Bearden v. McKeithen
| Decision Date | 10 September 2012 |
| Docket Number | CASE NO. 5:11-cv-316-RS-EMT |
| Parties | JAMES BEARDEN as Personal Representative of the estate of Maureen Beardem, and on behalf of the Survivors, Elizabeth and Brooke Villella, and James Bearden, Plaintiff, v. HON. FRANK McKEITHEN, as Sheriff of Bay County, Florida, and RICK ANGLIN and RONALD LIPPMANN, in their individual capacities, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Florida |
Before me are Defendants McKeithen and Anglin's Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 41) and Plaintiff's Response in Opposition (Doc. 52). Defendant Lippmann has previously been voluntarily dismissed.
The basic issue before the court on a motion for summary judgment is "whether the evidence presents a sufficient disagreement to require submission to a jury or whether it is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251, 106 S. Ct. 2505, 2512 (1986).The moving party has the burden of showing the absence of a genuine issue as to any material fact, and in deciding whether the movant has met this burden, the court must view the movant's evidence and all factual inferences arising from it in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Adickes v. S.H. Kress & Co., 398 U.S. 144 (1970); Fitzpatrick v. City of Atlanta, 2 F.3d 1112, 1115 (11th Cir. 1993). Thus, if reasonable minds could differ on the inferences arising from undisputed facts, then a court should deny summary judgment. Miranda v. B & B Cash Grocery Store, Inc., 975 F.2d 1518, 1534 (11th Cir. 1992) (citing Mercantile Bank & Trust v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 750 F.2d 838, 841 (11th Cir. 1985)). However, a mere 'scintilla' of evidence supporting the nonmoving party's position will not suffice; there must be enough of a showing that the jury could reasonably find for that party. Walker v. Darby, 911 F.2d 1573, 1577 (11th Cir. 1990) (citing Anderson, 477 U.S. at 251).
I accept the facts in the light most favorable to Plaintiff. See Galvez v. Bruce, 552 F.3d 1238, 1239 (11th Cir. 2008) (citing Vinyard v. Wilson, 311 F.3d 1340, 1343 n.1 (11th Cir. 2002)). "'All reasonable doubts about the facts should be resolved in favor of the non-movant.'" Id. (quoting Burton v. City of Belle Glade, 178 F.3d 1175, 1187 (11th Cir. 1999); Clemons v. Dougherty County, 684 F.2d 1365, 1368-69 (11th Cir. 1982).
On Sunday, March 22, 2009, Maureen Bearden ("Decedent") committed suicide while detained in the Bay County Jail. She had created a noose by looping a bed sheet through a door grate and was discovered by prison staff at 8:57 p.m. hanging in her cell. She was pronounced dead at Bay Medical Center at 10:22 p.m. the same day. Defendant McKeithan, Sheriff of Bay County, had assumed operation of the jail in October of 2008 after a long-term contract with Corrections Corporation of America ("CCA") was terminated. Defendant Anglin was the Warden at the jail beginning in October of 2008.
Decedent was booked into the Bay County jail on January 25, 2009. An Initial Intake Screening was performed which indicated that she had made numerous suicide attempts in the past, including while previously incarcerated in the Bay County Jail. For example, in December of 2005, Decedent was placed on suicide precautions1 for four days because she repeatedly stabbed herself with an ink pen. She was placed on suicide preventions several times in 2006 through 2008 during multiple, separate periods of incarceration and engaged in several documented self-harm attempts during this span.
At the time of intake on January 25, 2009, Decedent indicated that she was currently thinking about harming or killing herself. Between this date and hersuccessful suicide on March 22, 2009, Decedent was placed on suicide precautions three times for a total of 31 days. Her last discharge from suicide observation status was on March 9, 2009. The evening of her suicide, a nurse who was passing out medication around 8:00 p.m. noted that Decedent was "showing out" and "not happy." Decedent gave a note to the nurse which stated Other inmates heard Decedent pounding on her cell door and shouting for a prolonged period, beginning around 6:00 p.m. Doc. 56-13. The shift supervisor, Lieutenant Smith, called David Sasser, the health services administrator,2 conveying to him essentially that Decedent needed more attention than jail staff could give her and needed to be removed from the jail. Mr. Sasser advised Mr. Smith that mental health staff would talk to Decedent. Doc. 56-4, Pg. 11, Expert Report of Richard Hayward, Ph.D.
