Second Circuit reverses default judgment against prison guard

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A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit against a prison guard who refused to participate in the case.

In 2016, James E. Moore Jr., who also goes by the name Kevin Thompson, filed a lawsuit against Troy Booth and four other corrections officers at Fishkill Correctional Facility.

Thompson’s complaint alleged that, in 2014, when he was incarcerated at Fishkill, the five officers assaulted him while he was having a seizure.

Allegedly, as a result of the assault, and the subsequent failure of the prison to provide adequate medical care, Thompson lost several teeth, suffered hearing loss in one ear, and sustained injuries to his hand and neck.

The officers, represented by the New York Attorney General, each filed an answer asserting the affirmative defense that Thompson failed to exhaust administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act.

In 2020, the AG withdrew as counsel for Booth because he was not participating in the litigation. Booth then failed to appear for a deposition and a pre-motion conference.

As a sanction for that nonparticipation, U.S. District Court Judge Philip M. Halpern struck Booth’s answer to the complaint.

Halpern eventually dismissed the claims against the four other officers on the ground that Thompson failed to exhaust administrative remedies. But he granted a default judgment against Booth because his answer had been struck, and he awarded damages of $50,000.

“We conclude that the district court abused its discretion in granting the default judgment against Booth while dismissing on the merits the claims against the litigating defendants,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit wrote in a decision filed Monday.

“Pursuant to the prohibition on inconsistent judgments set forth in (Frow v. De La Vega, a Supreme Court of the United States decision), once the district court determined that Thompson could not maintain his claims against the litigating defendants because he failed to exhaust administrative remedies, it should have dismissed the claims against Booth for the same reason,” the Second Circuit wrote.

“We vacate the default judgment and remand to the district court with instructions to enter a judgment in favor of Booth,” the court wrote.

The Second Circuit ruled that the district court “abused its discretion when it entered a default judgment against Booth that was inconsistent with its prior judgment dismissing identical claims against the four other officers.”

“Thompson’s claims against each of the five officer defendants were identical. Each claim arose from the same alleged incident in which all five officers allegedly participated,” the Second Circuit wrote.

“Because the claims against each of the officers arose from the same incident, the remedies Thompson was required to exhaust were the same,” the court wrote.

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