⚖ Oral Arguments, with Context

The Fifth Circuit revisits a prisoner's claim that lifting his work restrictions violated the Eighth Amendment. Bobby Stevenson had a surgically repaired ankle and a medical status that kept him out of agricultural fieldwork at Louisiana State Penitentiary. In 2019, the prison's medical director approved a nurse practitioner's recommendation to lift those restrictions. Corrections officers then assigned Stevenson to field work. Stevenson contends that this exposed him to severe pain and further injury, and that the doctor knew the risk. The doctor disputes that account, relying on the examination, an asserted lack of recent ankle-pain complaints, and later medical care. An earlier appeal allowed Stevenson's allegations to proceed. The case then returned to district court for an evidence-based summary-judgment decision, where the judge found disputes requiring a trial on the claim against this doctor. The doctor is appealing that refusal to grant qualified immunity, not a jury verdict imposing liability. Qualified immunity protects officials from damages unless they violated a right that was clearly established at the time. The doctor's lawyer will argue that the evidence does not show knowing disregard of a serious risk, and that changing medical restrictions is different from ordering someone to work. Stevenson's lawyers will argue that the doctor knowingly removed the protection that prevented harmful work and that earlier precedent gave fair warning. Deliberate indifference requires more than negligence or an ordinary disagreement over treatment. Listen for what the doctor knew, the causal link to the field assignment, and which disputed facts this court may reconsider before a trial.

Stevenson v. Lavespere (No. 26-30043) — U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, argued November 4, 2026.