Estate of Cuffee Ex Rel. Cuffee v. Newhart , 498 F. App'x 233 ( 2012 )

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1494
SOTINA LAVALE CUFFEE, deceased, Estate of, by and through
her administrator, Bradley A. Cuffee,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
JOHN R. NEWHART, individually and in his official capacity
as Sheriff of the City of Chesapeake,
Defendant – Appellee,
v.
WEXFORD HEALTH SOURCES, INCORPORATED,
Third Party Defendant – Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Norfolk. Jerome B. Friedman, District
Judge. (2:08-cv-00329-JBF-DEM)
Argued: October 23, 2012 Decided: November 29, 2012
Before NIEMEYER, KING, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Jeroyd Wiley Greene, III, ROBINSON & GREENE, Richmond,
Virginia, for Appellant. Jeff W. Rosen, PENDER & COWARD, PC,
Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Lisa Ehrich,
PENDER & COWARD, PC, Virginia Beach, Virginia, for Appellee John
R. Newhart. Andrew J. Terrell, Thomas C. Mugavero, WHITEFORD,
TAYLOR & PRESTON, LLP, Falls Church, Virginia, for Appellee
Wexford Health Sources, Incorporated.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
The Estate of Sotina LaVale Cuffee ("Cuffee's Estate" or
"The Estate") appeals the district court's grant of summary
judgment to John R. Newhart, the Sheriff of the City of
Chesapeake, Virginia, on several claims arising from Cuffee's
death while incarcerated at the Chesapeake City Jail ("the
Jail"). For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the district
court’s judgment.
I.
The parties do not dispute the material underlying facts:
The Jail contracted with Wexford Health Sources, Inc., for
Wexford to provide on-site medical and dental services to
inmates. The contract provided for inmates to submit health
services request forms regarding any medical or dental issues.
The contract required that within a set turnaround period, the
forms would be reviewed, and, for medical issues, a registered
nurse or physician would see the inmate. A similar provision
required dentists to see patients for "acute" dental issues.
Over the course of approximately two-and-a-half months,
Cuffee filed five health services request forms, complaining
first of a painful toothache and later of severe chest pains,
tingling in her arms and back, and insomnia. Licensed practical
nurses ("LPNs") examined Cuffee and processed her services
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request forms on each occasion, and one of the LPNs assessed
that Cuffee had "possible indigestion." In apparent
contravention of Wexford's contract with the Jail, however,
although Cuffee requested to be seen by a medical doctor for her
medical complaints, she received no further treatment or
screening by an RN or physician. Cuffee's last request for
health services came the morning of July 17, 2006. An LPN gave
Cuffee an antacid and told her to submit another request to be
seen by a medical doctor. Cuffee was then returned to her
"pod," where her condition worsened throughout the day. Fellow
inmates informed corrections officers, who declared a medical
emergency. Despite the efforts of corrections officers and
responding emergency medical technicians, Cuffee lost
consciousness and died. An autopsy indicated that Cuffee's
death was caused by coronary artery atherosclerosis.
Cuffee's Estate initially filed a complaint in the Eastern
District of Virginia alleging several claims against various
known and unknown Wexford medical staff, Jail corrections
officers, and Sheriff Newhart. Decisions by the district court
not at issue on appeal led to the operative pleading in this
case – the Second Amended Complaint – alleging claims for
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violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983, gross negligence, and breach of
contract against Sheriff Newhart. 1
The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The
district court concluded that although
the ultimate statutory responsibility for inmate
medical care lies with Sheriff Newhart and . . .
[Cuffee's Estate] appears to have identified certain
omissions by Sheriff Newhart in connection with
[overseeing] the City's contract with Wexford[,] there
does not appear to be anything in the record of this
case showing any causal connection between those
apparent omissions by Sheriff Newhart and the alleged
omissions by Wexford and/or its personnel that may
have led to decedent's death.
