Eighth Amendment excessive force claim by a prisoner under 42 USC § 1983; Whether the prison misconduct hearing officer’s factual findings had preclusive effect; Peterson v Johnson; Roberson v Torres; Full & fair opportunity to litigate a factual dispute; Adequacy of access to the evidence; Effect of plaintiff’s lack of an attorney at the prison hearing; Whether plaintiff had “sufficient incentives to litigate” a key factual finding made by the hearing officer; Comparing the video evidence & the testimony; Qualified immunity; Subjective & objective components of an Eighth Amendment claim; Clearly established right; Corrections officers (COs)

[This appeal was from the ED-MI.] Because plaintiff-Nash lacked adequate access to the evidence presented at his prison misconduct hearing, was unrepresented by an attorney during the hearing, and did not have sufficient incentives to litigate the relevant factual dispute, the court held that the district court erred by ruling that the prison hearing officer’s findings should have preclusive effect in this case. It also held that Nash raised a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether defendants-COs (Bryce and Turner) violated his Eighth Amendment rights. Thus, it reversed the district court’s grant of qualified immunity to defendants and remanded. A prison misconduct hearing officer, relying on security video tapes, “found that Nash had assaulted Bryce and Turner by lunging away from them before their decision to take him down.” Nash filed this suit “under § 1983, arguing that the takedown violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from excessive force.” The district court granted defendants summary judgment based on qualified immunity. On appeal, the court first held that it erred by ruling that the prison hearing officer's findings should have preclusive effect on this case. Citing Peterson, the court noted it has “held that factual findings from Michigan prison major misconduct hearings can, in some circumstances, have preclusive effect in a prisoner’s federal litigation.” But it emphasized in Roberson “that courts must closely examine the ‘particular circumstances’ of a prisoner’s case and consider whether the prisoner in fact had a ‘full and fair opportunity’ to litigate.” It concluded “that Nash did not have such a full and fair opportunity here.” The limits on his access to the evidence “were substantially greater than” those in Peterson. He was not permitted to view the videos or the memo “that provided time-stamped details regarding what was shown in the video and still images from the videotape (along with other relevant pieces of evidence).” The court held that these facts provided “adequate reason to decline to afford preclusive effect to the hearing here.” It further noted that “the factual question at issue here—whether Nash also resisted Bryce and Turner as they walked him into the prison yard—was not necessary to the hearing officer’s ultimate determination.” Thus, the court found that he “lacked ‘sufficient incentives to litigate’ the particular factual issue of what happened when [he] exited the prison yard with Bryce and Turner.” Next, after viewing the “far from clear” video evidence, it held “that the district court erred in disregarding [Nash’s] testimony[,]” and further that defendants were “not entitled to summary judgment on their qualified immunity defense.”