Manarite By and Through Manarite v. City of Springfield, 91-1491

• Citation: 957 F.2d 953
• Decision Date: 08 October 1991
• Docket Number: No. 91-1491,91-1491
• Parties: Jessica A. MANARITE, By and Through Her Next Friend, Carla MANARITE, and Carla Manarite as Administratrix of the Estate of Timothy Murray, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, Paul J. Fenton, Individually and in his Official Capacity as Former Chief of Police, Michael Somers and John Lynch, Individually and in Their Official Capacity as Police Officers, Defendants, Appellees. . Heard
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit)

Page 953

957 F.2d 953

Jessica A. MANARITE, By and Through Her Next Friend, Carla MANARITE, and Carla Manarite as Administratrix of the Estate of Timothy Murray Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. CITY OF SPRINGFIELD, Paul J. Fenton, Individually and in his Official Capacity as Former Chief of Police, Michael Somers and John Lynch, Individually and in Their Official Capacity as Police Officers, Defendants, Appellees.

No. 91-1491.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

Heard Oct. 8, 1991.

Decided March 5, 1992.

Stewart T. Graham, Jr., Springfield, Mass., for plaintiff, appellant.

Edward M. Pikula, Asst. City Sol., Springfield, Mass., with whom Edward P. Reardon, Reardon & Reardon, Worcester, Mass., Kevin B. Coyle, Coyle, Dunbar & Geoffrion, Bruce L. Leiter, City Sol., Springfield, Mass., were on brief, for defendants, appellees City of Springfield, Paul J. Fenton and John Lynch.

Austin M. Joyce, with whom Reardon & Reardon, Worcester, Mass., was on brief, for defendant, appellee Michael Somers.

Before BREYER, Chief Judge, TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge, and WOODLOCK, ^* District Judge.

TORRUELLA, Circuit Judge.

The Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 1983, forbids state officials from depriving individuals of "any rights, privileges or immunities secured by the Constitution." In this appeal, we review the standards governing the liability of a municipality and its police chief under the Act for their alleged failure to prevent the suicide of a pretrial detainee and the issue of whether a minor child may assert a claim under the Act for loss of companionship and support of a natural parent.

I

On May 11, 1984, at approximately 4:45 p.m., two Springfield police officers encountered Timothy Murray in a highly intoxicated state on Main Street. The officers took Mr. Murray into protective custody and transported him to the Springfield police station. Mr. Murray was advised of the availability of a detoxification center and he expressed his desire to be taken to the center. However, since no beds were available there, he remained at the Springfield police station and was placed in the protective custody lock-up. Mr. Murray informed the officer on duty that he had been in protective custody before, and that he had been held at the Hampden County Jail on drug charges three days earlier.

Officers Michael Somers and John Lynch were in charge of booking Mr. Murray. Officer Somers observed Mr. Murray to be highly intoxicated, unable to stand, to have slurred speech and to be indifferent to the booking procedure. Mr. Murray, however, exhibited no outward manifestations of suicidal tendencies.

In 1980, the Massachusetts Department of Public Safety issued new guidelines and procedures for implementation of the Protective Custody Law. Mass.Gen.L. ch. 111B, § 8. The new guidelines and procedures specified certain items to be removed from anyone held in protective custody, including shoelaces. These guidelines and procedures were disseminated to every officer of the Springfield police department by order of the Springfield police Chief, defendant Paul Fenton. They were also posted in the booking area. ¹

During the protective custody booking process, Officer Lynch prepared an inventory sheet for Mr. Murray, but failed to take Mr. Murray's shoelaces. Mr. Murray was placed in cell number 34, and routinely checked every thirty minutes. ² He was the only person held in that aisle of cells.

At approximately 7:30 p.m., an officer found Mr. Murray hanging from the bar of the cell door with a shoelace tied around his neck. All efforts to resuscitate Mr. Murray by the officers and emergency medical personnel were unsuccessful, and he was pronounced dead at 7:53 p.m.

Jessica Manarite, the daughter of the decedent, and Carla Manarite, the administratrix of the decedent's estate, brought suit against the two booking police officers, the police chief and the City of Springfield under Section 1983 alleging that these defendants acted with deliberate indifference in violation of the constitutional rights of the decedent and plaintiff Jessica Manarite. ³

After completion of discovery, the defendants filed motions for summary judgment. The district court heard argument on those motions and entered judgment for all defendants on April 23, 1991. Plaintiffs appeal the grant of summary judgment as to Chief Fenton and the City of Springfield. ⁴ We affirm.

II

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo to determine whether there is any genuine issue of material fact and whether the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 324-25, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986).

We view the record in the light most favorable to plaintiffs and indulge all inferences favorable to them. Space Master Int'l, Inc. v. Worcester, 940 F.2d 16, 17 (1st Cir.1991). The materiality of a fact is determined according to the substantive law that governs the dispute. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2510, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). A material fact creates a genuine issue for trial "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Id.

