Buckley v. Rogerson
| Decision Date | 21 January 1998 |
| Docket Number | No. 96-3108,96-3108 |
| Parties | Eddie O. BUCKLEY, Jr., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Russell ROGERSON, Warden IMCC; Defendant. Paul W. Loeffelholz, M.D., Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Layne Lindebak, Assistant Attorney General, Des Moines, IA, argued (Loraine Wallace, on the brief), for Defendant-Appellant.
Patrick Ingram, Iowa City, IA, argued, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Before McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge, HENLEY, 1 Senior Circuit Judge, and BEAM,
Eddie O. Buckley, Jr., a prisoner of the Iowa Department of Corrections, brought this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 suit against Paul Loeffelholz, M.D., and others, complaining of his confinement in the Iowa Medical and Classification Center (IMCC) psychiatric hospital for two months in late 1987 and early 1988. Buckley contended in the district court that the repeated use of segregation and restraints without medical approval during his confinement in the mental hospital violated his Eighth Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment and his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process of law. The claims against the other defendants were dismissed and only Loeffelholz remains a defendant in the suit.
Loeffelholz is the medical director for the Iowa Department of Corrections and also a psychiatrist and clinical director at IMCC. He moved for summary judgment on the theory that any actions he took with respect to Buckley's treatment were protected by qualified immunity. The district court 2 denied the motion for summary judgment. This appeal followed. For reversal, Loeffelholz argues that the district court erred in denying his motion for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. 3 For the reasons stated herein, we affirm the order of the district court.
Buckley entered the Iowa Department of Corrections in March 1985 on a twenty-five year sentence for robbery, assault, and theft. During his incarceration, a state court determined that Buckley was seriously mentally ill and ordered his civil commitment in the prison mental hospital for diagnosis and treatment.
Buckley was confined at the IMCC psychiatric hospital at Oakdale from November 6, 1987 until January 14, 1988. While there, he was diagnosed and treated for chronic schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like psychosis.
At the time Buckley was at the Oakdale facility, Loeffelholz was the hospital director and was responsible for the policies and operating procedures of the institution. Among the polices for which Loeffelholz was responsible were policies under which the hospital staff developed treatment plans for patients. Several treatment plans designed to address several different problems and symptoms were developed for Buckley. 4
Buckley originally filed his complaint in 1988. The case was tried to a jury in August 1993 but resulted in a mistrial. A second jury trial was held in November 1993 which resulted in a verdict favorable to the defendants. After the second trial, the district court granted Buckley's motion for a new trial and also granted Loeffelholz's motion to file a dispositive motion. Loeffelholz then filed a motion for summary judgment based on qualified immunity, which the district court denied.
In the district court, Buckley's principal contention against Loeffelholz 5 was that the hospital's policies and procedures allowed correctional officers--rather than trained medical personnel--to develop and implement the treatment plans. Buckley also contended that the treatment plans which were developed lacked sufficient specificity to guide the staff in administering the treatment. Buckley argued that Loeffelholz's conduct constituted deliberate indifference to a serious medical need and violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
On these contentions, the district court made the following findings of fact based in part on the evidence which was introduced in the previous trials.
While Buckley resided in Oakdale, defendant Dr. Paul Loeffelholz was responsible for developing the policies and operating procedures of the institution. These policies allowed the Oakdale staff to develop "treatment plans" designed to address Buckley's mental illness. At trial, Buckley introduced evidence that, rather tha[n] assign its staff doctors to his case, the prison entrusted the responsibility of implementing and administering many of Buckley's treatment plans to correctional officers who had no medical training. Dr. Fredrickson, one of Oakdale's medical doctors, testified that correctional officers were allowed to initiate treatment of Buckley without Dr. Fredrickson's approval.
