Jeffrey L. Joseph v. Craig Wheeler, Assistant Director Missouri Vocational Enterprises Metal Plant

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-1672
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Jeffrey L. Joseph
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee
v.
Craig Wheeler, Assistant Director Missouri Vocational Enterprises Metal Plant;
Dennis Shepard, Director Missouri Vocational Enterprises Metal Plant
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants
Kurt Schmiedeskamp, Supervisor of pressbraka line
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Missouri - Hannibal
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Submitted: June 12, 2025
Filed: July 23, 2025
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Before COLLOTON, Chief Judge, ARNOLD and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.
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ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.
While Jeffrey Joseph was working in a metal plant at the Missouri prison where
he was incarcerated, a machine he was operating crushed his thumb. Joseph sued his
supervisor, Kurt Schmiedeskamp, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that he had
subjected him to cruel and unusual punishment. When Schmiedeskamp moved for
summary judgment on the ground that he was entitled to qualified immunity, the
district court denied his motion, and this interlocutory appeal ensued. Reviewing the
court’s decision de novo, see Clinton v. Garrett, 49 F.4th 1132, 1139 (8th Cir. 2022),
we reverse and remand.
On the day he injured his thumb, Joseph was operating a “press-brake”
machine designed to bend and punch holes in metal. The machine was equipped with
hand restraints that helped prevent the machine’s user from placing his hands too
close to the point where the machine makes contact with metal. Though the hand
restraints were available to Joseph, he did not use them on the day the machine
crushed his thumb. Joseph provided evidence that he had previously asked
Schmiedeskamp about the restraints, and Schmiedeskamp told him, contrary to the
safety policies of the plant, “Oh we don't use them because they slow production, just
don’t get your hand caught in there and we will all be ok.”
Joseph has a constitutional right under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments
to be free from cruel and unusual punishment, see Wilson v. Seiter, 501 U.S. 294,
296–97 (1991), and the right’s protections extend to conditions of confinement
including prison work assignments, see Kulkay v. Roy, 847 F.3d 637, 642 (8th Cir.
2017). To succeed on his claim, Joseph must show, among other things, that
Schmiedeskamp acted with deliberate indifference to Joseph’s health and safety. See
id. at 643. We’ve observed that the deliberate-indifference standard is difficult to
meet. See Dean v. Bearden, 79 F.4th 986, 989 (8th Cir. 2023). It “requires a highly
culpable state of mind approaching actual intent” to harm the inmate. See Kulkay, 847
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F.3d at 643. Mere negligence or even gross negligence won’t suffice. See id. To
constitute “punishment,” the defendant official must act with criminal recklessness
at a minimum. See Dean, 79 F.4th at 989.
As we’ve also observed, even if Joseph meets this difficult standard and proves
that a constitutional violation occurred, that’s “only half the battle.” See id. He must
also overcome qualified immunity, which “shields government officials from liability
when their conduct does not violate clearly established constitutional rights of which
a reasonable person would have known.” See Ivey v. Audrain Cnty., 968 F.3d 845,
848 (8th Cir. 2020). To show that a right was clearly established, Joseph must point
to controlling authority, or a robust consensus of persuasive authority, putting
Schmiedeskamp on notice that his actions violated Joseph’s rights. See Dean, 79
F.4th at 989. For this reason, qualified immunity protects all but the plainly
incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law. See Ivey, 968 F.3d at 849. In an
appeal from a district court’s denial of qualified immunity, our jurisdiction is limited.
“[W]e must accept the district court’s factual findings as true and decide whether
those facts involve a clearly established violation of federal law.” Dean, 79 F.4th at
988; see also Krout v. Goemmer, 583 F.3d 557, 567–68 (8th Cir. 2009).
