EBONI NICOLE BALDWIN v. LATOISHA DORSEY
No. 19-20465
United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
July 1, 2020
Before KING, JONES, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.
Harris County sheriff‘s deputy Latoisha Dorsey appeals a denial of summary judgment, contending that qualified immunity shields her from liability based on Eboni Baldwin‘s claim under
BACKGROUND
Around midnight on September 27, 2014, a concerned citizen approached a car stopped at a traffic light in Houston. Finding Baldwin, the driver, awake but incoherent, he called an ambulance. When emergency personnel arrived, Baldwin told an emergency medical technician (“EMT“) that she had post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD“) and that she had taken four sleeping pills. The EMT noticed two pills in Baldwin‘s hand and an open water bottle in her lap.
Soon afterwards, Deputy Dorsey and other deputies arrived on scene. Dorsey observed that Baldwin was intermittently unconscious and learned from the EMT that she had been holding the sleeping pills and an open water bottle. Although an EMT told Baldwin he would like to take her to the hospital in an ambulance, she refused that request. Dorsey and other deputies removed Baldwin from her car and placed her, handcuffed, in the back of a patrol car. The deputies searched Dorsey‘s car, which clearly displayed a disability placard in the front window. During this time, Baldwin told someone with a male voice that she had PTSD.
After the search, Dorsey drove Baldwin to Houston Police Central Intox, where law enforcement administer intoxication tests. En route, Baldwin, who was now plainly likely to face charges, told Dorsey that she felt suicidal and asked to be taken to the hospital.1 Dorsey refused and proceeded to the testing facility. On arrival, Dorsey handcuffed Baldwin to a bench in a cell, where Baldwin stayed for two hours while she waited for a blood draw.
After the blood draw, Dorsey took Baldwin to Harris County Jail. At booking, Baldwin repeated her request to go to the hospital because she felt suicidal, and a jail nurse was called over. The nurse called in a doctor, who determined that the jail would not accept Baldwin until she had been cleared by a hospital. Dorsey then took Baldwin to the hospital, where Baldwin‘s screening and treatment lasted less than an hour. Medical records from the visit include a struck-through notation that Baldwin was having suicidal thoughts. Those records also note that Baldwin “appear[ed] in no acute distress” and was “alert,” “pleasant,” “cooperative,” and “calm.” After the hospital visit, Dorsey returned Baldwin to jail. Sometime later, Baldwin was released, her criminal charges were dropped, and her arrest records were expunged.
In response to this incident, Baldwin filed a pro se lawsuit against Dorsey and others under
The defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The district court dismissed all claims except Baldwin‘s deliberate-indifference claim against Dorsey
STANDARD OF REVIEW
To start, we must address a jurisdictional challenge. Baldwin maintains that “Dorsey‘s arguments on appeal challenge only the district court‘s determination that there remain genuine disputed facts.” While the denial of a summary judgment motion based on qualified immunity is immediately appealable, this court‘s jurisdiction extends only to “the district court‘s legal analysis of qualified immunity,” Jason v. Tanner, 938 F.3d 191, 194 (5th Cir. 2019), not to the sufficiency of the evidence. Plainly, Dorsey has asserted qualified immunity as a matter of law. A large portion of her brief is dedicated to discussing cases suggesting that her response to Baldwin did not amount to objectively unreasonable behavior in light of clearly established law. Dorsey alludes to fact issues, but the introduction to her brief states that “[w]hen considering a qualified immunity defense, the Court must decide . . . whether facts alleged, taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff” violated a constitutional right. We have jurisdiction over the issues raised.2
Turning to the merits, “[o]nce a government official asserts [qualified immunity], the burden shifts to the plaintiff to ‘rebut the defense by establishing that the official‘s allegedly wrongful conduct violated clearly established law and that genuine issues of material fact exist regarding the reasonableness of the official‘s conduct.‘” Bourne v. Gunnels, 921 F.3d 484, 490 (5th Cir. 2019) (quoting Gates v. Tex. Dep‘t of Prot‘ve & Reg‘y Servs., 537 F.3d 404, 419 (5th Cir. 2008)). “Where, as here, the district court finds that genuinely disputed, material fact issues preclude a qualified immunity determination, this court can review only their materiality, not their genuineness.” Manis v. Lawson, 585 F.3d 839, 842 (5th Cir. 2009). Yet, “[w]hether there are material issues of fact is reviewed de novo.” Id. at 843 (citing Ontiveros v. City of Rosenberg, 564 F.3d 379, 382 (5th Cir. 2009)).