III

The Supreme Court has made clear that Section 1983 permits recovery for loss of life (or for serious physical harm) only where the defendant acts intentionally or with an analogous state of mind usually described as "deliberate indifference" to deprivation of the victim's constitutional right. Wilson v. Seiter, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 2321, 2323, 115 L.Ed.2d 271 (1991) ("deliberate indifference" standard in Eighth Amendment prison conditions case); Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 388-90, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 1204-06, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989) (same in Fourteenth Amendment municipal liability, police denial of medical treatment case); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-06, 97 S.Ct. 285, 291-92, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) (same in Eighth Amendment prison medical treatment case).

The Supreme Court has also made clear that, by "deliberate indifference," it means more than ordinary negligence, and probably more than gross negligence. Canton, 489 U.S. at 388 n. 7, 109 S.Ct. at 1204 n. 7 ("some [lower] courts have held that a showing of 'gross negligence' " is adequate, "[b]ut the more common rule is ... 'deliberate indifference' "); Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 328, 106 S.Ct. 662, 663, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986) (civil rights laws do not permit recovery based on simple negligence).

Although some courts have used language suggesting that the deliberate indifference standard includes simple negligence--see, e.g., Elliott v. Cheshire County, 940 F.2d 7, 10-11 (1st Cir.1991) (defendant "reasonably should have known" of detainee's suicidal tendencies)--in their application of the deliberate indifference standard, courts have consistently applied a significantly stricter standard. In DeRosiers v. Moran, 949 F.2d 15 (1st Cir.1991), for example, this court stated that deliberate indifference requires

the complainant [to] prove that the defendants had a culpable state of mind and intended wantonly to inflict pain ... While this mental state can aptly be described as "recklessness," it is recklessness not in the tort-law sense but in the appreciably stricter criminal-law sense, requiring actual knowledge [or wilful blindness] of impending harm, easily preventable.

Id. at 19 (citations omitted); Gaudreault v. Salem, 923 F.2d 203, 209 (1st Cir.1990) (standard of " 'reckless' or 'callous' indifference" for supervisors' liability), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 111 S.Ct. 2266, 114 L.Ed.2d 718 (1991); Walker v. Norris, 917 F.2d 1449, 1455-56 (6th Cir.1990) ("deliberate indifference" standard in supervisory liability case); Berry v. Muskogee, 900 F.2d 1489, 1496 (10th Cir.1990) (same); Sample v. Diecks, 885 F.2d 1099, 1117-18 (3d Cir.1989) (same).

The cases also indicate that, when liability for serious harm or death, including suicide, is at issue, a plaintiff must demonstrate "deliberate indifference" by showing (1) an unusually serious risk of harm (self-inflicted harm, in a suicide case), (2) defendant's actual knowledge of (or, at least, willful blindness to) that elevated risk, and (3) defendant's failure to take obvious steps to address that known, serious risk. The risk, the knowledge, and the failure to do the obvious, taken together, must show that the defendant is "deliberately indifferent" to the harm that follows. See, e.g., (1) risk: Torraco v. Maloney, 923 F.2d 231, 236 (1st Cir.1991) (requiring "strong likelihood, rather than mere possibility, that self-infliction of harm will occur" (citation omitted)); Cortes-Quinones v. Jimenez-Nettleship, 842 F.2d 556, 560 (1st Cir.) (placing schizophrenic prisoner in badly overcrowded cell "a recipe for an explosion" and "death"), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 823, 109 S.Ct. 68, 102 L.Ed.2d 45 (1988); (2) knowledge: Gutierrez-Rodriguez v. Cartagena, 882 F.2d 553, 562-66 (1st Cir.1989) (supervisors' knowledge of risk inferred from many complaints of officer's violent behavior); Layne v. Vinzant, 657 F.2d 468, 471 (1st Cir.1981) (supervisor must have "actual notice" of risk); Popham v. Talladega, 908 F.2d 1561, 1564 (11th Cir.1990) (absent knowledge of suicidal tendencies, "cases have consistently held that failure to prevent suicide" does not "constitute deliberate indifference"); Anderson v. Atlanta, 778 F.2d 678, 682-84, 686 (11th Cir.1985) (supervisors' knowledge inferred from complaints of understaffing); (3) obvious steps: Voutour v. Vitale, 761 F.2d 812, 821 (1st Cir.1985) (police chief's failure to see that firearms training provided, despite statute requiring such training for officers), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1100, 106 S.Ct. 879, 88 L.Ed.2d 916 (1986); see also DesRosiers, 949 F.2d at 19 (suggesting that a finding of deliberate indifference may lie where harm was easily preventable).

Using such standards in a case where a police...