Palmer v. Board of Commissioners

FILED
United States Court of Appeals
Tenth Circuit
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
October 14, 2011
FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Elisabeth A. Shumaker
Clerk of Court
JOHN DAVID PALMER,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v. No. 11-6021
(D.C. No. 5:09-CV-00824-F)
BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS FOR (W.D. Okla.)
PAYNE COUNTY OKLAHOMA;
NOEL BAGWELL; MARK HALL;
UNKNOWN DEPUTY SHERIFFS;
PAYNE COUNTY SHERIFF,
Defendants,
BRANDON MYERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
ORDER AND JUDGMENT *
Before KELLY, GORSUCH, and MATHESON, Circuit Judges.
*
After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined
unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral
argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore
ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding
precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and
collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent
with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1.
Payne County Jail Administrator Brandon Myers appeals from a district
court order adopting the magistrate judge’s recommendation to deny his motion
for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. Our review in such
circumstances is limited. “Generally, we may not review a district court’s factual
conclusions, such as the existence of a genuine issue of material fact for a jury to
decide, or that a plaintiff’s evidence is sufficient to support a particular factual
inference.” Dodds v. Richardson, 614 F.3d 1185, 1192 (10th Cir. 2010) (internal
quotation marks omitted). But, “[i]nsofar as we have jurisdiction to review the
denial of a qualified-immunity motion for summary judgment, our review is
de novo.” Deutsch v. Jordan, 618 F.3d 1093, 1099 (10th Cir. 2010). Exercising
de novo review over those aspects of Myers’s appeal that are within our
jurisdiction, we affirm for the reasons stated by the magistrate judge and the
district court.
I. Factual Background
While held as a pretrial detainee at the Payne County Jail, plaintiff John
David Palmer suffered from an infection by the flesh-eating methicillin-resistent
staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria. Mark Hall, the jail’s medical transport
officer, took plaintiff to Dr. Daniel P. Hill on the morning of August 2, 2007.
Dr. Hill drained the boils plaintiff had developed, administered an injection of an
antibiotic, and prescribed two more antibiotics for oral use at the jail. Although
Dr. Hill did not actually diagnose plaintiff with MRSA during the visit, a jail
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record prepared by Officer Hall upon their return reflected that plaintiff had been
treated for MRSA (the diagnosis was later confirmed by lab tests). Dr. Hill
advised that plaintiff should return for a follow-up visit in two days, but warned
that if, in the interim, plaintiff developed a fever over 100 degrees or increased
pain, he should be taken to the hospital. Officer Hall testified in his deposition
that he conveyed this information to defendant Myers when he brought plaintiff
back to the jail (and the magistrate judge noted this fact was undisputed).
Upon his return, plaintiff’s condition worsened. The pain where the boils
were increased to the point that he was vomiting, crying, and complaining that he
needed to go to the hospital. He alleges that when defendant Myers came to the
jail annex in response to his complaints, he reiterated Dr. Hill’s instructions, told
Myers how very sick he was, and asked Myers to take him to the emergency
room. According to plaintiff, Myers told him to “shut the fuck up or go back to
the main jail where you got the disease.” Aplt. App. Vol. II at 256. According to
Myers, “[t]o the best of my recollection, [plaintiff] did not tell me verbally that he
was in need of medical care” and “I did not deny a request for medical care made
by [plaintiff].” Id. Vol. I at 69. By the evening of the next day, plaintiff was
taken to the emergency room. He was admitted and underwent surgery for the
MRSA infection. In addition to the pain involved, he claims he suffered nerve
damage and scarring and incurred over $24,000 in medical bills.
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II. Qualified Immunity Analysis
The magistrate judge correctly noted that “[i]t has been clearly established
since 1976 that a jailer’s failure to act in accordance with prescribed medical
instructions can give rise to an Eighth Amendment claim.” Id. Vol. II at 448
(citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-05 (1976)); see, e.g., Howard. v.
Dickerson, 34 F.3d 978, 980-81 (10th Cir. 1994); Ledoux v. Davies, 961 F.2d
1536, 1537 (10th Cir. 1992). 1 After summarizing the conflicting accounts of the
events at the jail noted above, the magistrate judge concluded that “[t]he evidence
of whether Defendant Myers intentionally [refused to comply with Dr. Hill’s
medical instructions] is in dispute . . . and summary judgment [granting qualified
immunity to Myers] is precluded.” Aplt. App. Vol II at 448. The district court
agreed, “conclud[ing] that there is sufficient evidence for a rational jury to find
that defendant Myers knew plaintiff faced a substantial risk of harm and
disregarded that risk.” Id. at in 473.
Myers cannot challenge the conclusion that a reasonable jury could find he
failed to follow Dr. Hill’s instructions. “A district court’s determination that the
record raises a ‘genuine issue of material fact,’ precluding summary judgment in
favor of the defendants, is not appealable even in a qualified immunity case.”
1
It is also well-established that the Eighth Amendment principles discussed
herein protect pretrial detainees under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment. See Howard, 34 F.3d at 980-81; Martin v. Bd. of County Comm’rs,
909 F.2d 402, 406 (10th Cir. 1990).
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Dixon v. Kirkpatrick, 553 F.3d 1294, 1301 (10th Cir. 2009) (quoting Johnson v.