During her roughly two-month incarceration in 2009, Decedent was assigned to mental health counselor Timothy Jennings. Jennings was not a licensed mental health counselor, but had earned a master's degree in mental health counseling. Doc. 42-1, ¶ 6, Affidavit of Rick Angler. During her final phase off of suicide watch (March 9, 2009 through March 22, 2009), Decedent was visited by Jennings five times. Doc. 42-10. She was also visited once by licensed mentalhealth counselor Charles Howell. Doc. 42-10. According to Plaintiff's mental health expert, these and other visits from Jennings amounted to "no more than monitoring from a mental health staff member who was not licensed to practice therapeutic interventions and had no training in interventions appropriate for individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder." Doc. 56-4, pg. 9-10, Expert Report of Richard Hayward, Ph.D. Further, "the sheer lack of documentation during her 2009 incarceration make it impossible to prove she received any mental health care of any significance." Doc. 56-5, pg. 8, Expert Report of Harvey Norris, LCSW. Mr. Norris found that Jennings' notes regarding his visits with Decedent were "grossly inadequate" and "indicate no progression of treatment." Doc. 56-5, pg. 8-9.
Plaintiff claims that Decedent's estate and survivors are entitled to relief against Defendant McKeithen under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, based on violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, because Decedent was denied needed medical care and her mental health issues were not timely and properly assessed and treated. Complaint, ¶¶ 83-84. In the Eleventh Circuit, "to impose § 1983 liability on a municipality, a plaintiff must show: (1) that his constitutional rights were violated; (2) that the municipality had a custom or policy thatconstituted deliberate indifference to that constitutional right; and (3) that the policy or custom caused the violation." McDowell v. Brown, 392 F.3d 1283, 1289 (11th Cir. 2004). The claim against Sheriff McKeithen in his official capacity is governed by this standard. "A policy may be deliberately indifferent . . . where the policy is implemented with 'deliberate indifference as to its known or obvious consequences.'" Fields v. Corizon Health, Inc., 11-14594, 2012 WL 3854592 (11th Cir. Sept. 6, 2012) (citing McDowell, 392 F.3d at 1291). Under attack here is what Plaintiff alleges was a policy or custom of failing to provide treatment for inmates with severe mental health needs and suicidal tendencies, the consequence of which would be the ultimate suicides of inadequately treated inmates. Complaint, ¶¶ 85-86.
In a case involving two suicides the same jail cell approximately a year apart, an Alabama district court determined that "in jail suicide cases involving conditions of confinement, the appropriate inquiry is whether jail conditions and past events made it so obvious that suicide would result from the county's failure to modify its jail facilities that the county could be seen as deliberately indifferent to the interests of all detainees." Vinson v. Clarke County, Ala., 10 F. Supp. 2d 1282, 1301 (S.D. Ala. 1998). While at issue in this case is the provision of mentalhealth services rather than the physical conditions of the jail cell which housed Decedent at the time of her suicide,3 the same standard can logically be applied.
Plaintiff avers that there was ample notice of a problem of past suicides involving the same policies and many of the same personnel at the Bay County Jail, so the Sheriff's failure to improve the mental health services constitutes deliberate indifference. However, Defendant Anglin's affidavit asserts that he was concerned about the adequacy of the care provided to people with mental health issues during CCA's operations of the facility, so at the beginning of his andSheriff McKeithen's tenure operating the jail he ended the practice of outsourcing mental health services to an outside provider and brought in an in-house staff.4 Doc. 42-1, ¶ 6, Affidavit of Rick Anglin. There was no option for suicidal inmates who could not be properly treated by the in-house staff to be placed at an outside acute care facility for stabilization which would prevent suicide. Instead, suicidal inmates were placed on suicide precautions. See Doc. 56-3, pg. 61, Deposition of Rick Angler; Doc. 56-4, pg. 10-11, Expert Report of Dr. Richard Hayward, Ph.D. During CCA's management of the jail, there were three successful suicides, all in the mid-1990s. Doc. 56-3, pg. 21, Deposition of Rick Anglin. Decedent's suicide is the only suicide that has occurred at the jail since Sheriff McKeithen assumed responsibility of it. Doc. 42-1, ¶ 5.
Many of the policies and procedures of CCA remained in place at the time of Decedent's suicide, including the suicide management policy. That policy remained in place until April of 2009 following Decedent's suicide. Doc. 56-16, pg. 5-6, Deposition of Rick Anglin. The new policy contains three levels ofsuicide precautions, which allows jail staff to better assess inmates on suicide precautions and provide the inmates...
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