Aubrey Lauhoff v. Quality Correctional Health Care, Inc.

Case: 17-10121 Date Filed: 09/01/2017 Page: 1 of 7
[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 17-10121
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 5:14-cv-00614-CLS
AUBRY LAUHOFF,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
LAWRENCE COUNTY, ALABAMA, et al.,
Defendants,
QUALITY CORRECTIONAL HEALTH CARE, INC.,
JOHNNY BATES,
Defendants - Appellees.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Alabama
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(September 1, 2017)
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Before HULL, MARCUS and FAY, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
After a jury trial in this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, the plaintiff Aubry Lauhoff
appeals the final judgment entered in favor of the defendants, Dr. Johnny Bates and
his company, Quality Correctional Health Care, Inc. (“QCHC”), which contracts to
provide medical services to prison inmates. On appeal, Lauhoff argues that he is
entitled to a new trial because the district court erred in instructing the jury on his
Fourteenth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.1
After review, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND FACTS
While Lauhoff was incarcerated in Alabama at the Lawrence County Jail
(“the jail”) for several months, he was diagnosed with and treated for Crohn’s
Disease, edema, anemia, and malnourishment. Six days after his release from jail,
Lauhoff was admitted to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with severe anemia
and was given a blood transfusion.
Lauhoff filed this § 1983 action claiming that Dr. Bates, who treated him in
the jail, was deliberately indifferent to Lauhoff’s serious medical needs. During
the five-day trial, Lauhoff maintained that Dr. Bates’s treatment, which included
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Lauhoff voluntarily dismissed his claims against the other defendants named in his
amended complaint and voluntarily dismissed his Alabama medical negligence claims against
Dr. Bates and QCHC, leaving only his deliberate indifference claim against Dr. Bates and QCHC
to go to the jury.
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lab work, medications, and B12 injections, was not sufficient and that Dr. Bates
should have sent him to a hospital for treatment, including a blood transfusion.
At the close of the evidence, the district court charged the jury that Lauhoff
had to prove by a preponderance of the evidence: (1) that Lauhoff had a serious
medical need; (2) that Dr. Bates knew that Lauhoff had a serious medical need that
posed a risk of serious harm; (3) that Dr. Bates failed to provide necessary medical
care for Lauhoff’s serious medical need in disregard of, or indifference to, the risk
of serious harm to Lauhoff; (4) that Dr. Bates was acting under color of state law at
the time; and (5) that Dr. Bates’s conduct caused Lauhoff’s injuries.
Relevant to this appeal, the district court gave the Eleventh Circuit’s Pattern
Jury Charge for “serious medical need” with some additional language, requested
by Lauhoff, stating that “serious harm” does not require a permanent loss or
handicap, as follows:
The first element requires plaintiff to prove that he had a
serious medical need during the period in which he was incarcerated
in the Lawrence County Jail. A serious medical need is a medical
condition that has been diagnosed by a physician as requiring
treatment, or a medical condition that is so obvious that even a
layperson would easily recognize the need for medical care. In either
case, the medical condition must have posed a substantial risk of
serious harm to the plaintiff if left unattended or not appropriately
treated in a timely manner. Serious harm does not require a
permanent loss or handicap.
See Eleventh Circuit Civil Pattern Jury Instructions No. 5.4 (2013). Lauhoff
requested that the district court also instruct the jury that serious harm “includes
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unnecessary pain and suffering,” but the district court did not do so. Lauhoff
objected to the district court’s refusal to include the pain and suffering language,
arguing that his pain and suffering while in jail was the “essence” of his case
because the defendants would argue that he eventually got better.
During deliberations, the jury returned with the following question: “What is
the legal definition of serious medical need of an inmate?” The district court
repeated the charge on the first element of the claim. Lauhoff renewed his
objection to that instruction.
After further deliberation, the jury returned a verdict in favor of Dr. Bates
and QCHC. Using a special verdict form, the jury found, as to the first two
elements of the deliberate indifference claim, that Lauhoff “had a serious medical
need” and that Dr. Bates “knew that plaintiff had a serious medical need that posed
a risk of serious harm.” As to the third element, however, the jury found that Dr.
Bates had not “failed to provide the necessary medical care for plaintiff’s serious
medical need in disregard of, or indifference to, the risk of serious harm.”
After the jury trial, Lauhoff filed a motion for a new trial, arguing solely that
the district court’s “serious medical need” jury instruction was flawed because it
omitted his pain and suffering language and thus misled the jury. The district court
denied Lauhoff’s motion.
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II. DISCUSSION
On appeal, Lauhoff argues that the district court erred by refusing to give his
requested jury instruction as to the definition of “serious medical need.” Lauhoff
contends, as he did at trial, that the district court should have further instructed the
jury that serious harm includes unnecessary pain and suffering and that the failure
to do so warrants a new trial.
“We review jury instructions de novo to determine whether they misstate the
law or mislead the jury to the prejudice of the objecting party, but the district court
is given wide discretion as to the style and wording employed in the instructions.”
Lamonica v. Safe Hurricane Shutters, Inc., 711 F.3d 1299, 1309 (11th Cir. 2013)
(quotation marks omitted). “We review only for an abuse of discretion a district
court’s refusal to give a requested jury instruction.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).
A district court’s refusal to give a requested instruction is an abuse of discretion
“only when (1) the requested instruction correctly stated the law, (2) the instruction
dealt with an issue properly before the jury, and (3) the failure to give the
instruction resulted in prejudicial harm to the requesting party.” Id. (internal
quotation marks omitted). In short, “[w]e will not disturb a jury’s verdict unless
the charge, taken as a whole, is erroneous and prejudicial.” Badger v. S. Farm
Bureau Life Ins. Co., 612 F.3d 1334, 1339 (11th Cir. 2010) (quotation marks
omitted).
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Here, the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding Lauhoff’s
proposed language that “serious harm” includes pain and suffering. First, the
pattern jury charge adequately defines “serious medical need,” which is the
relevant element. See, e.g., Mann v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 588 F.3d 1291, 1307 (11th
Cir. 2009) (defining “serious medical need”); Conroy v. Abraham Chevrolet-
Tampa, Inc., 375 F.3d 1228, 1233 (explaining that if the instruction given
accurately reflects the law, the district court has wide discretion as to wording).
Second, even if we assume arguendo that Lauhoff’s requested language
correctly stated the law and dealt with an issue properly before the jury, Lauhoff
has not shown that the failure to include it resulted in any prejudicial harm to him.
The proposed language merely elaborated upon the meaning of “serious medical
need,” which implicates the first and second elements of Lauhoff’s deliberate
indifference claim. Clearly, the failure to include this language did not prejudice
Lauhoff in any way, as the jury found in Lauhoff’s favor that Lauhoff had a serious
medical need and that Dr. Bates knew that Lauhoff had a serious medical need
“that posed a risk of serious harm.” Lauhoff did not prevail on his § 1983 claim
because the jury found, as to the third element, that Dr. Bates’s treatment of
Lauhoff’s serious medical need did not amount to deliberate indifference. Under
the circumstances, Lauhoff has not shown any prejudice, and reversal for a new
trial is not warranted.
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AFFIRMED.
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