Opinion
Cause No. NA 02-133-C H/H.
June 29, 2004
ENTRY GRANTING SUMMARY JUDGMENT ON REMAINING CLAIMS
The Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution impose a duty on jailers not to act with deliberate indifference toward the health and safety of inmates, including the risk that an inmate might harm himself. E.g., Woodward v. Correctional Medical Services of Illinois, Inc., 368 F.3d 917, 926-27 (7th Cir. 2004) (affirming verdict in favor of estate of inmate who committed suicide); Cavalieri v. Shepard, 321 F.3d 616, 620 (7th Cir. 2003) (affirming denial of jailer's motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity); see generally Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) (subjective test of deliberate indifference applies to threats to inmate health and safety). In this case, the plaintiff seeks to stretch this duty beyond prior case law. She seeks to hold a jailer liable for the suicide of her son, who obtained his guard's gun, shot the guard, escaped, and later committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
Plaintiff Doria Miller is the mother of the late Roy Allen Miller. Mrs. Miller sues in her own right and as the personal representative of her son's estate. She has sued as defendants Floyd County Sheriff Randall Hubbard in his official and individual capacities and Floyd County Jail Officer James Dexter. In earlier decisions, the court dismissed the claims against Officer Dexter (the officer whom Miller shot) and granted summary judgment for Sheriff Hubbard on the individual capacity claims. When the court granted summary judgment to Sheriff Hubbard in his individual capacity, the court also ordered plaintiff to show cause why the court should not also grant summary judgment on the claims against Sheriff Hubbard in his official capacity. Plaintiff has responded with an additional brief but no additional evidence. Having reviewed the evidence previously filed, as well as the new briefs, the court finds that the undisputed facts show that Sheriff Hubbard is entitled to summary judgment on those remaining claims.
Summary Judgment Standard
The purpose of summary judgment is to "pierce the pleadings and to assess the proof in order to see whether there is a genuine need for trial." Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986). Summary judgment is appropriate when there are no genuine issues of material fact, leaving one side entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). A district court may enter summary judgment sua sponte as long as the losing party has had fair notice of the possibility and a fair opportunity to come forward with evidence showing that there is a genuine issue of material fact. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 326 (1986); Simpson v. Merchants Recovery Bureau, Inc., 171 F.3d 546, 549 (7th Cir. 1999).
A factual issue is material only if resolving the factual issue might change the suit's outcome under the governing law. Clifton v. Schafer, 969 F.2d 278, 281 (7th Cir. 1992). A factual issue is genuine only if there is sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to return a verdict in favor of the non-moving party on the evidence presented. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). In considering the possibility of summary judgment, the court must consider the evidence in the light reasonably most favorable to plaintiff, giving her the benefit of all conflicts in the evidence and all reasonable favorable inferences from the evidence. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Anderson, 477 U.S. at 255; Celotex, 477 U.S. at 323; Baron v. Highland Park, 195 F.3d 333, 337-38 (7th Cir. 1999).
Undisputed Facts
In light of the applicable standard, the facts stated here are either undisputed or reflect the evidence in the light reasonably most favorable to plaintiff. Roy Allen Miller ("Miller") was arrested on July 14, 2000 in Floyd County Indiana for resisting law enforcement, battery, and vehicle theft. Jail officials classified Miller as a risk for suicide and/or escape, and as a danger to himself and others. On July 17, 2000 Miller was transported to Clark Memorial Hospital by the Floyd County Sheriff's Department for purposes of detoxification and psychiatric care. Miller was not supposed to leave Clark Hospital, but he did.
On July 27, 2000, officers arrested Miller again pursuant to an arrest warrant and brought him to the Floyd County Jail. While Miller was in the jail, a psychiatrist assessed Miller as drug dependent and in need of continued medical detoxification. On July 29, 2000 Miller was exhibiting drug withdrawal symptoms so serious that jail personnel were unable to administer his prescribed medication. On the recommendation of paramedics from an ambulance crew, jail officials ordered Officer James Dexter to transport Miller to the hospital where he had received treatment.
While Miller was at the hospital he was able to gain control of Officer Dexter's gun. He shot Dexter and escaped from the hospital and the custody of the Sheriff's Department. Later that day, while authorities were attempting to recapture him, Miller shot himself in the head using Officer Dexter's gun. The self-inflicted gunshot was fatal.
