Collignon v. Milwaukee County
| Decision Date | 12 January 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. 98-1711,98-1711 |
| Parties | Barbara Ann COLLIGNON and Marc Collignon, Executor of the Estate of Jonathan Collignon, Plaintiffs-Appellants, v. MILWAUKEE COUNTY, Grace Downing, Joseph Lofy, et al., Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Lawrence G. Albrecht (argued), First, Blondis, Albrecht, Bangert & Novotnak, Milwaukee, WI, for Plaintiffs-Appellants.
Timothy R. Karaskiewicz (argued), Office of the Corporation Counsel, Milwaukee, WI, for Defendants-Appellees Milwaukee County and Grace Downing.
Gregg T. Heidenreich (argued), Stilp & Cotton, Milwaukee, WI, for Defendants-Appellees Joseph Lofy and Patrick Dunn.
Before FLAUM, MANION, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Jonathan Collignon, like many people with a mental illness, was able to lead a productive life while on his prescribed medication. But when he stopped taking his medication his schizophrenia returned. He was arrested for damaging property and placed in the Milwaukee County Jail. After 17 days, he was released on bail to his parents. Shortly thereafter he was temporarily detained by the Shorewood (Wisconsin) Police Department, who also released him to his parents. The next day he committed suicide. Jonathan's estate and his parents sued Milwaukee County and one of its psychiatrists as well as Shorewood and several of its police officers, claiming that their action or inaction had violated Jonathan's federal constitutional rights, causing him pain and suffering and leading to his suicide. The district court granted judgment on the pleadings for the Shorewood defendants and granted summary judgment for the County defendants. Because we conclude that the pleadings and record in this case fail to establish any federal constitutional violation, we affirm.
We relate the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs. See Morrow v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 152 F.3d 559, 561 (7th Cir.1998) (summary judgment); Frey v. Bank One, 91 F.3d 45, 46 (7th Cir.1996) (). During the spring of 1993 when the events critical to this case took place, Jonathan was a 28-year-old who had a long history of mental illness. Jonathan's treating psychiatrists diagnosed him as suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. While an in-patient at the Milwaukee County Mental Health Center (MCMHC) in February 1992, Jonathan attempted suicide. While Jonathan was taking his prescription medications, his mental illness was controlled and he could lead a productive life. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, where he was a good student and was able to make friends. But Jonathan's medications had side effects he disliked, so he would stop taking them. In August 1992, Jonathan's mental condition had so deteriorated that he was involuntarily committed to MCMHC under Wisconsin's statutory provisions.
In January 1993 Jonathan was released from MCMHC based at least partly on the condition that he would continue to take his medication. But Jonathan soon stopped taking his medication and his mental health deteriorated until on April 5, 1993, he was arrested by the Milwaukee Police Department and charged with criminal damage to property. The police took Jonathan to the Milwaukee County Jail and because of his mental illness and past suicide attempt, the jail staff placed Jonathan on the jail's highest level of suicide watch, which required jail personnel to check on him at least once every 15 minutes.
On April 7, two days after Jonathan entered the jail, the jail's psychiatrist, Dr. Grace Downing, met with him for the first time. Dr. Downing discussed Jonathan's mental health history with him, including his prior suicide attempt and his resistance to taking medications because of their side effects. Dr. Downing decided that because Jonathan was reluctant to take medications, the best course of action was to develop a "therapeutic alliance" with him. She prescribed a non-therapeutic dose of Thorazine (25mg per day). Although Dr. Downing knew such a small dosage would have no effect on Jonathan's schizophrenia, it would also not have the side effects that he so feared. She hoped to cultivate a willingness on his part to eventually take a therapeutic dosage. On April 12, 1993, Dr. Downing had a follow-up meeting with Jonathan. She increased his Thorazine dosage to 50 mg per day, which still was non-therapeutic. (Due to a clerical error by the jail's nursing staff, Jonathan did not receive this medication on three consecutive days: April 19, 20, and 21.)
