Conner v. Travis County

• Decision Date: 02 May 2000
• Docket Number: N,No. 98-50264,98-50264
• Citation: 209 F.3d 794
• Parties: (5th Cir. 2000) RICHARD CONNER; CHRIS CONNER; Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. TRAVIS COUNTY; ET AL, Defendants TRAVIS COUNTY; TERRY KEEL, Sheriff; FRED McAFEE, Travis County Sheriff's Deputy; Defendants - Appellees RICHARD CONNER; CHRIS CONNER; Plaintiffs - Appellees v. TRAVIS COUNTY, ET AL Defendants TRAVIS COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Appellant o. 98-50895
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 794

209 F.3d 794 (5th Cir. 2000)

RICHARD CONNER; CHRIS CONNER; Plaintiffs - Appellants, v. TRAVIS COUNTY; ET AL, Defendants TRAVIS COUNTY; TERRY KEEL, Sheriff; FRED McAFEE, Travis County Sheriff's Deputy; Defendants - Appellees RICHARD CONNER; CHRIS CONNER; Plaintiffs - Appellees v. TRAVIS COUNTY, ET AL Defendants

TRAVIS COUNTY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE, Appellant

No. 98-50264, No. 98-50895

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FIFTH CIRCUIT

May 2, 2000

Appeal from the United States District Court For the Western District of Texas

Before REYNALDO G. GARZA, JONES, and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Richard and Christine Conner appeal the district court's grant of judgment as a matter of law in favor of Travis County ("the County") and Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel. The County Attorney's Office ("CA's Office"), which represented the County and Keel, cross-appeals the court's imposition of sanctions against it. We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I

Richard Conner was arrested on an outstanding warrant for a bad check when he attempted to renew his driver's license at the Department of Public Safety ("DPS"). He was held by a DPS deputy until officials from the County Sheriff's Department arrived and brought him to the County's Central Booking Facility ("CBF"). There, Deputy Sheriff Fred McAfee, who completed intake on Mr. Conner, filled out a medical sheet on Mr. Conner. Mr. Conner told McAfee he had suffered a stroke one month before and that he needed to take medication for his stroke; Mr. Conner was supposed to take the medication every morning and had not yet taken that morning's dose. McAfee flagged Mr. Conner's file and placed it in the nurse's box for him to receive attention.

Mr. Conner alleges that he asked McAfee and several others at CBF to be allowed to take his medication, telling them about his condition and that it was worsening. Instead of giving him his medication, they allegedly called him a drunk and told him to stop faking his symptoms. Mr. Conner, who was allowed to make telephone calls throughout this time, eventually telephoned his doctor, who ascertained that Mr. Conner's condition was worsening and arranged to have an ambulance take him to the hospital for emergency treatment. Although he ultimately received treatment, he alleges that the delay in obtaining it caused him permanent damage.

The Conners subsequently filed this lawsuit, proceeding to trial against Travis County ("the County"), Travis County Sheriff Terry Keel, and McAfee. On the day before the trial finished, the court granted Travis County's and Keel's motions for judgment as a matter of law on the Conners' claims against them for failure to train under 42 U.S.C. 1983.

The jury ruled in favor of McAfee. The Conners moved for a new trial and both sides moved for attorney fees. The district court denied all the motions except for the Conners' motion for attorney fees: the court imposed sanctions of $5,575 against the Travis County Attorney's Office ("the CA's Office") to cover the Conners' appellate attorney fees for an earlier interlocutory appeal the CA's Office had filed. The Conners now appeal the court's ruling on the motions for judgment as a matter of law. The CA's Office cross-appeals the imposition of sanctions.

II

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a) allows a court to grant judgment as a matter of law when "a party has been fully heard on an issue and there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on that issue." Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a). We review a grant of judgment as a matter of law de novo, applying the same standard the court below applied. See McCoy v. Hernandez, 203 F.3d 371, 374 (5th Cir. 2000). We will affirm if "the facts and inferences point so strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of the moving party [that] no reasonable jurors could have arrived at a contrary verdict." Id.

Counties and supervisors are not liable for constitutional violations committed by county employees unless those violations result directly from a municipal custom or policy. See City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 385, 109 S. Ct. 1197, 1203, 103 L. Ed. 2d 412 (1989); Breaux v. City of Garland, 205 F.3d 150, 161 (5th Cir. 2000). The Conners premise their claim on a failure by the County and Keel to train CBF staff to handle a medical condition like Mr. Conner's. To succeed on their failure to train claim, the Conners must show three things: "(1) the training or hiring procedures of the municipality's policymaker were inadequate, (2) the municipality's policymaker was deliberately indifferent in adopting the hiring or training policy, and (3) the inadequate hiring or training policy directly caused the plaintiff's injury." Baker v. Putnal, 75 F.3d 190, 200 (5th Cir. 1996). The second showing, deliberate indifference, is at issue here.

