
of decency always are violated … whether or not significant injury
is evident. Otherwise, the Eighth Amendment would permit any
physical punishment, no matter how diabolic or inhuman, inflicting
less than some arbitrary quantity of injury.”
Hudson, 503
U. S., at 9; see also
id., at 13–14 (Blackmun, J.,
concurring in judgment) (“The Court today appropriately puts to
rest a seriously misguided view that pain inflicted by an excessive
use of force is actionable under the Eighth Amendment only when
coupled with ‘significant injury,’
e.g., injury that
requires medical attention or leaves permanent marks”).
This is not to say that the “absence of
serious injury” is irrelevant to the Eighth Amendment inquiry.
Id., at 7. “[T]he extent of injury suffered by an inmate
is one factor that may suggest ‘whether the use of force could
plausibly have been thought necessary’ in a particular situation.”
Ibid. (quoting
Whitley, 475 U. S., at 321). The
extent of injury may also provide some indication of the amount of
force applied. As we stated in
Hudson, not “every
malevolent touch by a prison guard gives rise to a federal cause of
action.” 503 U. S., at 9. “The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of
‘cruel and unusual’ punishments necessarily excludes from
constitutional recognition
de minimis uses of physical
force, provided that the use of force is not of a sort repugnant to
the conscience of mankind.”
Ibid. (some internal quotation
marks omitted). An inmate who complains of a “push or shove” that
causes no discernible injury almost certainly fails to state a
valid excessive force claim.
Ibid. (quoting
Johnson v.
Glick, 481 F. 2d 1028, 1033 (CA2
1973)).
Injury and force, however, are only
imperfectly correlated, and it is the latter that ultimately
counts. An inmate who is gratuitously beaten by guards does not
lose his ability to pursue an excessive force claim merely because
he has the good fortune to escape without serious injury.
Accordingly, the Court concluded in
Hudson that the
supposedly “minor” nature of the injuries “provide[d] no basis for
dismissal of [Hudson’s] §1983 claim” because “the blows directed at
Hudson, which caused bruises, swelling, loosened teeth, and a
cracked dental plate, are not
de minimis for Eighth
Amendment purposes.” 503 U. S., at 10.
The allegations made by Wilkins in this case
are quite similar to the facts in
Hudson, and the District
Court’s analysis closely resembles the approach
Hudson
disavowed. Wilkins alleged that he was punched, kicked, kneed,
choked, and body slammed “maliciously and sadistically” and
“[w]ithout any provocation.” Dismissing Wilkins’ action
sU.
S.onte, the District Court did not hold that this purported
assault, which allegedly left Wilkins with a bruised heel, back
pain, and other injuries requiring medical treatment, involved
de minimis force. Instead, the court concluded that
Wilkins had failed to state a claim because “he simply has not
alleged that he suffered anything more than de minimus
[sic] injury.” No. 3:08–cv–00138 (WD NC, Apr. 16, 2008),
at 2.
In giving decisive weight to the purportedly
de minimis nature of Wilkins’ injuries, the District Court
relied on two Fourth Circuit cases. See
Riley, 115
F. 3d, at 1166–1168;
Taylor, 155 F. 3d, at
483–485. Those cases, in turn, were based upon the Fourth Circuit’s
earlier decision in
Norman v.
Taylor, 25
F. 3d 1259 (1994) (en banc), which approved the practice of
using injury as a proxy for force. According to the Fourth Circuit,
Hudson “does not foreclose and indeed is consistent with
[the] view … that, absent the most extraordinary circumstances, a
plaintiff cannot prevail on an Eighth Amendment excessive force
claim if his injuries are
de minimis.” 25 F. 3d, at
1263.
The Fourth Circuit’s strained reading of
Hudson is not defensible. This Court’s decision did not,
as the Fourth Circuit would have it, merely serve to lower the
injury threshold for excessive force claims from “significant” to
“non-
de minimis”—whatever those ill-defined terms might
mean. Instead, the Court aimed to shift the “core judicial inquiry”
from the extent of the injury to the nature of the
force—specifically, whether it was nontrivial and “was applied …
maliciously and sadistically to cause harm.” 503 U. S., at 7. To
conclude, as the District Court did here, that the absence of “some
arbitrary quantity of injury” requires automatic dismissal of an
excessive force claim improperly bypasses this core inquiry.
Id., at 9.[
Footnote
2]
In holding that the District Court erred in
dismissing Wilkins’ complaint based on the supposedly
de
minimis nature of his injuries, we express no view on the
underlying merits of his excessive force claim. In order to
prevail, Wilkins will ultimately have to prove not only that the
assault actually occurred but also that it was carried out
“maliciously and sadistically” rather than as part of “a good-faith
effort to maintain or restore discipline.”
Ibid. Moreover,
even if Wilkins succeeds, the relatively modest nature of his
alleged injuries will no doubt limit the damages he may
recover.
* * *
The petition for certiorari and
the motion for leave to proceed
in forma pauperis are
granted. The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the
case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this
opinion.
It is so ordered.
Footnote 1
The materials in the record do not disclose
Gaddy’s full name.
Footnote 2
Most Circuits to consider the issue have
rejected the Fourth Circuit’s
de minimis injury
requirement. See,
e.g.,
Wright v.
Goord,
554 F. 3d 255, 269–270 (CA2 2009) (“[O]ur Court has reversed
summary dismissals of Eighth Amendment claims of excessive force
even where the plaintiff’s evidence of injury was slight … . [T]he
absence of any significant injury to [the plaintiff] does not end
the Eighth Amendment inquiry, for our standards of decency are
violated even in the absence of such injury if the defendant’s use
of force was malicious or sadistic”);
Smith v.
Mensinger, 293 F. 3d 641, 648–649 (CA3 2002) (“[T]he
Eighth Amendment analysis must be driven by the extent of the force
and the circumstances in which it is applied; not by the resulting
injuries. …
[D]e minimis injuries do not necessarily
establish
de minimis force”);
Oliver v.
Keller, 289 F. 3d 623, 628 (CA9 2002) (rejecting the
view “that to support an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim a
prisoner must have suffered from the excessive force a more than
de minimis physical injury” (internal quotation marks
omitted));
United States v.
LaVallee, 439
F. 3d 670, 687 (CA10 2006) (same).
The Fifth Circuit has sometimes used language indicating
agreement with the Fourth Circuit’s approach. See,
e.g.,
Gomez v.
Chandler, 163 F. 3d 921, 924 (1999)
(“[T]o support an Eighth Amendment excessive force claim a prisoner
must have suffered from the excessive force a more than
de
minimis injury”). But see
Brown v.
Lippard,
472 F. 3d 384, 386 (2006) (“This Court has never directly held
that injuries must reach beyond some arbitrary threshold to satisfy
an excessive force claim”). Even in the Fifth Circuit, however,
Wilkins likely would have survived dismissal for failure to state a
claim because that court’s precedents have classified the sort of
injuries alleged here as non-
de minimis. See,
e.g.,
ibid. (permitting a prisoner’s Eighth
Amendment excessive force claim to proceed to trial where evidence
indicated that the prisoner suffered “one-centimeter abrasions on
both his left knee and left shoulder, pain in his right knee, and
tenderness around his left thumb,” as well as “back problems”);
Gomez, 163 F. 3d, at 922 (refusing to grant summary
judgment on
de minimis injury grounds where the prisoner
alleged “physical pain [and] bodily injuries in the form of cuts,
scrapes, [and] contusions to the face, head, and body”).
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