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[DO NOT PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-12424 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ WILLIAM H. MELENDEZ, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus SECRETARY OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, et al.,

Defendants,

BARRY REDDISH, Warden of Florida State Prison, ERIC HUMMEL, Regional Director, JOHN PALMER, USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 2 of 19

Defendants-Appellants.

____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 3:20-cv-01023-BJD-JBT ____________________ ____________________ No. 23-12685 Non-Argument Calendar ____________________ WILLIAM H. MELENDEZ, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus WARDEN, FLORIDA STATE PRISON, et al., USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 3 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 3 Defendants,

ROBERT BROWN, WILLIAM HALL, DANIEL PHILBERT, Correctional Officers,

Defendants-Appellants.

____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 3:20-cv-01023-BJD-JBT ____________________ Before ROSENBAUM, GRANT, and LAGOA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: This appeal invites us to decide whether various officials em- ployed by the Florida Department of Corrections (the “FDC”) are entitled to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. The FDC officials (collectively, the “Defendants”) appeal the denial of their summary judgment motion, in which they asserted qualified immunity as to William Melendez’s 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claims that they subjected him to unconstitutional conditions of confinement.

The district court denied summary judgment because it USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 4 of 19

Because the Defendants’ appeal hinges on issues of evidentiary suf- ficiency, which we lack interlocutory jurisdiction to review, we dis- miss this appeal.

I. BACKGROUND Before his release from prison in February 2024, Melendez, now sixty-four-years-old, was an inmate of the Florida penal sys- tem. 1 While incarcerated in 2021, he filed a second amended com- plaint for damages and injunctive relief against the Defendants, the FDC and other state officials. Melendez brought claims under § 1983, alleging violations under the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments, as well as violations of the Americans with Disabili- ties Act and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

At issue in this appeal are Melendez’s Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement claims against Defendants Davis, Hum- mel, Palmer, McClellan, Reddish, Hunter and Tomlinson (the “Managerial Defendants”); and Defendants Brown, Hall, and Phil- bert (the “Officer Defendants”).

The conditions-of-confinement claims against the Manage- rial and Officer Defendants have been thoroughly litigated through preliminary injunction proceedings. A previous panel of our Court affirmed the district court’s entry of a preliminary injunction, find- ing that the district court did not clearly err in determining that

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23-12424 Opinion of the Court 5 Menendez was likely to succeed on the merits of his Eighth Amendment claim. See Melendez v. Sec’y, Fla. Dep’t of Corr., 21- 13455, 2022 WL 1124753 (11th Cir. Apr. 15, 2022) (“Melendez I”).

The factual allegations that are relevant to this appeal remain largely the same as in Melendez I.

Melendez was first placed in FDC custody in October 2011.

In his second amended complaint, Melendez claimed that, for much of his time in prison, the Defendants classified him as “Close Management” (“CM”), which FDC uses to isolate inmates that FDC has determined cannot remain in the general prison popula- tion without abusing the rights and privileges of others. See Melen- dez I, 2022 WL 1124753, at *1. Melendez also claimed that he was kept in “CM I,” the most restrictive level of CM. Id. He alleged that the Defendants, through their CM-related practices and poli- cies, subjected him “to a substantial risk of serious harm and de- prived him of the minimal civilized measure of life’s necessities and basic human dignity by exposing him to excessive periods of isola- tion in deplorable conditions.” Id. And he alleged that the Defend- ants knew of these deprivations but remained deliberately indiffer- ent to them by failing to respond in a reasonable manner, in viola- tion of the Eighth Amendment. Id. Following our decision in Melendez I and after extensive dis- covery, the Managerial and Officer Defendants moved for sum- mary judgment on all counts, arguing, among other things, that they were entitled to qualified immunity on Melendez’s Eighth Amendment claim. Of relevance to this appeal, the district court USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 6 of 19

Both sets of Defendants then filed interlocutory appeals, which we consolidated for review.