Plaintiff contends, and the court must assume, that Sheriff Hubbard had no separate policies or procedures for transporting or keeping at a hospital inmates who were high suicide risks or high escape risks, or for training deputies on how to protect their firearms while transporting or guarding such high risk inmates. Sheriff Hubbard had issued a standard operating procedure on inmate transportation. That document promised a future, separate standard operating procedure for transportation of high risk inmates, though none was issued.
The plaintiff, suing in her individual capacity and as personal representative of Miller's estate, claims that the Sheriff should be held liable in his official capacity for Miller's death because he failed to establish appropriate policies or procedures for transporting such high risk inmates, including protection of firearms in such transportation.
In support of his original motion for summary judgment, Sheriff Hubbard submitted an affidavit stating that he had no direct knowledge that Miller had been transported to the hospital on either July 17th or July 29th. He also testified that he did not participate in the decision to transport Miller to the hospital on either of those dates and in fact had no personal knowledge that Miller had been a part of the jail population until after his escape and suicide. Without such personal knowledge or involvement, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the Sheriff in his individual capacity. In that entry the court pointed out that, at the time of the suicide, Miller was not in custody, making it difficult to see how the Sheriff could be held liable in his official capacity.
Analysis
In response to the court's order to show cause, the plaintiff argues that Miller's actions on July 29th should be characterized not as an escape but as a suicide that was not prevented. Plaintiff seeks to emphasize the Sheriff's Department's knowledge of Miller's past departure from the hospital without permission, as well as his drug dependency and suicidal ideation in arguing that the Sheriff, in his official capacity, acted with deliberate indifference by not having in place additional policies or procedures to address handling of high-risk inmates. According to plaintiff, the court should not view Miller's escape or his shooting of Officer Dexter as an intervening act that would excuse the indifference she believes preceded those actions.
Although plaintiff admits she cannot find a supportive case directly on point, she relies on an unpublished decision of the United States District Court for the District of Kansas, Griffin v. United States, 2000 WL 33200259 (D. Kan. 2000). In Griffin, following a bond revocation hearing, the plaintiff's husband had slipped the custody of U.S. Marshals and died when he jumped from the fourth story of the building. The plaintiff had originally sought to assert a constitutional claim, but then abandoned it. She also sought relief under the Federal Tort Claims Act, applying Kansas negligence law, alleging that the Marshals Service failed to heed the plaintiff's warnings and failed to take steps that would have prevented her husband from committing suicide.
The district court denied the government's motion to dismiss the negligence claim at the pleadings stage. The district court opined that Kansas law would recognize the duty of someone having custody over another to take reasonable steps to prevent the individual from injuring himself. In reaching its decision to allow the negligence claim to proceed past the pleadings stage, the district court found that the suicidal jump (interpreting the allegations most favorably for the non-moving plaintiff) might have happened only moments after the prisoner escaped the custody of the Marshals Service. The court deemed this possibility to be sufficient to avoid dismissal on the pleadings. The court wrote:
At this stage in the proceedings, the Court must accept as true plaintiff's allegation that defendant knew of Wood's suicidal tendencies. On such facts, the Court finds that Kansas law would impose a duty on defendant to take reasonable steps to protect Wood from unreasonable risks of harm arising out of his own conduct. Defendant argues that it did not owe a duty to Wood because he injured himself after he "broke free" from the custody. See United States' Reply, at 10. Apparently, defendant contends that any duty it owed as a result of its custody over Wood ended at the precise moment he "broke free" and that his jump from the fourth floor constitutes a separate independent act as to which no duty was owed. Construing the alleged facts in the light most favorable to plaintiff, however, the Court cannot conclude that Wood's injury is sufficiently distinct and separate from any duty which defendant owed as a result of its custody over Wood. Plaintiff alleges that Wood broke free while he was in the custody at the courthouse and then committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor. The factual record is unclear with respect to the proximity of time and location of Wood's escape from custody. If Wood broke free from custody and a substantial time lapsed before he jumped from the fourth floor, defendant's position might be well taken. If Wood broke free only moments before he jumped, however, or if his act of jumping was part of the escape, it would appear that the defendant owed a duty to take reasonable steps to protect him from hurting himself.Griffin, 2000 WL 33200259 at *5.
Plaintiff seeks relief here under the United States Constitution, not state negligence law. Thus, assuming that Griffin correctly predicted the application of Kansas negligence law to those alleged facts, the opinion offers no guidance on matters of constitutional law. Even under negligence law, the Griffin court relied on the possibility that the decedent's escape and suicide were one contemporaneous act. In this case, plaintiff has alleged in paragraph 36 of the complaint that Miller "took Defendant Dexter's weapon, shot Dexter, and left the Hospital." Only later, while law enforcement officers were trying to apprehend him, did Miller shoot himself. The facts of this case differ in this critical respect from the facts alleged in Griffin.
As this court noted in granting summary judgment on the individual capacity claims and ordering plaintiff to show cause on the official capacity claims, there is in general no constitutional duty on the part of the state to protect someone from private violence. DeShaney v. Winnebago County Dep't of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989). The Supreme Court in DeShaney recognized an exception to this general rule in situations where the state has custody or is "restraining the individual's freedom to act on his own behalf," which can trigger a duty to provide for the individual's safety. Id. at 200. In this case, Miller did not die while he was in custody. He shot himself after shooting Officer Dexter and escaping from custody. No state officials restrained his individual freedom to act when he pulled the trigger.
Plaintiff also relies on state negligence cases holding that an inmate's or patient's mental illness and suicide do not necessarily serve as a complete defense to negligent efforts by jailers or doctors to prevent suicide. E.g., Sandborg v. Blue Earth County, 615 N.W.2d 61, 64 (Minn. 2000); Cowan v. Doering, 545 A.2d 159, 163-64 (N.J. 1988). These cases do not provide any but the most tangential support for plaintiff's attempt to extend federal constitutional law to impose a duty to prevent an escaped prisoner from killing himself. Cf. Clark v. Evans, 840 F.2d 876, 883, 885-86 (11th Cir. 1988) (affirming summary judgment for defendants in fatal shooting of mentally ill prisoner who attempted to escape, and distinguishing between suicide attempts in custody and escape attempts that endanger larger community).
The Constitution does not prohibit jail and prison officials from using reasonable force to prevent escapes, especially in light of the threat that escapes can pose to the community at large. E.g., Kinney v. Indiana Youth Center, 950 F.2d 462, 465 (7th Cir. 1991) (affirming summary judgment against escaped prisoner who sued guard who shot him to stop escape); see also Gravely v. Madden, 142 F.3d 345 (6th Cir. 1998) (directing entry of summary judgment against prisoner who was shot during escape attempt); Clark v. Evans, 840 F.2d 876, 883 (11th Cir. 1988) (affirming summary judgment for defendants in fatal shooting of mentally ill prisoner who attempted to escape; distinguishing between suicides attempted while in custody and suicidal escape attempts that pose dangers to others).
The fact that the Constitution allows such efforts to prevent escapes does not, however, mean that the Constitution itself imposes a duty to prevent such escapes, such that a failure to do so could give rise to civil liability in favor of anyone. The court noted earlier that the Seventh Circuit and other courts have rejected constitutional claims by guards who were injured by violent escaping inmates and who alleged that their supervisors should have prevented the prisoners from escaping and injuring them. Walker v. Rowe, 791 F.2d 507, 509 (7th Cir. 1986) (guards injured in prison riot); accord, de Jesus Benavides v. Santos, 883 F.2d 385, 387 (5th Cir. 1989) (applying DeShaney to claims by guards killed and injured by escaping prisoners); see also Rucker v. Harford County, 946 F.2d 278, 281-82 (4th Cir. 1991) (innocent bystander had no constitutional claim against police officer who injured him while pursuing criminal suspect).
Where killed and injured guards and innocent bystanders have no such claim under the federal Constitution for harm caused by an escaped prisoner, it is difficult to understand how the escaped prisoner would have one. Plaintiff has come forward with no case law supporting a constitutional claim under these circumstances.
Conclusion
After ample notice and opportunity for discovery, plaintiff has failed to come forward with evidence showing a genuine dispute of fact material to whether Sheriff Hubbard owed any constitutional duty to Miller that was violated when Miller killed himself. The court grants summary judgment in favor of Sheriff Hubbard on the official capacity claims against him. This decision resolves the last remaining claims, so the court will enter final judgment in favor of defendants.
So ordered.