Tom BRIGGS, Personal Representative for the Estate of Thomas E. Briggs, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. OAKLAND COUNTY; Oakland County Sheriff‘s Department; Deputy Szydlowski; Deputy Vasquez; Sandy Stetz, RN; Debbie Tipton, RN; and Connie Zamora, RN, Defendants-Appellees.
No. 06-1405.
United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.
Jan. 8, 2007.
213 Fed. Appx. 378
As the district court pointed out in its opinion and order dismissing this suit, in addition to actual injury, a plaintiff must establish more than mere negligence on the part of defendant. See generally Sims v. Landrum, 170 Fed.Appx. 954, 956 (6th Cir.2006) (collecting cases). Having had an opportunity to review the record and arguments advanced by plaintiff, we are of the opinion that the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff had not met this burden. A reasoned opinion by this court would merely mirror the analysis provided by the district court and would serve no useful purpose.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed based upon its Opinion and Order of Summary Dismissal filed on August 11, 2005, 2005 WL 1981716.
Victor S. Valenti, Fieger, Fieger, Kenney & Johnson, Southfield, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Steven M. Potter, Potter, Deagostino, Campbell & O‘Dea, Keith J. Lerminiaux,
Before: CLAY, ROGERS, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.
ROGERS, Circuit Judge.
On June 13, 2004, Thomas E. Briggs, a pretrial detainee, fell from a bunk in his cell. Nurses responded by taking Briggs‘s vital signs, checking Briggs‘s inmate intake file, asking Briggs questions about his medical history and injuries, giving Briggs medicine, and placing Briggs in an observation cell. After approximately twenty minutes in the observation cell, nurses discovered Briggs lying dead on the floor. Briggs died of internal bleeding resulting from broken ribs that lacerated his spleen.
Plaintiff Tom Briggs, personal representative for the estate of Thomas E. Briggs, brought a
We affirm the district court‘s order granting defendants’ summary judgment motion. The district court correctly concluded that no rational juror could find that any of the nurses or deputies was subjectively aware of a substantial risk of harm to Briggs‘s health. Summary judgment was also appropriate for the County and Sheriff‘s Department (collectively, “municipal defendants“) because plaintiff did not present any evidence showing how the municipal defendants’ alleged failure to train their employees established deliberate indifference to the health or safety of pretrial detainees.
The tragic events of this case took place on June 13, 2004, at the Oakland County Sheriff‘s Department, where Thomas E. Briggs was a pretrial detainee being held on assault charges. Briggs had been in the jail for approximately one week. During this time, he experienced symptoms of heroin withdrawal.
Fall from Bunk
At approximately 10:40 p.m., Supervisor Jeffrey Devita, Deputy Richard Hubble, and Deputy Jeffrey Jones heard banging on the bars of the cell holding Briggs and other inmates. Hubble and Jones walked from the supervisor‘s office to investigate the banging. When Hubble arrived at the cell, he observed Briggs lying on the floor and was told by other inmates in the cell that Briggs had suffered a seizure. Deputy Hubble relayed this information to Supervisor Devita, who then walked to the cell and observed Briggs lying on the floor. Deputy Jones radioed for a nurse to come to the cell after he “heard there was a disturbance down there of a medical nature.” Deputy Theodore Rhyndress, Jr. also heard the banging, went to the cell to investigate, and heard other inmates in the cell say that someone had fallen from the top bunk and was having a seizure. Supervisor Devita stated that he found Briggs lying motionless on his left side, but that he did not observe any “seizure-like activity” on the part of Briggs. Deputy Rhyndress observed Briggs “on his knees in a ball position.”
Deputy Hubble moved the other inmates from the cell into the vestibule (i.e., another cell). Once the other inmates were locked in the vestibule and Briggs was alone in the cell, Supervisor Devita and Deputy Hubble walked into the cell. Devita stated that he first checked Briggs‘s wrist band to identify him and then asked Briggs to tell him what had happened. According to Supervisor Devita, Briggs said that he had fallen out of his bunk, and when asked, denied that he had suffered a seizure, that he had ever suffered from seizures, or that he was suffering from withdrawal from drugs. Devita also stated that when he asked Briggs where he was hurt, Briggs pointed to his “left side by like his rib area.” Deputy Hubble stated that when he entered the cell, he saw Briggs lying on the floor and Briggs said that his side hurt and pointed to his left side.
