Collins v. Al-Shami

• Decision Date: 20 March 2017
• Docket Number: No. 15-3179,15-3179
• Citation: 851 F.3d 727
• Parties: Kenneth COLLINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Nadir AL-SHAMI and Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

851 F.3d 727

Kenneth COLLINS, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Nadir AL-SHAMI and Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 15-3179

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued October 26, 2016

Decided March 20, 2017

Michael K. Sutherlin, Attorney, Sutherlin & Associates, Indianapolis, IN, Plaintiff-Appellant.

Carol A. Dillon, Attorney, Bleeke Dillon Crandall, PC, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before Flaum, Easterbrook, and Williams, Circuit Judges.

Flaum, Circuit Judge.

Following an arrest for driving while intoxicated, Kenneth Collins was booked into the Jackson County Jail in Indiana.Collins later sued a jail physician and the physician's employer (a private corporation) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Indiana state law, claiming that the doctor had provided inadequate medical care to Collins during his detention.The district court awarded summary judgment to defendants, and we affirm.

I.Background

On August 12, 2012, Kenneth Collins was arrested for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.Collins was a regular drinker, and he drank heavily—often consuming around thirty beers every two days.Because he had in the past suffered from symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, Collins usually kept with him a bottle of Librium, a benzodiazepine commonly prescribed to treat withdrawal and anxiety disorders.See http://www.drugs.com/cdi/librium.html (last visited March 20, 2017).Collins had the bottle of Librium with him when he was arrested in August 2012, and a booking officer at the Jackson County Jail telephoned the assigned jail physician, Dr. Nadir Al-Shami, to ask about the medication.Dr. Al-Shami approved Collins's use of the Librium while in custody, and directed that he take the medication in accordance with the dosages listed on the prescription bottle.Collins was taken to a jail cell around 7:00 PM, and from 9:00 PM to around 11:30 PM, an officer checked on him approximately every fifteen minutes.

Officers continued to check on Collins into the next morning, observing that he was responsive and had no complaints.At approximately 8:30 AM on August 13, however, Collins began to complain of shaking from alcohol withdrawal, and he was given some of the Librium, as well as some thiamine (vitamin B1) and a multivitamin.By lunchtime, Collins was feeling better and eating normally; but in the afternoon, he began to complain again of having withdrawal symptoms, including shaking, nausea, and vomiting.A nurse measured his heart and respiratory rates, temperature, oxygen levels, and blood pressure, and called Dr. Al-Shami to report her findings.The doctor ordered that Collins be given the normal treatment for alcohol withdrawal: Librium, thiamine, and multivitamins.Dr. Al-Shami also ordered that Collins be monitored for signs of withdrawal, such as shaking, sweating, and changes in mental state.

Around 7:30 the next evening (on August 14), an officer at the jail heard Collins talking to himself in his cell, and so went over to check on him.Collins was responsive and knew where he was, but seemed indifferent to his surroundings.When a nurse entered his cell around midday on August 15, Collins was delusional and showing signs of paranoia.The nurse called Dr. Al-Shami, but he was unavailable, so she telephoned another on-call physician.That physician advised the nurse to discontinue the Librium treatment and to instead administer a one-time dose of Haldol, an anti-psychotic agent.See http://www.drugs.com/cdi/haldol.html (last visited March 20, 2017).The nurse gave Collins the Haldol, but his symptoms did not improve; so when Dr. Al-Shami returned the nurse's earlier phone call, he told her to send Collins to the emergency room.

Collins was taken to the hospital around 1:00 PM, where medical staff measured his vital signs—all of which were normal—and performed a blood work-up.The latter showed slightly low potassium levels, and higher-than-normal levels of lactic acid and bilirubin (high bilirubin is a common symptom of alcoholism), but the examining physician, Dr. Mark Guffey, concluded that Collins was not suffering from delirium tremens (an acute form of alcohol withdrawal), because his heart and respiratory rates were not very high, and because he was not sweating, shaking, or otherwise acting "jittery."Dr. Guffey thought the Librium pills were unnecessary, and so did not advise the jail staff to continue treating Collins with that medication upon his discharge from the hospital.

