Stewart v. Precythe, No. 22-3297 (8th Cir. 2024)
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In the case before the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Curtis Stewart, an inmate in the Missouri correctional system, filed a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action against various Missouri Department of Corrections (MDOC) officials, including MDOC Director Anne Precythe. Stewart alleged that he was subjected to excessive force and cruel and unusual punishment due to a policy of handcuffing and shackling prisoners to a steel bench for hours. Precythe filed a motion for judgment on the pleadings, asserting that she was entitled to qualified immunity. The district court denied Precythe’s motion with respect to qualified immunity.
The appeal court reversed the district court's decision. It held that Stewart failed to plausibly allege that Precythe authorized a policy that permitted jailers to use excessive force where it was unnecessary or unprovoked. The court also found that the complaint did not plausibly allege that Precythe acquiesced in any such practice of unprovoked or unwarranted excessive force because it failed to allege a pattern of such conduct.
The court further noted that Stewart’s allegations against Precythe regarding the restraint policy did not violate the Eighth Amendment. The court held that the allegations represented the kind of punishment necessary “to preserve internal order and discipline and to maintain institutional security.” There were no allegations that Precythe’s conduct in adopting and promulgating the policy was “repugnant to the conscience of mankind.” Therefore, the court concluded that Precythe was entitled to qualified immunity. The court reversed the district court's denial of qualified immunity to Precythe and remanded for further proceedings consistent with its opinion.
Court Description: [Shepherd, Author, with Kelly and Stras, Circuit Judges] Prisoner case - Prisoner civil rights. In this excessive-force and conditions-of-confinement action, the Director of the Missouri Department of Corrections was sued in her official and individual capacities on claims she had authorized the policy and a practice of excessive force; the complaint, construed in the light most favorable to plaintiff, does not plausibly allege that the Director authorized a restraint policy permitting jailers to use excessive force when it was unnecessary or unprovoked; nor does it plausibly allege that she acquiesced in any such practice or unprovoked or unwarranted excessive force because it fails to allege a pattern of such conduct, instead relying on two instances where Stewart was restrained; considering only the plausible allegations and taking them as true - that the Director promulgated and acquiesced in a policy of handcuffing prisoners confined in administrative segregation units to a steel bench in a sitting hogtied position for hours - the Director is entitled to qualified immunity under either an excessive-force or conditions-of-confinement claim because plaintiff failed to allege that the Director committed a constitutional violation; the only personal involvement alleged was the authorization and promulgation of the policy, and this did not constitute an Eighth Amendment violation; reversed and remanded for further proceedings. Judge Kelly, dissenting.
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