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW “We review de novo a district court’s denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity, applying the same legal standards that governed the district court.” Feliciano v. City of Mi- ami Beach, 707 F.3d 1244, 1247 (11th Cir. 2013). This requires us to construe the evidence and draw all inferences in the light most fa- vorable to the plaintiff. Id. We also review our jurisdiction de novo.

Cavalieri v. Avior Airlines C.A., 25 F.4th 843, 848 (11th Cir. 2022).

III. ANALYSIS “We have a threshold obligation to ensure that we have ju- risdiction to hear an appeal.” Corley v. Long-Lewis, Inc., 965 F.3d 1222, 1227 (11th Cir. 2020). When qualified immunity is denied at summary judgment, “the type of issue involved” determines whether we have interlocutory jurisdiction. Koch v. Rugg, 221 F.3d 1283, 1295 (11th Cir. 2000). When an appellant raises “core quali- fied immunity” questions, which involve legal issues underlying the analysis, we have jurisdiction over the appeal. Id. (quoting Cot- trell v. Caldwell, 85 F.3d 1480, 1484 (11th Cir. 1996)). But we lack jurisdiction when the “issue presented in the qualified immunity USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 7 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 7 context challenges only sufficiency of the evidence relative to a ‘predicate factual element of the underlying constitutional tort.’”

Id. at 1296 (quoting Dolihite v. Maughon ex rel. Videon, 74 F.3d 1027, 1033 n.3 (11th Cir. 1996)). These cases “are not immediately ap- pealable final decisions since they involve the determination of ‘facts a party may, or may not, be able to prove at trial.’” Id. (quot- ing Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313 (1995)).

Our traditional framing of the two components of the qual- ified immunity analysis illustrates how to distinguish between cog- nizable issues on appeal and those which we lack jurisdiction to re- view: First, what was the official’s conduct, based on the pleadings, depositions, and affidavits, when viewed in the light most favorable to the non-moving party?

Second, could a reasonable public official have be- lieved that such conduct was lawful based on clearly established law?

Stanley v. City of Dalton, Ga., 219 F.3d 1280, 1286–87 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting Johnson v. Clifton, 74 F.3d 1087, 1091 (11th Cir. 1996)).

The second issue is a pure question of law, and its resolution constitutes a final order that is immediately appealable. Id. When such a ruling is appealed, we may also address the first issue, one of fact, “because it is part of the core qualified immunity analysis.” Id. (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 641, (1987)). If only the first issue is appealed, though, we have no jurisdiction to hear the case. Id.; see also English v. City of Gainesville, 75 F.4th 1151, 1155–56 (11th Cir. 2023) (“Our precedents ‘establish only that a USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 8 of 19

In light of these standards, we lack jurisdiction to entertain this appeal. Although largely presented under the guise of a legal challenge, the Defendants’ arguments turn entirely on a dispute of the district court’s factual inferences, rather than on its conclusions of law. The Managerial and Officer Defendants present similar, though not identical, arguments. We address each group of De- fendants in turn.

A.

To explain why this appeal involves challenges based only on evidentiary sufficiency, we begin with a brief overview of the relevant law. Melendez’s conditions-of-confinement claim re- quires an objective and a subjective showing. Thomas v. Bryant, 614 F.3d 1288, 1304 (11th Cir. 2010). Under the objective prong, he must show “a deprivation or injury that is ‘sufficiently serious’ to constitute a denial of the ‘minimal civilized measure of life’s neces- sities.’” Id. (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994)). As to the subjective prong, he must demonstrate that each official had a “sufficiently culpable state of mind.” Id. (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834). On appeal, the Managerial Defendants argue that Melen- dez failed to satisfy either prong.

Regarding the objective prong, the Managerial Defendants dress their arguments in legal garb, but careful review reveals a USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 9 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 9 dispute of fact. For instance, they contend that Melendez’s condi- tions of confinement did not amount to a constitutional violation because the district court erroneously determined that CM equates to solitary confinement—and determining what constitutes soli- tary confinement is a legal question that grants us jurisdiction. But this baldly mischaracterizes both Melendez’s claim and the district court’s order.