After Collins returned to the jail, officers saw that he was having trouble sleeping and was standing on the top bunk of his bed, so they moved him to a padded cell for his safety.Then, in the early morning of August 17, 2012, an officer thought that Collins was having "bad [delirium tremens ] from alcohol," and called Dr. Al-Shami.The doctor ordered that Collins be given some Librium immediately, and again each day for the next ten days.Later that morning, the doctor made his weekly visit to the jail and examined Collins in person.Dr. Al-Shami took Collins's pulse and listened to his heart, which were both normal (though Collins did appear jaundiced).Dr. Al-Shami also reviewed Collins's medical records (from both the jail and the recent hospital visit), and ordered that he be given a potassium supplement and sodium bicarbonate to treat his low potassium and high lactic-acid levels, respectively.Dr. Al-Shami believed that Collins was suffering from delirium tremens, but because Collins had just been released from the hospital, and because his condition had not changed since then, Dr. Al-Shami thought Collins's symptoms could be monitored and treated adequately by jail personnel.

Collins continued to display strange behavior, however.Late at night on August 19, Collins told an officer that Collins was "in a room of a house and [could not] fix it"; and a few hours later, in the early morning of August 20, jail staff overheard Collins talking to himself about two kids "going around [and] stealing stuff."Collins refused to eat breakfast that morning, or lunch later that day—though by 10:30 PM, he was responsive and walking around his cell.Collins was still responsive on August 21, but on the morning of the 22nd, he spent several hours lying on the floor of his cell, at times disrobing, and would not eat any food.A nurse spoke with him and thought him capable of some coherent conversation, but noted that he had an unsteady gait, and so renewed the instruction for continuous monitoring.Jail officers began to observe Collins every fifteen minutes per the nurse's orders, and by lunchtime, Collins was eating once more.In the evening, Collins was still responsive but again tried to take his clothes off.

Officers continued to check on Collins every fifteen minutes, and Collins was sitting up and eating at 9:15 AM on August 23.Collins was still sitting up in his cell when officers checked on him again at 9:30 and 9:45 that morning; but when a nurse came by around 10:00 AM, she found that Collins's mental state had deteriorated.He was unable to converse with her or maintain eye contact, and he could not sit up or stand without help.The nurse called Dr. Al-Shami, who instructed her to send Collins back to the emergency room for further evaluation and lab work.The nurse complied, and Collins was taken to the hospital for a second time.Hospital staff determined that Collins was hypothermic (his body temperature was 84.2 degrees), that he had low blood pressure, and that he was suffering from dehydration, sepsis, and acute respiratory failure.Collins was treated at the hospital and remained there, in a medically-induced coma, for several days.He did not return to the jail.

In November 2013, Collins sued Dr. Al-Shami under Indiana common law and 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the doctor had been negligent and had violated Collins's Fourteenth Amendment rights.Collins also named as a defendant Dr. Al-Shami's employer, Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc., which had contracted with the Jackson County Sheriff's Department to provide physician services at the jail.Defendants¹ filed a motion for summary judgment, which the district court granted as to both the state-law and constitutional claims.Collins appeals.

II.Discussion

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment, construing all facts and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the non-moving party.SeeFrye v. Auto-Owners Ins. Co. , 845 F.3d 782, 785(7th Cir.2017)(citation omitted).Summary judgment is appropriate where there are no genuine issues of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

A.The Federal Claims

"[D]ifferent constitutional provisions, and thus different standards, govern depending on the relationship between the state and the person in the state's custody."Currie v. Chhabra , 728 F.3d 626, 630(7th Cir.2013)(citingGraham v. Connor , 490 U.S. 386, 394–95, 395 n.10, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443(1989);Belbachir v. Cty. of McHenry , 726 F.3d 975, 979(7th Cir.2013) ).The Fourth Amendment applies to the period of confinement between a warrantless arrest and the probable-cause determination, id. at 629, 631(citations omitted); the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment governs after the probable-cause determination has been made, seeLopez v. City of Chi. , 464 F.3d 711, 719(7th Cir.2006)(citations omitted); and the Eighth Amendment applies after a conviction, id.The parties in this case agree that Collins's federal claims are subject to the Due Process Clause, but disagree on what that Clause entails.

In the past, we have applied to due-process claims of inadequate medical care the deliberate-indifference standard derived from the Eighth Amendment.See, e.g. , Pittman ex rel. Hamilton v. Cty. of Madison, Ill. , 746 F.3d 766, 775(7th Cir.2014);Smith v. Knox Cty. Jail , 666 F.3d 1037, 1039(7th Cir.2012);Minix v. Canarecci , 597...