Elijah E. Pacheco v. Robert Anderson, et al.

Summary

The United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina granted summary judgment to jail officials in a pretrial detainee’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 failure-to-protect action arising from an inmate assault. The court dismissed the action with prejudice, granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to seal, and ordered permanent sealing of manually filed video footage.

Holdings

1. The defendants were entitled to summary judgment because Pacheco did not forecast evidence showing that they knew or should have known that Robinson posed a serious risk to his safety when Pacheco was reassigned to D-Pod, or that the defendants' conduct was more than negligent.
2. The official-capacity claims failed because Pacheco forecast no evidence that a WCJ custom or policy caused a constitutional violation, and there was no underlying constitutional injury.
3. The defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because Pacheco failed to present evidence that they violated a constitutional right.
4. The motion to seal was granted as to the manually filed video footage because the footage contained confidential, non-public information and no adequate alternative to permanent sealing existed. The request concerning WCJ operating procedures was denied without prejudice because it was insufficiently specified and, as to publicly docketed materials, appeared waived.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the defendants violated Pacheco's Fourteenth Amendment rights by failing to protect him from an unreasonable risk of harm when he was reassigned to a housing pod where a previously threatening inmate was housed.
2. Whether the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on the failure-to-protect claim.
3. Whether the defendants established sufficient grounds to permanently seal the manually filed video footage and to seal the jail operating procedures.

Disposition

dismissed