On April 13, 1993, Jonathan met with psychiatrist George Palermo as part of a court-ordered competency evaluation. Dr. Palermo's report, submitted to the court the next day, concluded that Jonathan suffered from paranoid schizophrenia but that he was nonetheless competent to stand trial. On April 20, the court accepted Dr. Palermo's report and found Jonathan competent. The court set his bail at $200, with the conditions that he continue to take his medication and that he be monitored by Wisconsin Correction Services (WCS), which is a private entity that contracts with Milwaukee County to provide, among other services, bail monitoring and follow-up medical, social, and psychiatric services. On April 22, Jonathan's father, Marc, and his mother, Barbara Ann, posted the required $200 to bail him out. The Collignons met with WCS social worker Linda Hitz, who scheduled a follow-up meeting for the next afternoon.
Before his detention, Jonathan had been living with his father and stepmother, and he went home with them after leaving the jail. Shortly after 6:00 p.m. that evening, the elder Collignon and his wife laid down for a nap. When they awoke a few hours later, Jonathan was gone. They discovered that he had thrown away many of his personal belongings. Jonathan's father and stepmother went to the Shorewood Police and asked for their help in finding Jonathan. They told the officer on duty about Jonathan's mental health history and his strange behavior that evening. In response, the Shorewood Police posted a missing persons bulletin to about 50 other law enforcement agencies. Around midnight that evening, acting on the bulletin, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee police officer, who knew Jonathan from his time at UWM as a student, found Jonathan on campus and took him into custody. Two Shorewood officers came to pick up Jonathan shortly thereafter, and transported him back to the Shorewood Police Department. There, officers interviewed him and released him at about 1:30 a.m. He again went home with his father and stepmother.
The next morning, at about 9:00 a.m., Jonathan's father saw him come downstairs and quickly leave. The elder Collignon ran outside and saw his son walking east. Marc Collignon did not seek the aid of the police as he had done the night before; rather he waited to leave home until about 12:15 p.m. to pick up his wife from work to go to the appointment with WCS. Marc Collignon and his wife apparently believed Jonathan would meet them at WCS for the appointment. But Jonathan never showed up, and Marc and his wife left after waiting about 15 minutes. In the meantime, Jonathan had gone to the Hyatt Regency in Milwaukee and gone up to the eighteenth floor. The Hyatt's guest rooms on each floor surround a central atrium, which is open from the lobby all the way up to the eighteenth floor. Jonathan climbed over the short wall separating him from the atrium and hung over the edge. A hotel employee spotted him and ran towards him calling out for Jonathan to hold on, but before the employee could get to Jonathan he let go and fell to his death. When Jonathan's father and stepmother arrived home that afternoon, they had a message from the Shorewood Police. When they returned the call, a detective came to meet them and informed them of Jonathan's death.
On May 6, 1994, Jonathan's estate and his parents filed this suit against Milwaukee County, Dr. Downing (individually and in her official capacity), the Village of Shorewood, its insurance company, three of Shorewood's police officers (individually and in their official capacities), the Hyatt Regency, and its insurance company. The complaint asserted claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the County and Shorewood defendants for federal constitutional violations, and asserted Wisconsin statutory and common-law negligence claims against all the defendants. On March 26, 1996, the district court (Judge Reynolds) granted summary judgment to the Hyatt on all the plaintiffs' claims against it, and granted judgment on the pleadings for the Shorewood defendants on the plaintiffs' federal claims. The case was later transferred to Judge Clevert, and on February 18, 1998, the district court granted summary judgment to the County defendants on both the state and federal claims and to the Shorewood defendants on the remaining state law claims. The plaintiffs have not appealed from the district court's rulings regarding their state law claims against any of the defendants. In this appeal, then, we need only address the district court's decision to grant summary judgment for the County defendants and judgment on the pleadings for the Shorewood defendants on the plaintiffs' federal claims.
Our review of the district court's grant of summary judgment is de novo, and we must apply the now familiar standard to determine whether the County defendants are entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. The plaintiffs base their claims against Milwaukee County and Dr. Downing on 42 U.S.C. § 1983, which provides that "[e]very person who, under color of statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State ... subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States ... to the deprivation of any rights, privileges,...
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