Goodman v. Clayton Cnty. Sheriff Kemuel Kimbrough

• Decision Date: 21 June 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–10732.,12–10732.
• Parties: Mary GOODMAN, as next friend Bruce Goodman, Mary Goodman, Plaintiffs–Appellants, v. Clayton County Sheriff Kemuel KIMBROUGH, Robyn Boland, Herbert Feemster, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

718 F.3d 1325

Mary GOODMAN, as next friend Bruce Goodman, Mary Goodman, Plaintiffs–Appellants,

v.Clayton County Sheriff Kemuel KIMBROUGH, Robyn Boland, Herbert Feemster, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 12–10732.

United States Court of Appeals,Eleventh Circuit.

June 21, 2013.

Larry E. Stewart, Larry E. Stewart & Associates, Lawrenceville, GA, R. Andres Marierose, Law Offices of R. Andres Marierose, Hampton, GA, for Plaintiffs–Appellants.

Winston Antonio Denmark, L'Erin Frances Barnes, Fincher, Denmark & Williams, LLC, Jonesboro, GA, for Defendants–Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

Before WILSON and COX, Circuit Judges, and VOORHEES,^* District Judge.

WILSON, Circuit Judge:

Bruce Goodman (Goodman), a 67–year–old man suffering from dementia and prone to disorientation and confusion, was severely beaten by his cellmate while detained at the Clayton County Jail (the Jail) in the early morning hours of September 9–10, 2008. By and through his wife and next friend, Goodman filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the two officers charged with his supervision at the Jail in their individual capacities, and against the Sheriff of Clayton County in his official capacity. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment. This is the appeal. Although the officers' dereliction of duty on the night in question concerns us, the law compels that we affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. Background

We relate the facts—as we must at this stage of the litigation—in the light most favorable to Goodman. See Goebert v. Lee County, 510 F.3d 1312, 1316 (11th Cir.2007). In January 2008, Bruce Goodman suffered a stroke. In the months that followed, his cognitive functioning deteriorated rapidly, and by September he presented symptoms of early onset dementia, including occasional confusion, disorientation, and wandering. Goodman has been married to his wife, Mary Goodman, for over 30 years. On September 9, Mary Goodman awoke to find that her husband was not in bed and had left the couple's trailer. He had apparently taken a walk, become confused, and attempted to gain entry to another trailer. When the trailer's occupants called the police, Goodman was arrested for loitering and brought to the Jail.

Upon phoning 911 and learning that her husband had been arrested, Mary Goodman went to the Jail. She showed the officer at the second-floor desk her husband's medical records, explained that he was cognitively impaired and showing signs of dementia, and asked the officer to ensure that her husband received his medication and that he be placed either in the infirmary or in isolation so that he would not unintentionally insult another inmate and thereby come in harm's way.

Goodman was assigned to Housing Unit 7, an orientation unit in the Jail. He was specifically placed in Section 6 of Unit 7, the administrative segregation (or “admin”) section, where inmates are placed out of concern for their own safety or the safety of others. Though administrators at the Jail generally endeavor to place only one prisoner per cell in the admin section, Goodman was housed with another inmate, Antonio Raspberry.

Officers Robyn Boland and Herbert Feemster were the officers assigned to Unit 7 on the night in question. Boland worked in the control tower and Feemster served as the “runner,” orienting new detainees and—or so it was thought—performing “head counts” and “cell checks” of all the inmates in the unit. Clayton County Sheriff's Department (Sheriff's Department) policy required that Officers Boland and Feemster perform a “head count,” which involves entering the cells and physically looking at the inmates' faces and arm bands, at 6 p.m. and midnight each night. Policy also required the officers to walk by each cell and look into the window (known as a “cell check”) once per hour after midnight. Although Feemster reported having completed the 6 p.m. head count, he only checked the cells in the admin section through the cell window and failed to enter the cells as required. Neither officer conducted the required head count at midnight, nor did they conduct a single cell check on the night Goodman was injured.

The officers claim that the night of September 9 was extraordinarily busy, and that 42 detainees were awaiting orientation when the officers arrived to start their shift. They contend that they asked for additional manpower to assist them in their duties, but a supervisor denied their request. They also claim that during the 6 p.m. head count, an inmate had reported a desire to harm himself, a contingency that required Feemster to escort the troubled inmate to the infirmary and prepare a report about the incident. Despite the officers' protestations that they were too busy to complete the required head counts and cell checks, Officer Boland made a long visit to another section of the Jail and took two lunch breaks rather than the one lunch break to which she was entitled.

