David N. OSOLINSKI, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Lt. KANE, Et Al., Defendants-Appellants

In this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 case, the district court denied appellants’ motion for summary judgment, finding that appellants’ qualified immunity argument was without merit. Ap-pellee, a prisoner in the custody of the California Department of Corrections at the California Medical Facility (“the Facility”) in Vacaville, California, brought suit .after he suffered second-degree burns on his arm when an oven door fell off its hinges in the Facility’s family visiting unit. Appellants are officials at the Facility responsible for the family visiting unit. Appellants argue that the district court erred in denying them qualified immunity. We agree.

I.

The following, facts before the District Court were not in dispute. Appellee was a state prisoner at the Facility who sustained a second degree burn on his outer right forearm on July 19, 1992. Appellee was burned when a door of an oven in the family visiting unit fell off its hinges. Prior maintenance requests for the oven door had been submitted on November 11, 1991, on January 15, 1992, and on May 4, 1992. None of the requested repairs had been undertaken before appellee sustained his burn. Appellant Kane was the Visiting Room Lieutenant,…