Schmiedeskamp maintains on appeal that he is entitled to qualified immunity
because he didn’t violate Joseph’s clearly established rights. In reaching its decision
to the contrary, the district court relied on Ambrose v. Young, 474 F.3d 1070, 1078
(8th Cir. 2007), which observed that “[i]t is well-established in this circuit that
knowingly compelling an inmate to perform labor that is dangerous to his or her life
or health is a violation of the Eighth Amendment.” In that case, a crew of inmates was
assigned to help clean up after a storm when during one of their jobs a truck struck
a power line. The collision sparked a grass fire and left the power line dangling from
a pole. As inmates ran toward the fire, an officer ordered them to stop and even
physically restrained an inmate from getting closer. Another officer, though, told
inmates to stomp out the fire, and one of them accidentally came into contact with the
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dangling line and was electrocuted. The inmate’s estate sued this officer, see
Ambrose, 474 F.3d at 1073–74, and we upheld the denial of qualified immunity for
him. See id. at 1078–79.
We disagree with the district court that Ambrose placed Schmiedeskamp on
notice that he was violating Joseph’s rights. We emphasized in Ambrose that the
defendant officer was aware that the dangling power line presented a substantial risk
of harm. See id. at 1074, 1078. Schmiedeskamp’s response to Joseph’s question, on
the other hand, doesn't demonstrate that he knew the machine presented a danger to
those who didn’t use the hand restraints that exceeded the danger to those who did.
Schmiedeskamp’s response suggests at most that he might not have adequately
appreciated the effectiveness of the hand restraints or the danger that operating the
machine without the restraints presented. Some evidence even intimated that
Schmiedeskamp believed the restraints created dangers of their own. In sum, we think
Ambrose is distinguishable.
But even if Ambrose suggests that Schmiedeskamp might have violated
Joseph’s rights, other, more analogous cases point the other way, indicating that the
law isn’t as clearly established in this area as the district court concluded. See, e.g.,
Kulkay, 847 F.3d at 644–45; Stephens v. Johnson, 83 F.3d 198, 200–01 (8th Cir.
1996); Choate v. Lockhart, 7 F.3d 1370, 1374–76 (8th Cir. 1993); Warren v.
Missouri, 995 F.2d 130, 130–31 (8th Cir. 1993); Bibbs v. Armontrout, 943 F.2d 26,
26–27 (8th Cir. 1991). Each of these cases involved prisoners injured in industrial or
construction settings, some as a result of using heavy machinery. In each we held that
the defendant officials were at most negligent in how they oversaw the work setting,
notwithstanding inmate injuries on their watch. And so in each case we held that none
of the defendants had violated the constitution.
In Kulkay, for example, an inmate severed some of his fingers while working
with a large beam saw in a workshop. See Kulkay, 847 F.3d at 640–41. He sued
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several prison officials, including the supervisor in charge of the workshop, because
they had allegedly failed to install safety guards designed to protect the saw’s
operator from the blade despite knowing that the saw had injured others before and
that officials had not trained inmates to use the saw. See id. at 641, 643. After
discussing the cases cited in the previous paragraph, our court explained that the mere
“absence of safety equipment or procedures and [the defendant’s] awareness of
similar injuries” failed to show that the defendant officials were deliberately
indifferent to the risk of harm that the saw posed. See id. at 644–45. So they had
committed no constitutional violation.
Kulkay suggests that Schmiedeskamp didn’t violate the constitution, let alone
clearly established constitutional law. Safety equipment was available here, and the
record didn’t contain evidence that the press-brake machine had caused any prior
injuries. The record also reveals that Joseph was trained to use the machine and that
he never complained about its safety. The Eighth Amendment does not
constitutionalize state and federal safety regulations, see id. at 645, and the same
necessarily goes for the safety rules of the plant where Joseph worked. “[N]ot every
deviation from ideally safe conditions constitutes a violation of the constitution.” See
French v. Owens, 777 F.2d 1250, 1257 (7th Cir. 1985). But even if Schmiedeskamp
violated the constitution, Joseph hasn’t shown that Schmiedeskamp’s conduct
violated clearly established law. Our caselaw just doesn’t clearly establish that a
supervisor who is aware of potential safety issues but fails to ameliorate them can be
deemed to be deliberately indifferent. As a result, he is entitled to qualified immunity.
Reversed and remanded.
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