Deliberate indifference is more than mere negligence. See Rhyne v. Henderson County, 973 F.2d 386, 392 (5th Cir. 1992) ("While the municipal policy-maker's failure to adopt a precaution can be the basis for 1983 liability, such omission must amount to an intentional choice, not merely an unintentionally negligent oversight."); see also Doe v. Taylor Independent Sch. Dist., 15 F.3d 443, 453 n.7 (5th Cir. 1994) (distinguishing "deliberate indifference" from "gross negligence" by noting that "the former is a 'heightened degree of negligence,' [whereas] the latter is a 'lesser form of intent'") (quoting Germany v. Vance, 868 F.2d 9, 18 n. 10 (1st Cir.1989)). The Conners must show that, "in light of the duties assigned to specific officers or employees, the need for more or different training is obvious, and the inadequacy so likely to result in violations of constitutional rights, that the policymakers of the city can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need." City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 390, 109 S. Ct. at 1205, quoted in Benavides v. County of Wilson, 955 F.2d 968, 972 (5th Cir. 1992).

The Conners concede that County policy required qualified medical staff to be available to treat detainees presenting both emergency and non-emergency conditions. They also concede that County policy required staff to obtain immediate medical treatment for detainees presenting emergency conditions and less immediate treatment for non-emergency conditions. Additionally, they concede that CBF staff had training in first aid and CPR. Finally, they do not dispute several facts: Mr. Conner did not present emergency symptoms on arrival or indicate that he was experiencing an emergency; he was still speaking and walking around when he began to complain of symptoms; and he was in the CBF without immediate medical treatment for at most an hour. The Conners premise their failure to train claim on the fact that the County did not train CBF officials to recognize emergency conditions as they developed or to understand the significance of the symptoms and condition which Mr. Conner presented. Their argument is essentially that jail officials should have been trained to recognize that-in spite of Mr. Conner's apparent non-emergency condition-Mr. Conner required immediate medical attention because of his stroke history, his need for medication, and his subsequent symptoms.

The Conners did not attempt to prove that the County's failure to train its staff in distinguishing between emergency and non-emergency conditions was deliberately indifferent by showing that prior incidents gave the County or Keel notice of the need for specific training. Instead, they rely on the single episode with Mr. Conner and on their experts' statements about the need for more training. We have previously noted the difficulty plaintiffs face in attempting to show deliberate indifference on the basis of a single incident. See Gabriel v. City of Plano, 202 F.3d 741, 745 (5th Cir. 2000) ("We have consistently rejected application of the single incident exception and have noted that 'proof of a single violent incident ordinarily is insufficient to hold a municipality liable for inadequate training.'") (quoting Snyder v. Trepagnier, 142 F.3d 791, 798 (5th Cir. 1998)). This difficulty is necessarily heightened for the Conners because of the type of case they bring. We can reasonably expect-if the need for training in this area was "so obvious" and the failure to train was "so likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights"-that the Connors would be able to identify other instances of harm arising from the failure to train. The fact that they did not do so undercuts their deliberate indifference claim.

Additionally, the Conners did not provide any general evidence about stroke conditions. For example, they did not show stroke incident rates in the general or detainee population from which a jury could infer a need for specific training. Nor did they provide detailed evidence about the consequences (aside from the alleged consequences in this case) of not providing immediate treatment when a person exhibits stroke symptoms or misses their daily medication for four or five hours. Finally, their evidence regarding professional and regulatory standards in jails at best only tenuously supports an argument that the County's training fell below these standards. ¹

Instead, the Conners' showing of a need to train was premised on the testimony of their expert witness, who claimed, without citing underlying data, that detainees with stroke symptoms would present themselves so frequently that County staff should be trained to recognize them. By itself this is unpersuasive. We have previously noted that plaintiffs generally cannot show deliberate indifference through the opinion of only a single expert, see Snyder, 142 F.3d at 799 ("Furthermore, we have emphasized that, when seeking to prove a municipality's malevolent motive, plaintiffs must introduce more evidence than merely the opinion of an expert witness."); Stokes v. Bullins, 844 F.2d 269, 275 (5th Cir. 1988) ...