At around 5 a.m. the next morning, Officer Feemster entered Goodman and Raspberry's cell to deliver breakfast. Goodman was sitting on his bunk, covered in blood. He had contusions about his face. His eyes were swollen shut. The cell was laden with blood. Feemster called a supervisor, who asked Goodman what had caused his injuries. Goodman, clearly bewildered, lifted up his hands and said, “These two right here.” When asked why he had harmed himself, Goodman responded, “They told me to.” Despite Goodman's statements, a Sheriff's Department investigative report subsequently found that Raspberry, Goodman's cellmate, had inflicted the beating on Goodman. Goodman's injuries were severe: he was taken to the intensive care unit at the local hospital and held there for seven days, and he spent two to three weeks in the Jail infirmary after being released from the hospital.

The Internal Affairs Division of the Sheriff's Department subsequently conducted an investigation, which revealed that one inmate, El Hadji Toure, had pushed the emergency call button in his cell several times during the night in question. Toure would later tell a Sheriff's Department investigator that he had pushed the button in order to notify officers that he heard a fight going on in Goodman's cell. Boland and Feemster both admitted that—contrary to Sheriff's Department policy—they had deactivated Toure's call button because they believed he was pushing the button so that he could request free time to use the telephone. Boland further testified that she sent an inmate worker to ask Toure what he wanted, and the inmate worker reported back that Toure wanted to use the telephone.

The Sheriff's Department investigative report also included the statements of two other inmates, Darin Slocum and Calandra Carmichael, who both reported that they heard sounds of a man being beaten coming from Goodman's cell throughout the night. Boland and Feemster both adamantly deny having been aware of any violence or anything out of the ordinary in Goodman's cell on the night of the incident. Both officers testified that they neither saw nor heard anything that would have made them aware of any risk to Goodman that night. Goodman did not depose any of the inmates who heard the melee in Goodman's cell that night, nor did Goodman depose the inmate worker regarding what message he received from Toure or what he in turn relayed to Boland or Feemster.

Based in part on the investigative report, the Sheriff's Department obtained a criminal arrest warrant charging Raspberry with Goodman's beating. Upon the conclusion of the Internal Affairs investigation, the Sheriff's Department recommended that Officers Boland and Feemster be permanently terminated because they had been “neglectful in [their] duties ..., which allowed Bruce Goodman # 3574959 to become injured.” Nonetheless, after further review, the Sheriff's Department reduced Boland and Feemster's suspensions to 30 days, and these 30–day suspensions were later shortened to 14 days.

Mary Goodman claims that ever since the violent episode at the Jail, her husband has been permanently altered and that, due to the advancement of his dementia, he is now indefinitely confined to a nursing home.

Acting as next friend to her husband, Mary Goodman sued Boland and Feemster in their individual capacities for violating Goodman's Fourteenth Amendment rights by demonstrating a deliberate indifference to a substantial risk that he would be seriously injured at the Jail. She also sued Sheriff Kimbrough in his official capacity for her husband's injuries and, lastly, sued on her own behalf for loss of support and consortium. The district court granted summary judgment as to all claims, and Goodman appeals.

II. Discussion

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the facts and drawing all reasonable inferences in the light most favorable to Goodman, the nonmoving party. Liese v. Indian River Cnty. Hosp. Dist., 701 F.3d 334, 341–42 (11th Cir.2012). We will affirm the grant of summary judgment if we conclude that there is no genuine issue of material fact—that is, if no “fair-minded jury could return a verdict for the plaintiff on the evidence presented.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2512, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986).

1. Individual Capacity Claims Against Boland and Feemster

“A prison official's deliberate indifference to a known, substantial risk of serious harm to an inmate violates the Fourteenth Amendment.” Cottone v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1358 (11th Cir.2003) (alteration omitted) (internal quotation marks omitted).¹ To survive summary judgment in a case alleging deliberate indifference, a plaintiff must “produce sufficient evidence of (1) a substantial risk of serious harm; (2) the defendants' deliberate indifference to that risk; and (3) causation.” Carter v. Galloway, 352 F.3d 1346, 1349 (11th Cir.2003) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks...