Estate of Cummings v. Davenport

• Decision Date: 02 October 2018
• Docket Number: No. 17-13999,17-13999
• Citation: 906 F.3d 934
• Parties: The ESTATE OF Marquette F. CUMMINGS Jr., Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Carter DAVENPORT, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

906 F.3d 934

The ESTATE OF Marquette F. CUMMINGS Jr., Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Carter DAVENPORT, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17-13999

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

October 2, 2018

Matthew Aaron Bailey, Megan Nicole Garcia, Justin Alexander Mitchell, The Revill Law Firm, BIRMINGHAM, AL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Bart Gregory Harmon, Elizabeth Sees, Alabama Department of Corrections, Legal Division, MONTGOMERY, AL, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, MARTIN, and BALDOCK,^* Circuit Judges.

WILLIAM PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This interlocutory appeal of the partial denial of Carter Davenport's motion to dismiss the amended complaint by the estate of Marquette F. Cummings Jr. requires us to decide whether Davenport, a prison warden, satisfied his threshold burden of establishing entitlement to qualified immunity. Cummings, a prisoner, was stabbed by a fellow inmate, was transported to a hospital, and died the next day. His estate filed a civil-rights complaint, see 42 U.S.C. § 1983, that Davenport violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution by illegally interfering with Cummings's end-of-life medical care with deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs, see Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976). Davenport invoked qualified immunity, but the district court ruled that he failed to establish that his alleged actions—which included the entry of a do-not-resuscitate order and the decision to remove Cummings from artificial life support—fell within the scope of his discretionary authority, his threshold burden for qualified immunity. Because Alabama law establishes that Davenport's discretionary authority did not extend to the alleged actions, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

We divide our discussion of the background in three parts. First, we describe the facts about Cummings's death. Second, we describe the factual allegations that form the basis of the estate's claim of deliberate indifference against Davenport. Third, we relate the proceedings in the district court. Of course, for purposes of this appeal from the partial denial of a motion to dismiss, "we accept as true the facts alleged in the complaint, drawing all reasonable inferences in [the] plaintiff's favor." Bailey v. Wheeler , 843 F.3d 473, 480 (11th Cir. 2016).

A. Cummings's Death

Cummings was an inmate at the St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, Alabama. At about 7:40 a.m. on January 6, 2014, another inmate stabbed Cummings in the eye with a weapon commonly known as a "shank." Several other inmates helped Cummings to the prison infirmary, and, at about 8:00 a.m., he was airlifted to the University of Alabama at Birmingham Hospital. The University Hospital received him in the emergency room and transferred him to the Intensive Care Unit. Later that day, a University Hospital spokeswoman said Cummings was in "critical condition."

Angela Gaines, Cummings's mother, learned of the attack on her son that morning. She called the prison to "verify" that her son had been stabbed, but her calls were unanswered. That afternoon, Warden Davenport called her back to tell her that Cummings had indeed been stabbed and that he was being transported to a hospital. When Gaines asked Davenport for the name of the hospital, he stated he could not say but promised to call back with more information. Several hours later, he told Gaines that Cummings was at the University Hospital.

Gaines went to the University Hospital and asked to see her son, but the staff told her she would have to wait at least 90 minutes. At some point, the hospital staff told Gaines that "Cummings had been stabbed in the eye and that, due to his injuries, he was only operating with 10% of normal brain functioning." But Gaines believed that Cummings was responsive to her "verbal cues," such as "blink if you can hear me."

Cummings never left the University Hospital. On January 7, 2014, Cummings was removed from life support, and he stopped breathing at 7:05 p.m. that evening.

B. Davenport's Alleged Misdeeds

The estate alleges that the University Hospital's staff "declared Cummings a non-survivor shortly after his arrival," that his papers included an instruction from Davenport that " ‘no heroic measures’ would be taken to save his life," and that this instruction came from Davenport. Dr. Sherry Melton, at Davenport's instruction, entered a do-not-resuscitate order for Cummings at about 9:17 p.m. "Melton relied upon the statements of Defendant Davenport, a non-family member and not a legal guardian, to place Cummings on [the order]." Gaines and other family members were at the hospital at the time.

