Booker v. South Carolina Department of Corrections, No. 15-7679 (4th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe court vacated the grant of qualified immunity to prison officials and summary judgment, concluding that a reasonable prison official had fair warning that retaliating against an inmate who filed a prison grievance was unlawful and an inmate's First Amendment right to be free from retaliation for filing a grievance was clearly established at the time. Plaintiff, an inmate at SCDC, filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that he received a disciplinary charge in retaliation for filing a prison grievance. Although the court agreed with the district court's conclusion that no published decision squarely addressed whether filing a grievance was protected First Amendment conduct, the court concluded that the district court failed to consider whether the right was clearly established based on general constitutional principles or a consensus of persuasive authority. In this case, the inmate's right was clearly established based on a robust consensus of persuasive authority where the Second, Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, Ninth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits have all recognized in published decisions that inmates possess a right, grounded in the First Amendment's Petition Clause, to be free from retaliation in response to filing a prison grievance.
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