Jones, 515 U.S. 304, 313 (1995)). This general rule “has attracted exceptions that
we must also consider,” Lewis v. Tripp, 604 F.3d 1221, 1225 (10th Cir. 2010), but
the two relevant exceptions identified in Lewis do not apply here.
First, when the district court “fails to identify the particular charged
conduct that it deemed adequately supported by the record, we may look behind
the order denying summary judgment and review the entire record de novo to
determine for ourselves as a matter of law which factual inferences a reasonable
jury could and could not make.” Id. This exception is not applicable here; it is
quite clear what conduct the district court was referring to when it held that a
rational jury could find Myers knew and disregarded a substantial risk of harm to
plaintiff.
Second, “when the ‘version of events’ the district court holds a reasonable
jury could credit ‘is blatantly contradicted by the record,’ we may assess the case
based on our own de novo view of which facts a reasonable jury could accept as
true.” Id. at 1225-26 (quoting Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380 (2007), in which
the Supreme Court refused to credit a version of events flatly contradicted by a
video recording). That is also clearly not the case here.
We are thus left to review one straightforward legal question: did Myers’s
alleged refusal to take plaintiff to the hospital in accord with Dr. Hill’s directions,
after plaintiff told Myers how sick he had become and asked to be taken to the
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hospital, provide a basis upon which Myers could be held to have violated clearly
established law? The answer, on our record and under the case law cited above,
must be yes. Myers seeks to avoid this conclusion by arguing that, even on
plaintiff’s version of the facts, he did not know or appreciate the seriousness of
plaintiff’s condition and, in particular, did not know plaintiff was suffering from
MRSA. But such lay ignorance of medical matters is precisely the reason for the
rule noted earlier that noncompliance with the treatment prescribed by medical
professionals is one form of deliberate indifference. When the seriousness of a
medical need is not “so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the
necessity for [medical] attention,’” it is nevertheless sufficient to support a claim
of deliberate indifference if “‘it is one that has been diagnosed by a physician as
mandating treatment.’” Martinez v. Garden, 430 F.3d 1302, 1304 (10th Cir.
2005) (quoting Sealock v. Colorado, 218 F.3d 1205, 1209 (10th Cir. 2000)).
Of course, to satisfy the subjective component of such a claim, Myers must
be shown to have known and disregarded the risk involved. Id. “‘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.’” Self v. Crum, 439 F.3d 1227, 1231 (10th Cir. 2006)
(quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 842 (1994) (brackets omitted)). Here,
where Myers knew that the treating physician’s directions were to take plaintiff
directly to the hospital, a jury could surely infer from the circumstances that
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Myers knew of and intentionally disregarded a substantial risk to plaintiff’s
health. Myers further argues that his knowledge derived solely from plaintiff’s
own reported complaints and that “[s]uch a subjective assessment of his own
illness by Plaintiff, without proof of Myers’s knowledge of any objective signs or
symptoms thereof, is simply insufficient to establish that Myers’s alleged denial
of medical care to Plaintiff . . . was in contravention of Dr. Hill’s instructions.”
Aplt. Br. at 23. Myers cites no authority for the premise of this argument, i.e.,
that a prison officer can ignore an inmate’s complaints of pain because they are
subjective. And that premise is particularly inapt in this case, where the treating
physician’s instructions were in relevant part specifically conditioned on the
subjective symptom of increased pain–a symptom communicated by plaintiff
under circumstances (on his version of the facts) that clearly supported rather than
belied its authenticity.
III. Conclusion and Attorney Fee Request
For the foregoing reasons, we conclude the district court properly denied
Myers’s motion for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity.
Plaintiff has requested an award of attorney fees and costs in the event we affirm
the decision of the district court. Costs are, of course, “taxed against the
appellant” when “a judgment is affirmed.” Fed. R. App. P. 39(a)(2). Plaintiff
does not cite any authority for his fee request, but we assume it is made pursuant
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to 42 U.S.C. § 1988(b). 2 As such, it is premature. Although he has succeeded in
defending the denial of summary judgment to defendant Myers, he has yet to
affirmatively establish his right to any relief on his claims. “[A] plaintiff [must]
receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim before he can be said to
prevail [for purposes of fees under § 1988].” Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 760
(1987); see, e.g., Stidham v. Peace Officer Standards & Training, 265 F.3d 1144,
1157 (10th Cir. 2001) (denying § 1988 fee request made by plaintiff who
prevailed on qualified-immunity appeal, holding “[i]t must abide the
determination on the merits”).
The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. Appellee’s request for
attorney fees is DENIED.
Entered for the Court
Paul J. Kelly, Jr.
Circuit Judge
2
The request for fees was not made by separate motion as required under
Fed. R. App. P. 38 for awards in the nature of sanctions. See Anchondo v.
Anderson, Crenshaw & Assocs., 616 F.3d 1098, 1107 n.10 (10th Cir. 2010). But
because we may consider fee requests made, as here, in appellate briefs if they are
based on an independent statutory authorization for fees, id., plaintiff’s request
would be procedurally valid under § 1988.
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