(J.A. 473.) The district court held that because causation was
a necessary element of each of the Estate's claims against
Sheriff Newhart, the Estate could not, as a matter of law,
prevail on any of its claims. Accordingly, it granted Sheriff
Newhart's motion for summary judgment and dismissed the case. 2
1
Cuffee's Estate sued Sheriff Newhart "individually and in
his official capacity as Sheriff of the City of Chesapeake."
(J.A. 28.) The district court held that the Estate's "claims
against [Sheriff Newhart] in his official capacity are . . .
precluded by the Eleventh Amendment" given that he is a state
officer. (J.A. 474.) The Estate does not challenge that ruling
on appeal, and the remaining analysis focuses solely on the
claims against the Sheriff in his individual capacity.
2
The Estate's claims against Wexford and Wexford's medical
personnel were barred by the statute of limitations. Sheriff
Newhart had filed a third-party complaint against Wexford
seeking indemnification under the contract for any recovery
against him in this action. That claim had been severed, and as
a result of the district court's disposition of the Estate's
(Continued)
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Cuffee's Estate noted a timely appeal, and we have
jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.
II.
We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de
novo, applying the same standard as the district court. See
Nat'l City Bank of Ind. v. Turnbaugh, 463 F.3d 325, 329 (4th
Cir. 2006). Summary judgment is appropriate "if the movant
shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact
and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."
Fed. R. Civil Pro. 56(a).
III.
The central issue Cuffee's Estate raises on appeal is
whether the district court erred in holding that the record
failed to establish a proximate casual link between Sheriff
Newhart's alleged omissions in overseeing the Jail's contract
with Wexford and Wexford employees' conduct that led to Cuffee's
death. 3 It specifically contends that the record contains facts
claims against Sheriff Newhart, the district court also
dismissed the third-party complaint as being moot.
3
Cuffee's Estate also challenges the district court's
exclusion of evidence the Estate claims supports a finding of
Sheriff Newhart's deliberate indifference, and its conclusion
(Continued)
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on which a jury could have found the requisite causal
connection. To support this argument, the Estate points to
evidence showing that Wexford alerted Sheriff Newhart's
designated officer of an immediate need for additional nursing
staff at the Jail; Sheriff Newhart's internal 2005 audit
recognized medical staffing shortages at the Jail; and the
testimony of the Estate's expert witness, Dr. David Walthall
Richardson, opining that Cuffee's death could have been avoided
had she received earlier proper care each of the times she
submitted a health services request form in the weeks prior to
her death.
Although Cuffee's Estate brought three separate causes of
action against Sheriff Newhart, the claims share the common
element of causation. See Shaw v. Stroud, 13 F.3d 791, 798-99
(4th Cir. 1994) (observing that a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim
premised on a supervisor's deliberate indifference exists where
a supervisor's "indifference or tacit authorization of
subordinates' misconduct [is] a causative factor" in the
that Sheriff Newhart was entitled to qualified immunity against
a claim of ordinary negligence. We need not address either
argument given our agreement with the district court that all of
the Estate's claims fail due to an absence of evidence of
causation. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 323
(1986) (“[A] complete failure of proof concerning an essential
element of the nonmoving party’s case necessarily renders all
other facts immaterial.”).
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plaintiff's injury); Stone v. Ethan Allen, Inc., 350 S.E.2d 629,
631 (Va. 1986) (stating that breach of contract requires, inter
alia, "harm or damage to the plaintiff as a proximate
consequence of the violation or breach") (quotation marks and
citation omitted); Smith v. Prater, 146 S.E.2d 179, 182-83 (Va.
1966) (stating that gross negligence requires proof of
causation). We have previously recognized that
[a]lthough issues of causation are to be decided by
the jury, whether the evidence is sufficient to create
a jury issue is solely a question of law to be
determined by the court. In diversity cases in which
the sufficiency of the evidence to create a jury
question is presented, this court resolves the issue
based on the federal rule. That rule presents the
question whether there is evidence on which a jury
properly can base a verdict.