Deputy Rhyndress stated that he instructed Briggs to remain on the floor and asked Briggs whether he was hurt, and that Briggs responded by pointing to his side. Rhyndress then looked under Briggs‘s shirt and saw that his skin had a “slight discoloration ... [l]ike gray, just a tint.” Supervisor Devita stated that he did not “see any apparent injury, nothing abnormal.” Rhyndress said that he pointed out the discoloration to the nurses who came into the cell.
Response by Nurses
At approximately 10:45 p.m., a deputy notified Sandy Stetz and Connie Zamora, nurses for the Sheriff‘s Department, that a nurse was needed for a “possible seizure.” Nurses Stetz and Zamora grabbed a stethoscope, blood pressure cuff, and gloves, and headed to Briggs‘s cell.
Nurse Zamora stated that when she arrived at the cell, she saw Briggs lying facedown on the floor and moaning. Supervisor Devita told Nurses Stetz and Zamora that inmates had told him that Briggs fell off his bunk and the inmates thought that Briggs was having a seizure. Devita also told Stetz and Zamora what Briggs had told him—that he had fallen out of his bunk, his left side was hurting, and that he had not had a seizure and was not suffering from withdrawal. Nurse Zamora stat
Nurse Zamora stated that when she entered the cell, she “immediately went over to [Briggs and] tried to get a pulse.” Zamora said that it was difficult for her to take Briggs‘s pulse because he was moving his arm.1 At this point, Briggs asked Supervisor Devita whether he could use the bathroom. Devita stated that he asked Briggs whether he could “get there” and Briggs replied that he could. Deputy Rhyndress stated that Briggs moved to the bathroom by “doing a shuffle across the floor” on his hands and feet in “[k]ind of like a crawling, running position.”
According to Deputy Rhyndress, Briggs “temporarily” appeared to have trouble breathing; Rhyndress stated that Briggs took many short breaths and that Briggs said that he was having “a hard time catching his breath.” Supervisor Devita also noted that Briggs was complaining that his “ribs hurt and he couldn‘t catch his breath.”
After Briggs used the bathroom (Nurse Zamora stated that Briggs told her that he had diarrhea), Devita saw Briggs walk to the sink and wash his hands. Devita stated that Briggs walked slowly, but was not “bent over or hunched over,” was not favoring his left side, and did not appear to have any difficulty breathing.
After using the bathroom and washing his hands, Briggs walked over to a wheelchair that a deputy had brought into the cell, and sat down. Supervisor Devita stated that Briggs walked slowly to the wheelchair, but that Briggs did not appear to be in pain. The nurses and the deputy who brought the wheelchair then wheeled Briggs to the clinic.
Treatment at Clinic
Nurses Stetz and Zamora left the cell and returned to the nurses’ station in the clinic located in the K block. According to Nurse Stetz‘s report, she and Nurse Zamora discussed Briggs‘s condition and concluded that Briggs did not fall from the top bunk because there were no marks on his body that would indicate that he fell. At the nurses’ station, Stetz checked Briggs‘s booking information and discovered that, according to the booking information, Briggs was going through heroin withdrawal. At approximately 10:55 p.m., Briggs was brought to the clinic. Nurse Zamora stated that when Briggs first arrived, she asked him what had happened and attempted to get his vital signs, but that Briggs did not answer and instead said that he had to go to the bathroom. After using the bathroom, Briggs walked back to the wheelchair and sat down. Nurse Zamora then measured Briggs‘s blood pressure and pulse, which she recorded in her written report to be 130/74 and 88, respectively. Nurse Zamora also stated that she “observed” Briggs by visually checking his head and face for abrasions and noted that he was not having trouble breathing. Zamora then asked Briggs about his diarrhea and whether he had been going through heroin withdrawal. According to Zamora, Briggs “said that he had already been through withdrawals but he started having diarrhea again that day.”
After Nurse Zamora took Briggs‘s vital signs, Briggs said that he had to use the bathroom again and “jumped out of the
Observation at Clinic
After Nurse Zamora left Briggs alone, Deputy David Szydlowski observed Briggs either sitting or standing inside his cell and stated that Briggs did not appear to be in any pain or discomfort. Deputy Szydlowski also remembered Briggs “making noise” and asked Nurse Tipton about Briggs. According to Szydlowski, Nurse Tipton said that she did not know anything about Briggs because she had just begun her shift.2 In addition, Deputy Benito Vasquez observed Briggs lying on a cement partition inside his cell and heard Briggs moan once.