Whether CM is properly classified as solitary confinement or something lesser, like administrative segregation, matters not.

Indeed, neither “administrative segregation” nor “solitary confine- ment” is independently sufficient to support a conditions-of-con- finement claim. See Sheley v. Dugger, 833 F.2d 1420, 1428–29 (11th Cir. 1987). But Melendez’s claim, and the district court’s denial of qualified immunity, was not solely based on Melendez’s placement in CM. Rather, it was based on a combination of conditions, in- cluding the length of time that Melendez was kept in CM, the dep- rivation of Melendez’s right to exercise, the deprivation of his right to shower, and the impact that these deprivations had on his men- tal illness.

The Managerial Defendants do not raise any legal argu- ments premised on the undisputed facts, but rather dispute the dis- trict court’s factual conclusions themselves. There is, therefore, no question of law for us to consider as to the objective prong. See Stanley, 219 F.3d at 1286–87.

As to the subjective prong, the Managerial Defendants’ ar- guments fare no better. They contend that Melendez cannot show USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 10 of 19

“Whether a particular defendant has subjective knowledge of the risk of serious harm is a question of fact.” Goebert v. Lee County, 510 F.3d 1312, 1327 (11th Cir. 2007). It can be demon- strated by “inference from circumstantial evidence, and a factfinder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious.” Id. (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842).

Here, the district court conducted an individualized analysis as to each Managerial Defendant and determined that all of them were repeatedly notified of Melendez’s deprivations and how they were affecting his mental health. For instance, Defendant Reddish, the former Warden of Florida State Prison, signed at least three re- sponses to grievances that Melendez sent to him. Reddish also emailed others in response to a letter from Melendez’s counsel that alerted him to Melendez’s prolonged isolation, his conditions therein, and his severe mental illness. As another example, Defend- ant Hunter, who was responsible for monitoring and reporting signs of self-injurious behavior among prisoners, including Melen- dez, also received a grievance notifying her of Melendez’s contin- ued placement in CM and its deleterious effects on his mental and USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 11 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 11 physical health. And Defendants Reddish and Hunter were both part of Melendez’s institutional classification team, which repeat- edly decided to keep him on CM status.

In its order denying summary judgment, the district court recounted similar evidence as to every Managerial Defendant. For example, the district court noted that Melendez sent Hummel and Palmer a letter in April 2019, in which he complained about staff abuse and long-term lockdowns—totaling 761 days—with no op- portunity for recreation or socialization.2 Likewise, Melendez’s lawyer sent a letter to Palmer’s office in August 2020 complaining of the “troubling pattern of ongoing abuse” that Melendez was suf- fering, resulting in self-injurious behaviors. Davis, too, received a letter from Melendez’s lawyer in August 2021, detailing the condi- tions of Melendez’s confinement, including staff abuse, shower deprivation, exercise deprivation, and his resultant physical and mental injuries. As to McClellan, the district court noted that he received emails from Melendez’s lawyer in July 2018 and August 2021 (the same correspondence as Davis). The July 2018 letter stated that Melendez’s “mental health ha[d] deteriorated substan- tially” since he was first placed in CM, and McClellan responded to that letter confirming that the complaints “ha[d] been docu- mented” and that Melendez would be evaluated by medical and

2 The district court noted that Hummel and Palmer both testified that they did not remember receiving this letter. Of that, the district court concluded that whether Hummel or Palmer had subjective knowledge was a disputed fact for a jury to determine.

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Ultimately, the court found that Melendez had produced enough evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that each Man- agerial Defendant was subjectively aware that Melendez faced a substantial risk of serious harm as a result of his confinement con- ditions. As with the objective prong, the Managerial Defendants present no legal arguments on the subjective prong that fall within our interlocutory appellate jurisdiction. See Koch, 221 F.3d at 1295.

