Cooper v. Dyke

• Decision Date: 18 March 1987
• Docket Number: Nos. 86-1562,s. 86-1562
• Citation: 814 F.2d 941
• Parties: Paul Anthony COOPER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. S. DYKE, Officer; J.R. Markert, Officer; C. Morseberger, Officer, Defendants- Appellants. (Two Cases) (L), 86-1654.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

Page 941

814 F.2d 941

Paul Anthony COOPER, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. S. DYKE, Officer; J.R. Markert, Officer; C. Morseberger,

Officer, Defendants- Appellants. (Two Cases)

Nos. 86-1562(L), 86-1654.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued Jan. 7, 1987.

Decided March 18, 1987.

John A. Austin, Asst. Co. Atty. (Malcolm F. Spicer, Jr., Co. Atty., Towson, Md., on brief) for appellants.

Mark S. Dachille (Mark H. Kolman, Gordon, Feinblatt, Rothman, Hoffberger & Hollander, Baltimore, Md., on brief) for appellee.

Before WINTER, Chief Judge, PHILLIPS, Circuit Judge, and MERHIGE, Senior United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia, sitting by designation.

HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge:

Plaintiff Paul Anthony Cooper sued Baltimore County Police Officers Dyke, Markert and Morseberger for their alleged deliberate indifference to plaintiff's serious medical needs, in violation of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983, and for the pendant state claims of false arrest and negligent provision of medical care. The district court granted defendants' motion for directed verdict on the negligence count, but submitted the other two causes of action to the jury.

The jury awarded Cooper $75,300 on the Sec. 1983 claim ($25,200 in compensatory damages and $50,100 in punitive damages), split equally among the three defendants. Nominal damages of $1 each were assessed against Dyke and Markert on the claim for false arrest (with which Morseberger was not charged). The district court awarded $36,240.01 to plaintiff's attorneys for their costs, expenses and fees, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1988. Defendants appeal both awards.

Defendants contend that the district court erred in denying their motions for a directed verdict and judgment notwithstanding the verdict, that the jury instructions were flawed in several respects, that irregularities in the jury's deliberation process necessitate reversal, and that the attorneys fee award was improperly calculated. We find no merit in these contentions, and thus affirm.

I.

Shortly before 3:00 a.m. on December 18, 1982, Paul Cooper, a sixteen year old boy, and several friends were involved in an altercation at Skateland Roller Rink in Owings Mills, Maryland. Cooper received a gunshot wound in the upper chest, under his left arm; his friend James Hill was shot in the hand. Cooper, Hill and others left the area in a van which was soon thereafter stopped by Officers Dyke and Markert. Although several occupants of the van quickly fled the scene, Cooper and Hill walked toward Officer Dyke and told him that they had each been shot.

Because of Hill's visible injury and Cooper's complaints, Officer Dyke summoned an ambulance. The paramedics arrived within a few minutes and began to examine the boys. During this time, several busloads of people leaving Skateland were stopped by the roadblock set up by the police. The gathering crowd became increasingly disruptive and started threatening the boys and officers. Officer Markert testified that the police "were afraid of having almost a full-scale riot.... [events had] escalated very quickly ... to what was a very volatile situation...." When several members of the crowd came up behind the paramedics, screaming that they were going to kill one of the boys, the paramedics interrupted their examination and retreated toward the ambulance until the police regained control of the situation.

One of the paramedics who subsequently returned to examine Cooper stated that they did "[t]he best we could under the conditions." Those conditions, however, included very poor lighting, cold weather, and people shouting and running about. The paramedics, afraid for their own safety, were, in these circumstances, unable to conduct a very thorough examination. They did not remove Paul Cooper's shirt or jacket, and they did not, in the end, discover his bullet wound. The paramedics told the police that they found no injury on Cooper.

Cooper and a friend, Donald Parker, were handcuffed and taken to Garrison police station by Officer Dyke. Officer Markert remained at the scene until approximately 3:30 a.m., and then returned to Garrison. Once at the station, Cooper and Parker, along with another friend, Kevin Lovelace, were handcuffed to a detention rail that stood approximately twelve feet away from Desk Officer Morseberger.

Although denied by the officers, Cooper testified that he and his friends repeatedly complained that Cooper had been shot and pleaded with the officers to take him to the hospital. Indeed, Parker's protests were apparently so loud and persistent that he was removed from the rail and placed in a cell in another part of the station. At some point, Cooper's handcuffs were even altered by an unidentified officer so as to permit him to lie down on the floor. Aside from that, however, he remained unattended to until Lovelace vomited on him. When Cooper failed to respond, Officer Morseberger finally decided to examine him more carefully. The wound was discovered and an ambulance was called.

