Johney Finn v. Warren County, Kentucky, 768 F.3d 441

Background

Pretrial detainee Shannon Finn exhibited alcohol withdrawal after booking into Warren County Regional Jail in March 2009; SHP medical staff placed him on an alcohol detox protocol and administered oral meds.
Night-shift jailers and an SHP nurse observed worsening withdrawal symptoms (shaking, sweating, confusion, delusions); Finn was moved to a medical observation cell but declined placement earlier and expressed fear of being alone.
Multiple cellmates repeatedly alerted jail staff that Finn was in danger; jail logs show repeated entries of "appears to be okay" despite eyewitness accounts of severe symptoms.
Finn was found unresponsive and later died; autopsy attributed death to delirium tremens from ethanol withdrawal (with underlying hypertensive heart disease noted).
Plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Kentucky tort law against the county, jail officials, SHP, and medical staff. After summary-judgment dismissals and a jury trial, verdicts largely favored defendants.
On appeal the Sixth Circuit reversed summary judgment for Jailer Jackie Strode (qualified official immunity) and remanded for trial on plaintiffs’ negligence claims against him; all other rulings were affirmed.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether summary judgment (qualified official immunity) for Jailer Strode on state-law negligence/gross negligence claims was proper	Strode negligently failed to train/enforce the EMS policy; supervision/enforcement are ministerial duties (no immunity)	Supervision, training, and enforcement are discretionary responsibilities entitled to qualified official immunity	Reversed: training/enforcement of an adopted policy are ministerial under Kentucky law; Strode not entitled to immunity and must face trial on negligence claims
JMOL for deputy jailers on negligence/gross negligence	Evidence established deputy jailers breached EMS policy and were negligent per se under KRS 441.045 and KRS 446.070	Evidence was disputed; reasonable jurors could find no negligence; no negligence per se because not all elements shown and internal policy is not a regulatory standard	Affirmed: district court properly denied JMOL; genuine fact disputes supported jury verdict for deputy jailers
County § 1983 failure-to-train claim (deliberate indifference)	County training was constitutionally inadequate without needing to prove individual mens rea first	County argued plaintiffs waived or could not prove derivative deliberate indifference	Issue waived at trial by plaintiffs’ counsel agreeing to a derivative instruction; not considered on appeal
Exclusion of defense expert Dr. Alan Weder	Weder’s report failed to state opinions to a reasonable degree of medical certainty; testimony should be excluded	Court limited Weder to disclosed opinions and accepted his in-court statement of opinions to a reasonable degree of medical certainty	Affirmed: court allowed testimony (limited); plaintiffs’ Daubert/reliability challenge not preserved on appeal; any erroneous damages instruction was harmless because jury found no liability

Key Cases Cited

Hedgepath v. Pelphrey, [citation="520 F. App'x 385"] (6th Cir. 2013) (supervisory jailers denied qualified immunity where failure to train/enforce written policy implicated ministerial duties)
Walker v. Davis, 643 F. Supp. 2d 921 (W.D. Ky. 2009) (district court opinion relied on below regarding scope of supervisory duties and immunity)
Yanero v. Davis, 65 S.W.3d 510 (Ky. 2001) (distinguishes discretionary policymaking from ministerial duty to follow and enforce established rules)
Tompkins v. Crown Corr., Inc., 726 F.3d 830 (6th Cir. 2013) (standard for de novo review of summary-judgment rulings cited by parties)
Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994) (subjective component of deliberate indifference requires recklessness)
Flechsig v. United States, 991 F.2d 300 (6th Cir. 1993) (internal prison procedures do not automatically create negligence per se)