UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
for the Fifth Circuit
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No. 96-40510
Summary Calendar
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ROBERT MEADOWS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
VERSUS
THOMAS, Major; MAYFIELD, Sgt; W. CLARK; M. MERCHANT,
Officer; DOW, Officer,
Defendants-Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
(G-95-CV-116)
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September 5, 1996
Before DAVIS, EMILIO M. GARZA and STEWART, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Robert Meadows, an inmate in the custody of the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice (DCJ), challenges the district
court's § 1915(d) dismissal of his civil rights complaint against
a number of prison officials. We vacate and remand for further
factual development.
*
Pursuant to Local Rule 47.5, the court has determined that
this opinion should not be published and is not precedent except
under the limited circumstances set forth in Local Rule 47.5.4.
The gravamen of plaintiff's complaint against the defendants
is that they took inadequate steps to protect him from a violent
fellow inmate. Meadows' pleadings, together with his answers to
interrogatories, establish that inmate Clark attacked him on
January 26, 1995, while a guard was escorting Meadows to the
shower. Two days earlier, Clark had threatened Meadows following
a dispute over some property. Meadows reported that incident to
defendant Mayfield but received no response.
The district court applied the proper legal standard. To
establish a failure to protect claim, an inmate must show that he
was "incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of
serious harm" and that the prison officials were deliberately
indifferent to his need for protection. Horton v. Cockrell, 70
F.3d 397 (5th Cir. 1995), citing Farmer v. Brennan, 114 S.Ct. 1970,
1977 (1994). To act with deliberate indifference, "the official
must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn
that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must draw
the inference." Id. at 1979. A prison official acts with
deliberate indifference "only if he knows that inmates face a
substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by
failing to take reasonable measures to abate it." Id. at 1984.
Meadows' pleadings support an inference that prison officials
knew that Meadows faced risk of injury from Clark inasmuch as
Meadows informed the officials about Clark's threats. The prison
officials did not totally disregard these threats; a guard was
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escorting Meadows to the showers when Clark attacked him. We
nevertheless conclude that the question of whether prison officials
took reasonable measures to abate the risk must have further
factual development. Meadows alleges that with the prison
officials' knowledge of Clark's threats and in violation of prison
regulations, Clark was allowed to remain outside his cell in the
area where Meadows was being escorted in handcuffs at the time
Clark attacked him. Meadows' action may eventually pass § 1915(d)
muster following additional factual development of this aspect of
his claim. See Eason v. Taylor, 13 F.3d 8, 10 (5th Cir. 1994).
But without this factual development we conclude that the district
court abused its discretion in dismissing Meadows' claim under §
1915(d).
VACATED and REMANDED.
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