Deputy Hubble stated that one of the nurses told him that Briggs was being given medicine to settle his stomach and would be returned to his cell. Hubble stated that the nurse told him that Briggs would be restricted from sleeping on the top bunk. Deputy Hubble stated that during this conversation, he saw Briggs standing and beating on the window to the cell door. Hubble stated that Briggs said “Fuck you, Hubble. You can‘t keep me here. I want to go back to my cell and watch the basketball game.”3 However, Deputy Hubble also explained that he did not include this incident in the report he wrote on June 13, 2004.
Supervisor Devita also visited the clinic and asked either Nurse Stetz or Zamora whether Briggs “was going to be okay.” According to Devita, the nurse said that Briggs had diarrhea and received medicine for it. Devita also stated that at this time, he saw Briggs using the bathroom, and Briggs did not appear to be in pain.
Nurse Zamora stated that she looked into Briggs‘s cell sometime between 11:15 p.m. and 11:20 p.m. and saw Briggs, who was lying on his back, turn over onto his side. Zamora also stated that she remembered hearing Briggs later yelling from his cell. Nurse Tipton stated that she heard Briggs pounding on the door to his cell and yelling, “you can‘t do this, let me out of here.” Nurse Zamora stated that Nurse Tipton came to the nurses’ station and told Zamora that Briggs was standing at the door of his K-block cell and yelling that he wanted to go back to his C-block cell.
Death of Briggs
A few minutes later,4 Nurses Zamora, Stetz, and Tipton went to check on Briggs
Briggs was unable to be revived. Briggs died of complications from his fall in his cell—that is, the fall broke his ribs which lacerated his spleen, causing internal bleeding.
Procedural History
On September 3, 2004, plaintiff filed a civil rights action under
The district court granted defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The court held that plaintiff could not succeed in his claim of deliberate indifference because “there is no evidence that any of the individual [d]efendants knew of and disregarded an excessive risk to Briggs’ health or safety.” Briggs ex rel. Estate of Briggs v. Oakland County, No. 04-73458, 2005 WL 3320868, at *5 (E.D.Mich. Dec.7, 2005). Consequently, the court granted summary judgment to Oakland County and the Oakland County Sheriff‘s Department because ” ‘a municipal defendant cannot be held liable under
Following the district court‘s decision, plaintiff filed a Motion to Amend and a Motion for Reconsideration. The district court granted plaintiff‘s Motion to Amend and thus permitted plaintiff to supplement the record with the depositions of Nurse Stetz and two experts. The district court denied plaintiff‘s Motion for Reconsideration because the “new deposition testimony does not create a material question of fact and [the Motion] merely presents the same issues that” the court decided in its order granting summary judgment to defendants. Briggs v. Oakland County, No. 04-73458, 2006 WL 156681, at *1 (E.D.Mich. Jan.20, 2006).
Plaintiff filed a notice of appeal from the district court‘s order denying plaintiff‘s Motion for Reconsideration. In his Motion for Reconsideration, plaintiff stated that he
Standard of Review
This court reviews the district court‘s order granting summary judgment de novo. Watkins v. City of Battle Creek, 273 F.3d 682, 685 (6th Cir.2001). A district court may grant a motion for summary judgment only “if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law.”
Discussion
1. Individual Defendants
Summary judgment is appropriate here because plaintiff cannot show that Deputies Szydlowski or Vasquez, or Nurses Zamora, Stetz, or Tipton (collectively, “individual defendants“) were deliberately indifferent to Briggs‘s health or welfare. To establish a cause of action under
Assuming that Briggs was incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm, plaintiff does not show that any of the individual defendants knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm to Briggs‘s health or safety. Here, there is no direct evidence that any of the individual defendants subjectively knew of a substantial risk of serious harm to Briggs‘s health or safety. Plaintiff does not argue otherwise, but insists instead that he can defeat summary judgment “by demonstrating that the defendants had a sufficiently culpable state of mind ‘based on a strong showing of the objective component.’ ” Plaintiff‘s Br. at 21 (quoting Estate of Carter v. City of Detroit, 408 F.3d 305, 313 (6th Cir.2005)). Plaintiff is correct that he may also state a claim for deliberate indifference by showing that objective evidence of an excessive risk to the health or safety of an inmate was so obvious and extreme that a rational juror could infer that a defendant subjectively knew of that risk. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 842, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (“Whether a prison official had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence, and a factfinder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the
a. Deputies Szydlowski and Vasquez
The evidence does not permit a rational juror to infer that either Deputy Szydlowski or Deputy Vasquez knew of and disregarded a substantial risk to Briggs‘s health or safety. The evidence shows only that they heard Briggs “making noise” or moaning, and did not respond. This is insufficient proof of deliberate indifference because one cannot draw an inference that there was a substantial risk of harm to Briggs just because he was moaning inside of a medical ward.