At some point, "medical personnel informed Ms. Gaines that Warden Davenport authorized [them] to stop giving Cummings medication and to disconnect the life support machine." Gaines protested that she wanted Cummings to stay on life support because "he was still breathing and responding to verbal commands." But the University Hospital staff "repeatedly conveyed that ‘it was not her (Ms. Gaines'[s] ) call’ because the State had legal custody over Cummings and that the decision to let her son die was the Warden's decision." The estate alleges that Cummings's removal from life support was "[b]ased on this directive from Warden Davenport."

C. The Proceedings in the District Court

After Cummings's death, his estate and Gaines filed a complaint against the Alabama Department of Corrections, the University Hospital, and several Department and University Hospital employees, including Davenport. The estate and Gaines asserted federal claims under section 1983 as well as state-law claims of wrongful death, outrage, and negligence. The defendants moved to dismiss the complaint, and the district court dismissed all claims except for one against Davenport.

The district court denied Davenport's motion to dismiss the estate's claim of deliberate indifference based on qualified immunity. Although Davenport "den[ied] that [he] violated any of [Cummings's] rights" and contended that the estate had not identified a violation of clearly established constitutional law, the district court ruled both that the complaint stated a claim of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs and that Davenport could not invoke qualified immunity because he had not established that his alleged actions were within his "discretionary authority" as a state official.

After the district court issued its memorandum opinion granting the motions to dismiss in part, the estate and Gaines filed an amended complaint. Davenport moved to dismiss the amended complaint and again asserted qualified immunity, this time in less conclusory fashion. He argued that his alleged actions fell within his discretionary authority because, as a prison warden, it was his responsibility to "supervis[e] and control[ ] the care and custody of inmates including their medical care." He argued that the amended complaint failed to state a claim of deliberate indifference because it focused on whether "the proper person" had made medical decisions for Cummings, not on any denial of medical care. And he maintained that no authority clearly established that Davenport's actions were unconstitutional.

The district court again dismissed all claims except the estate's claim of deliberate indifference against Davenport. It reasoned that Davenport had not "cite[d] any authority suggesting that a warden's authority to make [medical] decisions ... for inmates extends to making end-of-life decisions." And it concluded, based on Alabama law, that a warden must either have an advance directive from the patient or be a court-appointed guardian to make those decisions. The district court concluded that Davenport had not met his burden of establishing that the alleged acts were within his discretionary authority, so he could not claim qualified immunity.

II. JURISDICTION AND STANDARD OF REVIEW

Although we ordinarily have jurisdiction to review only "final decisions of the district courts," 28 U.S.C. § 1291, "a district court's order rejecting qualified immunity at the motion-to-dismiss stage of a proceeding is a ‘final decision’ within the meaning of [ section] 1291." Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 672, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Under the collateral-order doctrine, "pretrial orders denying qualified immunity" are immediately appealable "because such orders conclusively determine whether the defendant is entitled to immunity from suit," the immunity "is both important and completely separate from the merits of the action," and an erroneous denial of immunity "could not be effectively reviewed on appeal from a final judgment because by that time the immunity from standing trial will have been irretrievably lost." Plumhoff v. Rickard , 572 U.S. 765, 134 S.Ct. 2012, 2019, 188 L.Ed.2d 1056 (2014). "We review de novo a district court's denial of qualified immunity on a motion to dismiss. ... In doing so, we accept as true the facts alleged in the complaint, drawing all reasonable inferences in a plaintiff's favor." Bailey , 843 F.3d at 480.

III. DISCUSSION

We divide our discussion in two parts. First, we explain that Davenport is not entitled to qualified immunity because Alabama law establishes that his alleged actions were not within his discretionary authority. Second, we explain that we lack jurisdiction to consider whether the amended complaint states a claim of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.

A. Davenport Is Not Entitled to Qualified Immunity Because His Alleged Actions Were Not Within His Discretionary Authority.

The district court ruled, and we agree, that Davenport is not entitled to qualified immunity because he failed to establish that his alleged actions were within his discretionary authority. Davenport has the initial burden of raising the defense of qualified immunity by proving that his discretionary authority extended to his alleged actions. Because Alabama law establishes that a prison...