On appeal, none of the Managerial Defendants’ arguments in support of qualified immunity assert that, accepting the record as construed by the district court, they are still entitled to qualified immunity. There is thus no question of law for us to decide be- cause the Managerial Defendants only challenge “the factual infer- ences that the district court drew from a series of circumstances.”

See Hall v. Flournoy, 975 F.3d 1269, 1278 (11th Cir. 2020). Because USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 13 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 13 their arguments rest on factual disputes, and not legal ones, we lack jurisdiction to consider them.

Finally, the Managerial Defendants also challenge the dis- trict court’s decision not to consider certain evidence. We also lack interlocutory jurisdiction over that argument since it similarly does not concern any “core qualified immunity” issues and does not in- volve “the application of established legal principles to a given set of facts.” See Koch, 221 F.3d at 1296. And we may not exercise pen- dent jurisdiction over this evidentiary determination either, be- cause we have concluded that we lack jurisdiction over the Mana- gerial Defendants’ underlying qualified immunity challenge. See King v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 562 F.3d 1374, 1379–80 (11th Cir. 2009) (finding that pendent jurisdiction can be exercised over non-appeal- able issues when they are “inextricably intertwined” with a deci- sion that we do have jurisdiction to review).

B.

Like the Managerial Defendants, the Officer Defendants ar- gue only that there is no objective violation based on a dispute of the record—in other words, they raise factual challenges, not legal ones. For instance, they contend that Melendez’s summary chart documenting his showers was not entirely accurate and that Melendez had no outdoor recreation because he had a pattern of behavior in which he refused it. As the district court noted, though, the parties’ disagreement “over the reason” that Melendez did not receive showers or outdoor recreation presents questions for the jury. The district court found that Melendez’s evidence showed USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 14 of 19

The Officer Defendants make no argument that, on those facts, Melendez fails to show a deprivation that is sufficiently serious to violate the Eighth Amendment.

As to the subjective prong, the Officer Defendants present a closer call, but their challenges still turn on the sufficiency of the evidence rather than abstract questions of law.

As an initial matter, Melendez acknowledges that the Officer Defendants never personally denied him outdoor recreation or showers. Rather, he claims that the Officer Defendants were re- sponsible for supervising his wing and documenting or reviewing his housing logs, which recorded any time that he left his cell, and that they failed to stop subordinates from acting unlawfully.

The district court determined that the evidence showed that Officers Brown, Hall, and Philbert worked exclusively or often with CM inmates and all recognized that they were responsible for documenting or reviewing inmate movement on housing logs. In addition, each Officer Defendant worked a significant number of shifts during which the deprivations of Melendez’s rights to out- door recreation and regular showers occurred. From this, the dis- trict court found that Melendez produced enough evidence to cre- ate a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the Officer De- fendants, in their supervisory roles, subjectively knew of the risk of serious harm and failed to respond in a reasonable manner.

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23-12424 Opinion of the Court 15 The Officer Defendants claim that the district court “errone- ously determined that there is a ‘reasonable inference’ that [they] were deliberately indifferent under the subjective prong.” To chal- lenge the court’s conclusion, however, they contest the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that “the record does not show that [they] actually knew about a risk of serious harm or disregarded that risk.”

Similarly, they suggest that there is “no evidence” that Sergeants Philbert or Hall “ever denied Melendez showers or had knowledge that [Melendez] was allegedly being denied.” In essence, the Of- ficer Defendants ask us to review whether the district court cor- rectly found that there was a genuine dispute about whether they knew of Melendez’s conditions, and whether a reasonable jury could believe Melendez’s story. This is precisely the type of chal- lenge that we lack jurisdiction to review at this stage. See Flournoy, 975 F.3d at 1277.