Cooper arrived at the hospital at approximately 5:10 a.m. Dr. Roger Theodore, the trauma surgeon who treated Cooper, testified that Cooper was in profound shock and in need of immediate surgery. He was suffering from internal bleeding, a collapsed lung, a perforated stomach and a lacerated liver and diaphragm. Dr. Theodore further testified that, as a result of his injuries, Cooper would have been in great pain and manifesting a variety of symptoms, including shortness of breath and gasping for air. Cooper recovered after surgery.

We turn to defendants' several contentions and consider them seriatim.

II.

Denial of Motions for Directed Verdict and Judgment

Notwithstanding the Verdict

The denial of defendants' motions for directed verdict and judgment n.o.v. cannot be disturbed unless, without weighing the evidence or assessing witness credibility, we conclude that reasonable people could have returned a verdict only for defendants. See Gairola v. Virginia Dept. of General Services, 753 F.2d 1281, 1285 (4 Cir.1985) (directed verdict); Howard v. McCrory Corp., 601 F.2d 133, 137 (4 Cir.1979) (judgment n.o.v.). We cannot reach that conclusion in this case. Viewed in the light most favorable to Cooper, and giving him "the benefit of all inferences which the evidence fairly supports," Continental Ore Co. v. Union Carbide & Carbon Co., 370 U.S. 690, 696, 82 S.Ct. 1404, 1409, 8 L.Ed.2d 777 (1962), the evidence is more than adequate to sustain the jury's verdict.

A. The Sec. 1983 deliberate indifference claim

Cooper's theory of recovery under Sec. 1983 is that, after the initial examination by the paramedics, defendants manifested "deliberate indifference" to his serious medical needs. See Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). Defendants maintain that their duty to Cooper was satisfied when they called the ambulance to the scene, and that they reasonably relied on the medical judgments of the paramedics. However, all three defendants conceded at trial that if Cooper had continued to complain after the initial exam, the officers would have been obligated to seek additional medical attention. Defendants' perception of their obligation accurately reflects the state of the law; government officials who ignore indications that a prisoner's or pretrial detainee's initial medical treatment was inadequate can be liable for deliberate indifference to medical needs. Continued complaints by Cooper, or the manifest symptoms described by Dr. Theodore, would have put defendants on notice that additional care was required. See, e.g., Miranda v. Munoz, 770 F.2d 255, 259 (1 Cir.1985) (upholding denial of judgment n.o.v. where "[i]t could be found that defendants ignored a clear warning that the medical treatment they provided for [plaintiff, a pretrial detainee] was inadequate, allowing him to deteriorate beyond recovery"); Duncan v. Duckworth, 644 F.2d 653, 654 (7 Cir.1981) ("While the initial failure to properly diagnose [plaintiff prisoner's] injury may be attributable to no more than an error in judgment, ... the failure to promptly schedule surgery, once the need for it was recognized, and in the face of [plaintiff's] repeated complaints of severe pain, ... give[s] rise to at least an inference of [deliberate] indifference").

Defendants' rely on Sosebee v. Murphy, 797 F.2d 179 (4 Cir.1986), but we read that case to provide strong support for Cooper's constitutional claim. Sosebee was a Sec. 1983 action brought against medical personnel and prison guards on behalf of a prisoner who died from a steak bone piercing his esophagus, after having been misdiagnosed as suffering from gastroenteritis. We affirmed the grant of summary judgment for the medical personnel, and it is this aspect of the opinion on which defendants rely. However, the Sosebee court found that the medical personnel had promptly responded to the inmate's requests for medical assistance, and that, at most, there was a possible state law claim for negligent misdiagnosis. Id. at 181-82. This holding might be relevant if this were a suit against the paramedics who failed to uncover Cooper's wound, but it is inapposite insofar as the officers are concerned.

As for the officers, Sosebee's holding regarding the prison guards in that case is controlling. We reversed the summary judgment for the guards, stating that "[t]he apparent seriousness of [the inmate's] condition during his last hours of life raises issues of material fact. If the prison guards on duty at that time were aware of [his] physical status but refrained from obtaining medical assistance, an inference of deliberate indifference would arise." 797 F.2d at 182. We found that plaintiff had presented ample evidence that the guards were aware of the inmate's increasingly severe symptoms, and of the complaints made by both the inmate and nearby prisoners. The guards even threatened the prisoners with solitary confinement...