Davis v. Carter

• Decision Date: 28 June 2006
• Docket Number: No. 05-1695.,05-1695.
• Citation: 452 F.3d 686
• Parties: Deidre DAVIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Yolanda CARTER, et al., Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 686

452 F.3d 686

Deidre DAVIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Yolanda CARTER, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 05-1695.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued November 29, 2005.

Decided June 28, 2006.

Thomas G. Morrissey (argued), Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Donald J. Pechous (argued), Office of the Cook County State's Attorney, Lynn A. Ellenberger (argued), John F. Kennedy, Shefsky & Froelich, Chicago, IL, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before MANION, WILLIAMS, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Deidre Davis, on behalf of her deceased husband James Davis's estate, sued defendant Cook County and various individuals employed by Cook County, alleging that they failed to provide adequate medical assistance to James Davis during his six-day incarceration at the Cook County Jail. Specifically, the plaintiff claimed that despite numerous indications that her husband was in excruciating pain due to sudden withdrawal from methadone medication, no one provided him methadone during his incarceration. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants, holding that plaintiff had waived any Monell claims against Cook County and that the undisputed facts demonstrated none of the individual defendants were deliberately indifferent to James Davis's medical needs as a matter of law. We reverse, holding that plaintiff has not waived any claims against Cook County, and has presented enough evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Cook County¹ had a widespread custom or practice of failing to provide timely methadone treatment and that individual defendants Officer Collier, social worker Bowers, and Sergeant Martin were deliberately indifferent to James Davis's medical needs. We affirm summary judgment with regard to the other individual defendants.

I. BACKGROUND

The facts in this case are complicated because of the numerous parties involved. Consistent with summary judgment standards, we will present all facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the nonmovant, although, as shown below, many of the facts that the plaintiff relies upon are undisputed.

On Friday, September 27, 2002, James Davis reported to Cook County Jail ("Cook County") to serve a ten-day sentence for a traffic violation. Davis² had a history of drug and alcohol addiction and was on a methadone maintenance program at the time he was incarcerated.³ Davis had received his last dose of methadone on September 27 before reporting to jail. Despite his repeated requests for methadone during his incarceration from September 27, 2002, through October 2, 2002, Davis never received any methadone. On October 2, 2002, Davis suffered a cerebral aneurysm and died the next day.⁴

A. Cook County's General Operating Procedures

In the normal course, a correctional medical technician ("CMT") conducts a medical examination of an inmate upon intake. If an inmate informs the CMT that he or she is taking methadone, the CMT will, among other things, fill out a methadone referral card and customarily will refer the inmate to a physician's assistant (PA) or to a physician. (Brittman Dep. at 12.) The PA will then complete a clinical assessment of the inmate. (Brittman Dep. at 17.) At the end of the shift, a CMT typically brings completed methadone referral cards to the pharmacy in the emergency room so that the pharmacist can verify the inmate's participation in a community-based methadone program prior to dispensing methadone medication to the inmate in the jail. (Brittman Dep. at 27; 29.) When the referral cards are brought to the pharmacy, they are date- and time-stamped. (Singh Dep. at 11.) Cook County, however, has no set standard for who is responsible for bringing the completed referral cards to the pharmacy: correctional officers, nurses, or paramedics may bring them, but no one has an assigned responsibility for transporting the referral cards. (Singh Dep. at 10.)

Once the pharmacy department receives an inmate's methadone referral card, the practice is for a pharmacist to call the inmate's outpatient methadone clinic to verify participation in a methadone program. After confirming an inmate's participation in a methadone program, the pharmacy department must then call the security desk at the jail so that a security officer can bring the inmate to the pharmacy for dispensation of medication. (Singh Dep. at 37, 40.) Cook County's pharmacy has no written procedures that provide time limits within which pharmacists must make calls to an outpatient clinic and/or a security officer, nor does it have an established system of recording or follow-up monitoring regarding whether such calls were in fact made. (Singh Dep. at 22, 37-38.) The pharmacy does not maintain records to ensure that an inmate is brought to the pharmacy department by the security office, nor is there any practice of reporting security officers who fail to bring inmates for methadone. (Singh Dep. at 39.)