Part of the "treatment" in these treatment plans involved stripping Buckley of his clothes and placing him in a Spartan "quiet" or "segregation" cell. Other parts of the "treatment" involved placing Buckley in restraints so that h[e] could hardly move. There was testimony at the full trial that segregation and restraints the correctional officers ordered for Buckley were more akin to punishment than treatment. The evidence further showed that Dr. Herbert Notch, a licensed clinical psychologist with solid credentials and experience, testified that he examined Buckley's medical records which showed Buckley has a major personality disorder, with an antisocial personality, possible paranoid behavior, and some schizoid tendencies. Dr. Notch further testified that, while an average inmate might be isolated in a quiet room and not suffer any harm, a person with Buckley's illness would tend to suffer exacerbation of his already serious symptoms. Dr. Notch further testified that he could conceive of no legitimate medical reason why an inmate with Buckley's mental illness would be deprived of a mattress. Dr. Notch also indicated that, at times, the "treatment" that Buckley received more closely resembled punishment than anything else. Dr. Notch testified that, unlike some patients, mental health patients should not be punished as part of their treatment.
Buckley was forced into the "quiet" room on seventeen occasion[s] without human necessities such as clothes, a blanket, a bed, and a mattress. Buckley testified it was "very cold" in the quiet room, that he could not hear outside noises when he was in the quiet room, and that a doctor never checked on him while he was in the quiet room. The evidence also showed that the decision to send Buckley to the quiet room was made by non-medical staff. Dr. Loeffelholz, ostensibly responsible for Buckley's treatment, checked on Buckley once every ninety days.
Dr. Notch also testified that the treatment Buckley received was contrary to accepted treatment of mental health patients. Dr. Notch's greatest objection to Buckley's treatment plan was that it did not adequately describe how to help Buckley improve his behavior. For example, one treatment plan stated that Buckley had "poor money management skills," but it contained little or no description of the procedures that penitentiary staff needed to use with Buckley to help him manage his money prudently. Similarly, another of Buckley's treatment plans stated that Buckley need[ed] to improve his sleeping habits, but was woefully short on specifics needed to guide the people who were assigned to help Buckley.
Finally, Dr. Notch testified that the "violations" Buckley was supposed to have committed, such as sleeping in the daytime and failure to follow the smoking policy, were more like violations of routine hospital procedures than they were serious psychiatric deficiencies that needed treatment.
Buckley v. Loeffelholz, No. 88-CV-51691, slip op. at 2-4 (S.D.Iowa July 8, 1996). Based on these facts the district court concluded that in November 1987 Buckley had a clearly established right not to be placed in segregation without medical staff approval and that Dr. Loeffelholz knew or should have known that the correctional staff was violating that right acting under the policies and procedures he developed. Id. at 13-16.
Under the doctrine of qualified immunity, a government official is immune from suit unless the conduct complained of violated "clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known." Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 2738, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982) (Harlow ). For a right to be deemed clearly established, the "contours of the right must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right." Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 3039, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 (1987). The official is not required to guess the direction of future legal decisions, Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 535, 105 S.Ct. 2806, 2820, 86 L.Ed.2d 411 (1985), but may rely on preexisting case law for guidance. Coffman v. Trickey, 884 F.2d 1057, 1063 (8th Cir.1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1056, 110 S.Ct. 1523, 108 L.Ed.2d 763 (1990). Whether an individual will be held liable for his official actions depends upon...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Clark v. Coleman
...505–06 (D. Md. 2015) (quoting Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 739, 122 S.Ct. 2508, 153 L.Ed.2d 666 (2002) ; see also Buckley v. Rogerson, 133 F.3d 1125, 1129 (8th Cir. 1998) ("In order to determine whether a right is clearly established, it is not necessary that the Supreme Court has directly......
-
Harvey v. County of Ward
...must be sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.'" Buckley v. Rogerson, 133 F.3d 1125, 1128 (8th Cir.1998) (quoting Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640, 107 S.Ct. 3034, 97 L.Ed.2d 523 As to the first step of the qualified......
-
Leamer v. Fauver, 98-6007.
...judgment that did not implicate principles of cruel and unusual punishment. Id. at 107, 97 S.Ct. 285. In contrast, in Buckley v. Rogerson, 133 F.3d 1125 (8th Cir.1998), the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit held the prisoner's allegations sufficient to state an Eighth Amendment claim ......
-
Donnell v. City of Cedar Rapaid, Iowa
...sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would understand that what he is doing violates that right.'" (quoting Buckley v. Rogerson, 133 F.3d 1125, 1128 (8th Cir.1998))). Engel does not dispute that Plaintiff's speech was on "a matter of public concern." Nor does Engel argue that the e......