An incarcerated South Carolina man who alleges that a prison guard put him in isolation for 110 days in retaliation after he accused her colleague of assaulting him can move ahead with a lawsuit against the guard after the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a trial court had wrongly dismissed the lawsuit.
Anthony Martin, an inmate at Perry Correctional Institution in Pelzer, claimed that the guard, Susan Duffy, put him in segregation in retaliation for complaining that another correctional officer sexually assaulted him. Duffy contended that she put Martin in segregation to protect the integrity of the investigation into his claims. Martin sued Duffy, claiming violation of his First Amendment rights.
U.S. District Judge David Norton accepted a magistrate judge’s recommendation finding that even though Martin had engaged in protected First Amendment activity by making the complaint and Duffy had thereafter placed him in segregation, which adversely affected his First Amendment rights, and there was a “causal connection” between Martin’s grievance and his placement in segregation, prison officials could still prevail if they would have made the same decision absent the protected conduct for reasons “reasonably related to a legitimate penological interest’ and recommended summary judgment. Norton thus granted Duffy’s motion summary judgment and dismissed Martin’s complaint.
But in a unanimous, Oct. 13 decision authored by Chief Judge Roger Gregory, the 4th Circuit overturned the ruling, saying that the question of whether Duffy placed Martin in isolation in retaliation for his complaint is a genuine dispute of material fact in Martin’s favor.
Gregory wrote that Martin contends that Duffy placed him in segregation as punishment for his grievance, while Duffy claimed that Martin’s grievance simply alerted prison officials of the need to protect both Martin and the integrity of an impending investigation into his claims. But it’s undisputed that Martin’s grievance prompted his segregation, and unlike situations involving prisoner misconduct, Duffy couldn’t show that she would have taken the same actions absent of Martin’s grievance–not because safety and investigatory concerns can’t justify the use of administrative segregation, but because her concerns, even if legitimate, were a byproduct of Martin’s complaint.
Gregory noted that Duffy questioned Martin “relentlessly” and placed Martin in isolation after he made a complaint, but before he was able to file a formal grievance.
Duffy filed an affidavit stating that another prison guard instructed her to segregate Martin pending an investigation, but contradicted herself by saying that while placing Martin in isolation wasn’t her decision, she “was the one who ended it.”
While courts view retaliation claims in the prison context with an eye toward avoiding “excessive judicial involvement in prison administration, the broad deference afforded to corrections officers isn’t without limits,” Gregory wrote.
Caroline Burton of McGuire Woods in Richmond, Virginia represented Martin. Andrew Lindemann of Lindeman, Davis and Hughes in Columbia represented Duffy. They could not be reached for comment.
The 20-page opinion is Martin v. Duffy (Lawyers Weekly No. 001-114-20). The full text of the opinion can be read online at sclawyersweekly.com
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