Rivera v. Redfern et al.

Prison officials caused Michael Rivera to have an asthma attack when they deployed pepper spray in the process of removing another prisoner from the unit, despite Mr. Rivera’s repeated pleas to be placed out of harm’s way. The MacArthur Justice Center is fighting to ensure that erroneous interpretations of the qualified immunity doctrine do not shield prison officials from accountability when they act with deliberate indifference toward the health and safety of incarcerated people. 

Michael Rivera was in an open-air telephone cage in his housing unit at SCI Benner Township in Pennsylvania when he saw prison officials prepare to forcefully extract another person in the unit. Because cell extractions frequently involve pepper spray deployment, Mr. Rivera alerted four different prison officials that he has asthma and pepper spray exposure would cause him to have an asthma attack, with the open-air telephone cage making him particularly vulnerable to exposure.

Over the next hour and a half, the four officials ignored his repeated pleas to be moved to his cell before the pepper spray was deployed. In fact, when Mr. Rivera told one of the officials, a nurse, that leaving him in the cage would trigger an asthma attack, they simply responded, “I know.” And sure enough, once the pepper spray was deployed, Mr. Rivera had an asthma attack that caused severe difficulty breathing, dizziness, coughing, sneezing, severe eye irritation, and vomiting.

Mr. Rivera filed a complaint against the four prison officials involved, but the district court granted each qualified immunity, reasoning that the Third Circuit did not have a case with the exact same facts that would have alerted the officers that deploying pepper spray in this circumstance would violate Mr. Rivera’s rights.

But the Third Circuit has explained that if officers act with deliberate indifference – that is, they knew their actions would cause harm and did them anyway – then qualified immunity is inappropriate. Because the prison officials knew that using pepper spray while leaving Mr. Rivera where he was would cause him to suffer an asthma attack, they acted with deliberate indifference, and qualified immunity cannot shield them from accountability.

The MacArthur Justice Center represents Mr. Rivera in his appeal to the Third Circuit.