Marchant v. City of Little Rock, Ark., 83-1493

• Citation: 741 F.2d 201
• Decision Date: 21 August 1984
• Docket Number: No. 83-1493,83-1493
• Parties: Winnie MARCHANT, Appellant, v. CITY OF LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS; Walter E. Simpson, Chief of Police; Albert Benefield, Jail Administrator; Webster Hubbell, Mayor; and Carlton McMullin, City Manager; All In Their Official and Individual Capacities, Appellees.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

Page 201

741 F.2d 201

Winnie MARCHANT, Appellant, v. CITY OF LITTLE ROCK, ARKANSAS; Walter E. Simpson, Chief of

Police; Albert Benefield, Jail Administrator; Webster

Hubbell, Mayor; and Carlton McMullin, City Manager; All In

Their Official and Individual Capacities, Appellees.

No. 83-1493.

United States Court of Appeals,

Eighth Circuit.

Submitted Jan. 13, 1984.

Decided Aug. 21, 1984.

Richard Quiggle, Little Rock, Ark., for appellant.

R. Jack Magruder III, City Atty., by Hugh L. Brown, Asst. City Atty., Little Rock, Ark., for appellees.

Before ROSS, JOHN R. GIBSON and BOWMAN, Circuit Judges.

BOWMAN, Circuit Judge.

Winnie Marchant brought this action under 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 against the City of Little Rock and four city employees both in their official and individual capacities. The named defendants included the chief of police, the chief jail administrator, the mayor, and the city manager. As the basis of her action, Marchant alleges injuries suffered while she was a pretrial detainee at the Little Rock Detention Center (the Little Rock jail).

The case was tried in the District Court. ¹ Marchant voluntarily dismissed her complaint as to the mayor and the city manager. The District Court found in favor of the remaining defendants--the City of Little Rock, the chief of police, and the chief jail administrator--and entered judgment accordingly. Marchant v. City of Little Rock, 557 F.Supp. 475 (E.D.Ark.1983). Marchant appeals from that judgment.

Marchant was arrested by Little Rock authorities on September 6, 1979 for failure to appear in municipal court on an automobile license charge. On September 7, 1979 Marchant was brought before a municipal judge, at which time she claimed that she had appeared on the automobile license charge on December 7, 1978 and that she then was informed by court personnel that they could not find the papers relating to her case. The judge treated these assertions as a plea of not guilty. The case was docketed for trial on September 27, 1979 and bond was set at $400. Marchant failed to post bond and was held in the Little Rock jail until her trial date. She was released on September 27, 1979, apparently having paid a fine on the charges against her.

At the time she was jailed, Marchant had in her possession a number of medications that had been prescribed for her. These medications were placed in a locked cabinet at the jail and were to be dispensed to Marchant by jail personnel. On September 8, 1979 Marchant was taken to the University of Arkansas Medical Center (UAMC) because she complained of an inability to urinate. After treating Marchant, a UAMC physician prescribed antibiotics for her and she was returned to the jail. Marchant again was taken to the UAMC on September 14, 1979. Different antibiotics were prescribed and Marchant was returned to the jail.

The critical issues on appeal relate to Marchant's claim of a constitutional deprivation due to the manner in which her medications were dispensed. Marchant alleges and the record suggests that some of the above-mentioned medications were not dispensed according to prescription and doctors' orders, that some of the medications were not dispensed at all, and that one medication prescribed for another inmate was dispensed to Marchant. Assuming that her allegations concerning the manner in which her medications were dispensed are true, we conclude that Marchant has failed to establish other necessary elements of a Sec. 1983 claim against the defendants. For the reasons stated herein, the result reached by the District Court therefore is affirmed.

As a preliminary matter, we address Marchant's argument that the District Court abandoned its responsibility to make its own factual findings and legal conclusions by adopting defendants' proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. As Marchant points out, for a district court to adopt a party's proposed findings and conclusions verbatim is a strongly disfavored practice. See Askew v. United States, 680 F.2d 1206 (8th Cir.1982). Nevertheless Marchant's argument is untenable. Although most of the District Court's published findings and conclusions are identical to those proposed by defendants, they are not a verbatim adoption of defendants' proposals. The District Court altered several of defendants' proposed findings and conclusions and made additional ones of its own accord. This clearly indicates that the District Court did not merely mechanically adopt defendants' proposed findings and conclusions, but rather brought its critical judgment and knowledge of the case to bear on this vitally important matter.

In order to hold a municipality liable under Sec. 1983, a plaintiff must establish that "the action that is alleged to be unconstitutional implements or executes a policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision officially adopted and promulgated by [the municipality's officers]," Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 2035, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978), or that a "constitutional deprivation [was] visited pursuant to governmental 'custom' even though such a custom has not received formal approval through the body's official decisionmaking channels." Id. at 690-91, 98 S.Ct. at 2035-36. In her complaint, Marchant stated that the City of Little Rock has a history of indifference and neglect to the medical needs of prisoners in its jail, and that such indifference and neglect amounts to a city policy of medical mistreatment of prisoners. The record in this case does not, however, contain proof of such a policy. Since Marchant has failed to show that prescription medications were improperly dispensed to her pursuant to city policy or custom, there can be no recovery against the City of Little Rock, and we affirm the judgment below in its favor.

Marchant also alleges that the chief of police and the chief jail administrator negligently supervised jail personnel with respect to the dispensing of prisoners' prescription medications. This claim of negligent supervision was lodged against the chief of police and the chief jail administrator in both their official and individual capacities.

A Sec. 1983 plaintiff must establish the existence of a city policy or custom under Monell, supra, in order to recover against city employees in their official capacities. See id. at 690 n. 55, 98 S.Ct. at 2035 n. 55; see also Rollins v. Farmer, 731 F.2d 533, 535 (8th Cir.1984). The only city policy alleged by Marchant to have contributed to a constitutional deprivation is one of medical mistreatment of prisoners. We already have determined that the record contains no proof of such a policy. Thus, Marchant has not made out a case under Sec. 1983 against the chief of police or the chief jail administrator in their official capacities. It is necessary, however, to further examine the negligent supervision claims brought against the chief of police and the chief jail administrator in their individual capacities because "when a suit is brought against an official in his or her individual capacity it is not necessary to prove a city-wide policy." Rollins, 731 F.2d at 535.

We hold that the chief of police, Walter Simpson, cannot be held liable in his individual capacity for negligent supervision because the alleged instances of improperly dispensing medications, even if true, apparently were isolated instances of which Simpson had no knowledge and to which Simpson was not connected. Cf. Cotton v. Hutto, 577 F.2d 453 (8th Cir.1978) (no claim for damages stated against commissioner of state corrections department under Sec. 1983 where commissioner had no knowledge of or connection to disciplinary action over which plaintiff brought suit). Simpson was far removed from the day-to-day dispensing of prisoners' prescription medications. In fact, the record indicates that there were at least four supervisory levels in the chain-of-command between the non-officer employees who dispensed these medications and the chief of police. ² Simpson testified that he did not speak with Marchant during her period of incarceration and that he had not otherwise been...