Barton Ex Rel. Estate of Barton v. Taber, 820 F.3d 958

On Sept. 12, 2011, Jeffry Barton was involved in a single-vehicle crash, exhibited slurred speech, swayed, nearly fell multiple times, and had a portable breath test of .11.
Officers arrested Barton; he became nonresponsive at the scene (an officer checked for a pulse), was lifted into Trooper Owens’s patrol car, and Owens transported him to the county detention center.
During booking Barton could not reliably answer questions, fell off a bench, could not walk without assistance, and was placed in a holding cell; he was found dead shortly after midnight.
Autopsy: death from an undiagnosed heart condition; minor amounts of ethanol and medications present but not at toxic levels.
Owens moved to dismiss asserting qualified immunity (federal) and statutory immunity under the Arkansas Civil Rights Act; the district court denied the motion (except official-capacity claims), and Owens appealed.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether Owens violated Barton’s constitutional right by failing to secure medical care (objective + subjective deliberate indifference)	Barton alleges symptoms (falling, nonresponsiveness, inability to stand/walk, slurred speech) that a layperson would recognize as an objectively serious need and that Owens knew of and ignored	Owens contends the symptoms were consistent with ordinary intoxication and did not obviously indicate a life-threatening condition	Court: Complaint plausibly alleges an objectively serious medical need and that Owens acted with deliberate indifference, so the alleged facts overcome dismissal at Rule 12(b)(6)
Whether the constitutional right was "clearly established" and whether Owens is entitled to statutory immunity (malice)	Existing Eighth Circuit precedents (e.g., McRaven, Grayson) placed an officer on notice that failing to seek care for intoxicated arrestees with symptoms beyond ordinary intoxication violates rights; ACRA malice inference parallels deliberate indifference	Owens argues no controlling precedent put him on notice; a reasonable officer could attribute Barton’s signs to intoxication; ACRA requires malice which is not pleaded	Court: Reasonable officer in 2011 would understand failing to seek care under these circumstances violated clearly established law; complaint also sufficiently pleads facts permitting an inference of malice under ACRA; denial of immunity affirmed

Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800 (qualified immunity standard)
McRaven v. Sanders, 577 F.3d 974 (officers not entitled to immunity where detainee exhibited extreme drug-intoxication signs and nurses lacked full info)
Grayson v. Ross, 454 F.3d 802 (qualified immunity where detainee’s behavior was consistent with ordinary intoxication)
Jackson v. Buckman, 756 F.3d 1060 (applying Eighth Amendment deliberate-indifference standard to pretrial detainee medical claims)
Mullenix v. Luna, 136 S. Ct. 305 (do not define clearly established law at high level of generality)