Charleston Area Med. Ctr., Inc. v. Blue Cross & Blue Shield Mut.
of Ohio, Inc., 6 F.3d 243, 247 (4th Cir. 1993) (internal
citations omitted). "Fair and proper adjudication of disputes .
. . precludes jury consideration of a party's claim unless the
party produces evidence demonstrating that claim to be at least
a reasonable probability rather than merely one of several
equally surmisable possibilities." Id.; see also Shaw, 13 F.3d
at 799 (discussing an "affirmative causal link" necessary to
survive summary judgment in the context of a § 1983 deliberate
indifference claim).
Here, Cuffee's Estate relies on evidence it proffered that
may have proven that Sheriff Newhart knew there were medical
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staffing shortages at the Jail. But that evidence is not
sufficient to survive summary judgment as it is not proof of the
critical element of causation. Even assuming the Estate's
evidence was sufficient to prove Sheriff Newhart's alleged
omissions in overseeing the Jail's medical staffing, the Estate
also had to provide evidence that Sheriff Newhart's acts led to
Cuffee's death. The record lacks any evidence to show that the
staffing shortages caused or otherwise contributed to Cuffee's
death. A jury verdict that the two were related would be based
on pure speculation rather than a legally sufficient showing of
proximate cause, i.e., a supportable finding that Cuffee's death
was a natural and foreseeable consequence of any omissions on
Sheriff Newhart's part with respect to medical staffing
shortages at the Jail. Cf. Charleston Area Med. Ctr., 6 F.3d at
247-48 (discussing speculative conclusions of causation as
opposed to actual evidence thereof).
Having reviewed the evidence as well as the parties'
arguments, we agree with the district court's conclusion that
"there is nothing in the record to suggest that [Cuffee] was not
correctly assessed or seen by a medical doctor because of the
apparent staffing shortages of which Sheriff Newhart was
allegedly deliberately indifferent. Consequently, in the
absence of any such affirmative causal link, [the Estate's]"
claims against Sheriff Newhart must fail. (J.A. 485.) Indeed,
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as the district court aptly observed, the Estate's own expert
witness, Dr. Richardson, testified as to the lack of any
evidence making the requisite causal link:
Q Do you have any facts that the reason that the
[LPN] didn't provide [sic] Ms. Cuffee to a doctor
or an RN was caused by nursing shortages?
A No, I don't have any facts of that. My opinion
is that the nurse should have done better, that
nurse.
. . . .
Q . . . The nurse could have made the decision not
to present, say that she is not sick enough for
an EKG and not told the doctor. To the best of
your knowledge, you don't know why the nurse did
what she did?
A That's true.
Q And it has no basis on whether there's a nursing
shortage or not?
A That is true.
(J.A. 485.) Cuffee's Estate cannot rise above its own evidence.
See Bouchat v. Balt. Ravens Football Club, Inc., 346 F.3d 514,
522 (4th Cir. 2003) (“A party opposing a properly supported
motion for summary judgment may not rest upon the mere
allegations or denials of [its] pleadings, but rather must set
forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for
trial. [N]either unsupported speculation, nor evidence that is
merely colorable or not significantly probative will suffice . .
. .”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Even
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the Estate’s own expert witness could not identify any reason to
attribute Wexford's medical personnel's decisions regarding
Cuffee's treatment to a medical staffing shortage at the Jail.
None of the Estate's other evidence provides a "reasonable
probability" that such a causal link exists either. Cf.
Charleston Area Med. Ctr., Inc., 6 F.3d at 247. Because the
record does not contain any evidence of causation, the Estate's
claims each fail as a matter of law. See Celotex Corp., 477
U.S. at 322 (stating that summary judgment is appropriate
“against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to
establish the existence of an element essential to that party’s
case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at
trial.”).
IV.
For the reasons set forth above and in the district court's
opinion, we find no error in the district court's decision to
grant summary judgment to Sheriff Newhart and dismiss this case.
Accordingly, that judgment is
AFFIRMED.
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