Further, “[t]he plaintiff‘s factual assertions are taken as true to determine whether they are legally sufficient to defeat the defendant‘s motion for summary judgment.” Id. (citing Freeman v. Gore, 483 F.3d 404, 410 (5th Cir. 2007)).
DISCUSSION
Baldwin must establish material fact issues on two points to survive summary judgment based on qualified immunity. Cleveland v. Bell, 938 F.3d 672, 675–76 (5th Cir. 2019). She must adduce facts to show that Dorsey violated her constitutional rights, and she must show that “the asserted right was clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct.” Id. A court may consider either condition first, and if either condition does not obtain, then Dorsey is immune. Morgan v. Swanson, 659 F.3d 359, 385 (5th Cir. 2011) (en banc).
To be more precise, the
The second prong of the qualified immunity analysis asks whether the detainee‘s right to treatment for serious medical needs was “clearly established” such that every “reasonable official would understand that what [she] is doing violates that right.” Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S. Ct. 3034, 3039 (1987). This inquiry “must be undertaken in light of the specific context of the [particular] case, not as a broad general proposition . . . .” Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194, 201, 121 S. Ct. 2151, 2156 (2001). Although qualified immunity does not require a case in point, “existing precedent must have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Kisela v. Hughes, 138 S. Ct. 1148, 1152 (2018) (quoting White v. Pauly, 137 S. Ct. 548, 551 (2017)).
In this case, the district court purported to find “a substantial risk of serious harm“—namely, “a significant risk of suicide“—in the fact that Baldwin “was either on the brink of a suicide attempt via prescription overdose or had already overdosed on sleeping pills.” The court found genuine disputes as to whether the significant risk existed and whether Dorsey actually inferred a substantial risk of suicide. Further, the court found it “unreasonable” that the “Defendant [took] no action for almost three hours after learning of Plaintiff‘s suicidal ideations and possible overdose just hours earlier,” “refus[ing] to treat [Plaintiff], and ignor[ing] [her] complaints” (internal citations omitted). Finally, the court accepted as “substantial” Baldwin‘s allegations of psychological and other harm resulting from Dorsey‘s alleged conduct. Based on these alleged facts, and the court‘s view that “Defendant‘s total failure for three hours to take any measures to address Plaintiff‘s risk of suicide is a violation of clearly established law,” the court denied Dorsey‘s motion for summary judgment.
We are constrained to disagree with the court‘s conclusions on both the constitutional violation and the question of clearly established law.
First, as a matter of law, the record does not support an inference that while in Dorsey‘s custody Baldwin faced a substantial risk of suicide. Second, as a matter of law, Dorsey‘s conduct did not amount to “inaction” in response to Baldwin‘s outcry for psychological assistance. We assume that when she was found, Baldwin “was
Baldwin suggests that there was a substantial risk that she would commit suicide by other means. But even if Dorsey inferred a substantial risk that Baldwin would commit suicide by means other than overdose, still, Dorsey‘s conduct—e.g., handcuffing Baldwin in the patrol car and handcuffing her to a bench by one hand at the Intox facility—were reasonable measures to (and did in fact) abate that risk. On this record, no reasonable jury could determine that Dorsey was deliberately indifferent to protecting Baldwin against self-harm or suicide.