To be sure, the Officer Defendants cast some of their evi- dentiary challenges as issues of law. The closest the Officer De- fendants get to a legal argument is their contention that the district court never conducted an individualized analysis as to each defend- ant’s independent causal connection to the constitutional harm, as they contend is required under Saunders v. Sheriff of Brevard County, 735 F. App’x 559 (11th Cir. 2018). But this, again, is a factual argu- ment repackaged as a legal one, because what the Officer Defend- ants actually dispute is whether “evidence in the record exists that [the Officer Defendants] directed anyone to act unlawfully or not provide showers or recreation” or whether “there was a custom or policy instituted by [the Officer Defendants] that resulted in USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 16 of 19

Unlike the Officer Defendants here, the defendant in Saun- ders accepted the facts as construed in the plaintiff’s favor and ar- gued that the conduct still did not amount to deliberate indiffer- ence as a matter of law. 3 See 735 F.3d at 569. The Officer Defend- ants, in contrast, never accept the facts in the light most favorable to Melendez. Instead, they directly challenge the factual inferences that the district court drew from the evidence. For example, they contend that there is no causal connection because none of them

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23-12424 Opinion of the Court 17 directly dealt with Melendez and his recreation or exercise, and they were not aware of any grievance or complaint related to his recreation. This is different from arguing that reasonable public officials could have believed that their conduct, as construed by the district court, was lawful based on clearly established law. See Flournoy, 975 F.3d at 1278 (finding that we lack interlocutory juris- diction when appellants merely claim that they “didn’t do” the con- duct at issue).

Like the Managerial Defendants, the Officer Defendants never argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity even if we accept that they repeatedly reviewed Melendez’s housing logs which showed that he was deprived of outdoor recreation and reg- ular showers. If that was their argument, then we would have ju- risdiction. Instead, they argue that Officer Hall did not review daily housing logs, that Officer Brown never dealt with recreation while working on Melendez’s wing, and that Officer Philbert had very few time periods in which he oversaw Melendez’s wing. As in Flournoy, these arguments equate to the appellants claiming that they “didn’t do it,” which precludes appellate review. 975 F.3d at 1278 (quoting Johnson, 515 U.S. at 316).

C.

In sum, both the Managerial and Officer Defendants fail to argue that the district court erred in denying qualified immunity when the facts are construed in Melendez’s favor. But at this inter- locutory juncture, we only have jurisdiction if we accept the factual inferences that the district court drew from the evidence. See id. USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 18 of 19

In its order denying summary judgment, the district court properly resolved the disputed facts in Melendez’s favor, and then explained how the disputed facts and evidence could allow a rea- sonable jury to find that both Managerial and Officer Defendants violated Melendez’s Eighth Amendment rights. Specifically, the court found that the evidence showed Melendez had been confined in restrictive CM for the vast majority of a five-year period, re- ceived little to no outdoor recreation time for years, and often was denied the three showers per week required under Florida Admin- istrative Code. On appeal, Defendants do not accept the facts as construed by the district court and argue that those facts still do not amount to a violation of a clearly established right. Rather, they dispute the district court’s findings as to the conditions of Melen- dez’s confinement. For instance, they argue that extended time in CM is not alone a constitutional violation. But this fails to address that the district court’s order was based on its finding of a combi- nation of conditions. They also argue that there is no evidence that they were responsible for Melendez’s conditions, either because they didn’t know or because they appropriately addressed his con- cerns such that they did not violate clearly established law. But the district court concluded that there was sufficient evidence of their knowledge and responsibility. And the district court determined USCA11 Case: 23-12424 Document: 103-1 Date Filed: 08/20/2024 Page: 19 of 19

23-12424 Opinion of the Court 19 that the parties’ disagreement “over the reason” that Melendez was deprived of the showers and outdoor exercise to which he was en- titled are questions for the jury. We agree.

IV. CONCLUSION Because the Defendants have attacked only the “evidentiary sufficiency” supporting Melendez’s claims and the Defendants’ en- titlement to qualified immunity, see English, 75 F.4th at 1156, we dismiss this appeal for want of appellate jurisdiction.

DISMISSED.