During the weekdays, there are two shifts in the pharmacy, staffed with two pharmacists per shift. (Singh Dep. at 25.) On Saturdays and Sundays, the pharmacy is staffed with one pharmacist, who works a 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. shift. The pharmacy dispenses fewer prescriptions during the weekend, in part because there are fewer doctors writing prescriptions during the weekend and in part because there are fewer pharmacists on staff to dispense them. (Singh Dep. at 24-25, 33.)

B. Davis's Incarceration at Cook County

When he arrived at the jail on Friday, September 27, 2002, Davis received the customary intake medical screening. During this screening, Davis reported to the CMT that he was receiving methadone treatment. After Davis completed his medical intake, his methadone referral card was transferred to the pharmacy and date- and time-stamped on Friday, September 27, 2002 at 8:25 p.m. (Singh Dep. at 15.) The CMT did not refer Davis to a PA and no clinical assessment was conducted. (Brittman Dep. at 26.)

On Friday night, Saturday, September 28 and Sunday, September 29, 2002, no one from the pharmacy department called Davis's methadone clinic to verify his prescription. (Singh Dep. 35.) On Monday, September 30, 2002, three days after Davis was admitted to the jail, pharmacist Satnam Singh verified Davis's participation in a methadone program. (Singh Dep. at 15-17.) That same day, Singh contacted a security officer in the division of the jail where Davis was being held, but did not record the name of the officer with whom he spoke. Davis was not brought to the pharmacy to receive methadone medication on September 30, 2002. (Singh Dep. at 46.)

Davis did not receive methadone medication the next day, Tuesday, October 1, 2002. That morning, inmate workers approached Officer Gregory Collier and reported to him that James Davis was "dope sick" and in need of medical attention. (Collier Dep. at 12-14.) Collier visited Davis and heard him complaining to another inmate that his "stomach felt like somebody was ripping his insides out." (Collier Dep. at 15.) Officer Collier brought Davis to social/rehabilitation worker Regina Bowers and explained to her that Davis needed medical attention. (Collier Dep. at 23.) Officer Collier observed Davis explain to Bowers that he was "dope sick" and that he was not feeling well. (Collier Dep. at 23.) Bowers testified that it was clear that Davis needed medical attention, and that he looked "terrible," "real bad," and "ill" when she first saw him. (Bowers Dep. at 37-39.) According to Bowers, she called the paramedics' station to get help for Davis, but the unidentified person who answered the phone told her that it "takes three days for the Methadone to clear [i.e., obtain verification of an outpatient program] for [Davis] or for anyone in general." (Bowers Dep. at 48-49.) Bowers stated that in her experience as a social worker for the jail, it takes three days to verify that a person was on methadone. (Bowers Dep. at 51.) Following her alleged telephone conversation with an unidentified person in the paramedics' station (Mrs. Davis contests whether this conversation occurred), Bowers wrote in her log entry, "Ofc. Collier and I tried to get medical attention but no paramedic had been in building at this time" and "it takes according to paramedics 3 days to verify methadone for him." (Bowers Dep. at Ex. 1.) Bowers recommended that Davis not be sent to his jail work assignment that day; Davis did not work that day. There is nothing in the record indicating that Bowers called the 24-hour emergency room available for emergency treatment of jail inmates.

Officer Collier saw Bowers make a telephone call and assumed that she spoke to the paramedics, although he could not be sure she actually did. (Collier Dep. at 32, 34.) He then heard Bowers explain to Davis that it would take three days to get confirmation that he was on a methadone program. (Collier Dep. at 24.) Officer Collier called his supervisor, Sergeant Grant Martin, to advise him that Davis needed medical attention (either the correctional officer or an on-duty sergeant has the direct responsibility to contact the paramedics if an inmate was in need of medical attention). (Collier Dep. at 36-37.) Officer Collier did not call the paramedics himself, and did not verify whether Martin ever obtained medical attention for Davis. (Collier Dep. at 37.) Also, Officer Collier failed to call the 24-hour emergency room.

Sergeant Martin testified that if an inmate is seriously ill, an individual officer has a duty to report that to a paramedic or medical personnel directly and also carries a duty to report that to the sergeant on duty. (Martin Dep. at 21-22.) Sergeant Martin explained that if a social worker informed him that an inmate was too ill to work, his policy was to talk personally with that inmate. (Martin Dep. at 39.) He also testified that his practice was to write up an Unusual Incident Report for an inmate who was unable to...