Plaintiff attempts to show that Deputies Szydlowski and Vasquez are liable by presenting deposition testimony of a “jail procedures expert” who “was highly critical” of the deputies for failing to check on Briggs or notify a nurse after they heard Briggs moan, even though the deputies’ jobs were to “monitor inmates for safety.” Perhaps Szydlowski and Vasquez should have acted differently; however, it does not necessarily amount to deliberate indifference for a defendant to fail to perceive a risk of harm that he should have perceived. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 838, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (“[A]n official‘s failure to alleviate a significant risk that he should have perceived but did not, while no cause for commendation, cannot under our cases be condemned as the infliction of punishment.“); Watkins, 273 F.3d at 686 (“If an officer fails to act in the face of an obvious risk of which he should have known but did not, the officer has not violated the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendments.“). Therefore, there is not sufficient evidence that Deputies Szydlowski and Vasquez were deliberately indifferent to the health or safety of Briggs.
b. Nurses Zamora, Stetz, and Tipton
The evidence also does not permit a rational juror to infer that either Nurse Zamora, Nurse Stetz, or Nurse Tipton knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm to Briggs‘s health or safety. Nurse Zamora took Briggs‘s vital signs, which were normal, checked to see whether Briggs was having difficulty breathing, and did not observe Briggs standing or walking with difficulty. Nurse Zamora asked Briggs about his diarrhea and, after checking Briggs‘s medical file, concluded (perhaps erroneously) that he was suffering from heroin withdrawal. Although Briggs pointed to his left side when Supervisor Devita asked where Briggs hurt, and Devita told this to Nurses Stetz and Zamora, this information combined with the other observations upon which Nurse Zamora based her treatment decisions is insufficient to permit a rational juror to conclude that Nurse Zamora subjectively believed that there was a substantial risk of harm to Briggs‘s health. At most, Nurse Zamora perceived a lesser risk of serious harm to Briggs‘s health and acted under that belief by giving Briggs medicine and placing him under observation. This is consistent with Nurse Zamora‘s belief (as discussed in Nurse Stetz‘s report) that Briggs did not fall from the top bunk at all. Again, plaintiff argues that Nurse Zamora should have acted differently, but as the Supreme Court has emphasized, “Medical malpractice does not become a constitutional violation merely
Similarly, Nurses Stetz and Tipton were not deliberately indifferent to Briggs‘s health or safety. Plaintiff does not direct this court to any information that Nurses Stetz or Tipton had which Nurse Zamora did not have. To the extent that Nurses Stetz and Tipton treated Briggs alongside Nurse Zamora, they are not liable for the reasons stated above with respect to Nurse Zamora. To the extent Nurses Stetz and Tipton did not participate in Briggs‘s treatment, they are not liable because they knew that Nurse Zamora was treating Briggs. See Clark-Murphy v. Foreback, 439 F.3d 280, 287 (6th Cir.2006) (concluding that officers who had no reason to think that other officers to whom they gave information about an inmate were not treating that inmate were not liable for deliberate indifference to the inmate‘s health or safety).
2. Municipal Defendants
The district court correctly granted summary judgment to Oakland County and the Oakland County Sheriff‘s Department. A municipality‘s failure to train its employees constitutes a
Although plaintiff states that this single incident demonstrates that “the municipal [d]efendants have a policy of prisoner neglect,” plaintiff does not explain how the municipal defendants’ purported failure to train their employees constitutes deliberate indifference to the rights of pretrial detainees. Instead, plaintiff merely suggests a number of policies that the municipal defendants should have adopted.5 Plaintiff stops short of showing that “in light of the duties assigned to specific officers or employees the need for more or different training is so obvious, and the inadequacy so likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights, that the policymakers ... can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need.” City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 390, 109 S.Ct. 1197. In City of Canton, the Supreme Court noted that it will not suffice to prove that an injury or accident could have been avoided if an officer had had better or more training, sufficient to equip him to avoid the par
Conclusion
For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court‘s order granting summary judgment to defendants.