A state inmate filed a civil rights action, alleging that the defendants subjected him to exposure to “cigarette smoking in the dormitory… day and night, including the bathroom,” despite a policy prohibiting smoking in prison buildings.  The court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, ruling that “Phelps has failed to show a sufficiently serious level of exposure” to secondhand smoke.  The court ruled that “Phelps also has failed to demonstrate any conduct on the part of any defendant which indicates a subjective, deliberate indifference to Phelps’s exposure to unacceptable levels” of secondhand smoke.”

2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13378 (U.S.D.C. W.D. N.C. 2011).