As still another alternative, Baldwin suggests that Dorsey was deliberately indifferent to her serious medical need for treatment of a psychological crisis. For Baldwin to have a claim on this ground, the record would have to support that Baldwin faced a substantial risk of serious psychological harm, that Dorsey inferred or knew as much,4 that Dorsey failed to take reasonable measures to abate the risk, and that substantial harm resulted from that failure. Assuming the first two elements are debatable, we will consider whether Dorsey took reasonable measures to abate a substantial risk of serious psychological harm.
The central fact relied on by the district court is that Dorsey “t[ook] no action for almost three hours after learning of Plaintiff‘s suicidal ideations and possible overdose just hours earlier.” Yet it is undisputed that Dorsey took Baldwin to a nurse within three hours and to the hospital for suicide evaluation within four hours. Three hours’ delay in directly responding to a medical need, at least on the facts alleged here, is not the same as never taking responsive action at all. Moreover, the reason for delay in this case—to gather information about Baldwin‘s level of intoxication—is a legitimate governmental objective. Cf. Rhyne v. Henderson County, 973 F.2d 386, 391 (5th Cir. 1992) (Pre-trial detainees “must be provided with ‘reasonable medical care, unless the failure to supply it is reasonably related to a legitimate government objective.‘” (quoting Cupit v. Jones, 835 F.2d 82, 85 (5th Cir. 1987))); Grayson v. Peel, 195 F.3d 692, 696 (4th Cir. 1999) (recognizing that allowing a constitutional claim in this area for
In addition to the failure of her constitutional-violation theories, Baldwin has not shown that “the asserted right was clearly established at the time of the alleged misconduct,” Bell, 938 F.3d at 676. As the district court stated, “the question is whether, assuming that Defendant learned of Plaintiff‘s suicidal ideations around 1:35 AM, Defendant had fair notice that she was required to take measures to address Plaintiff‘s expressed suicidal thoughts sometime sooner than three hours later.” In particular, because Dorsey clearly kept Baldwin safe from self-harm, the question is whether Dorsey had fair notice that she was required to provide professional medical care within three hours. We hold that no such fair notice was available.
The district court held to the contrary but identified no case that clearly answers its question. Instead, it cited, first, Brown v. Strain, 663 F.3d 245, 249–51 (5th Cir. 2011), in which the defendant waived the issue whether his conduct was objectively unreasonable in light of clearly established law. The court cited two cases where, we held, there was no deliberate indifference and one case in which this court, under the pre-Twombly standard, reversed a
The district court acknowledged that in Hare v. City of Corinth this court stated, “[W]e cannot say that the law is clearly established with any clarity as to what . . . measures [jailers must take to prevent inmate suicides once they know of the suicide risk].” 135 F.3d 320, 329 (5th Cir. 1998) (emphasis added) (quoting Rellergert v. Cape Girardeau County, 924 F.2d 794, 797 (8th Cir. 1991)). Hare thus fails to clearly establish the objective unreasonableness of Dorsey‘s conduct. Certainly, nothing in Hare clearly establishes that to inform a nurse of a detainee‘s suicidal ideations after three hours’ delay (during which time the detainee was tested for intoxication, remained handcuffed, and was deprived of the only means of suicide to which she had, apparently, resorted) is objectively unreasonable. See id.
Baldwin takes one more shot at showing that clearly established law gave notice to officers that failing to take her to the hospital within three hours of a report of suicidal ideations would constitute deliberate indifference. She points to Easter v. Powell, 467 F.3d 459, 465, 461 (5th Cir. 2006) (emphasis added), in which a nurse “offered no treatment options“—ever—to a prisoner who had suffered severe chest pain for twenty minutes and “ha[d] a history of serious heart problems,” including chest pain and vomiting two days earlier.5
Because Baldwin fails to establish a triable material issue concerning a violation
CONCLUSION
The judgment of the district court is REVERSED, the case REMANDED for entry of DISMISSAL.