Garrett v. Stratman

• Decision Date: 20 June 2001
• Docket Number: ADX-US,F,No. 00-1028,00-1028
• Parties: (10th Cir. 2001) JONATHAN T. GARRETT, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. C.A. STRATMAN, M.D., Chief of Medical Services,lorence, Colorado, Defendant - Appellant
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 946

254 F.3d 946 (10th Cir. 2001)

JONATHAN T. GARRETT, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. C.A. STRATMAN, M.D., Chief of Medical Services, ADX-USP, Florence, Colorado, Defendant - Appellant.

No. 00-1028

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS TENTH CIRCUIT

June 20, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado (D.C. No. 97-Z-1217) Dennis W. Hartley, Colorado Springs, Colorado,for Plaintiff-Appellee.

Michael E. Hegarty (Thomas L. Strickland, United States Attorney, Kathleen L. Torres, Assistant United States Attorney, with him on the briefs), Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant.

Before TACHA, Chief Judge, LUCERO, Circuit Judge, and BROWN, District Judge.^*

LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

Jonathan T. Garrett, a federal inmate, brought this Bivens¹ suit against C.A Stratman, alleging denial of medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The district court denied Stratman's motion for summary judgment on the matter of qualified immunity and granted Garrett's motion for additional discovery pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f). We conclude that we lack jurisdiction and dismiss Stratman's appeal of those rulings.

I

Garrett is serving a life sentence at the United States Pentitentiary Administrative Maximum Facility ("ADX") in Florence, Colorado. He alleges denial of medical care in violation of the Eighth Amendment by a number of parties, including appellant.² Garrett's shoulder was injured during a prison yard fight on June 14, 1995. According to the complaint, his condition was ignored until August 25, 1995, when the shoulder injury was diagnosed by Dr. Jere Sutton, an orthopedic consultant. Although Dr. Sutton recommended reconstructive surgery, appellant was not transferred to the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Missouri, for consultation with an orthopedic surgeon until May 1996, eleven months after the injury. Garrett alleges that "by that time, . . . proper medical treatment . . . had been so delayed that the stabilization and reconstructive surgery was not able to be performed with any degree of success that allowed [him] to obtain maximum medical benefit for his severe shoulder injury." (Appellant's App. at 138 (Complaint).) The eleven-month delay, according to the complaint, caused Garrett physical and mental pain and suffering as well as severe disability.

Stratman, a practicing physician for more than thirty years, was the Clinical Director at ADX during the relevant time period. In his complaint, Garrett alleges that Stratman "repeatedly told the Plaintiff that treatment for his injury would be forthcoming; however, no treatment occurred." (Id. at 141.) This, according to Garrett, amounted to deliberate indifference to his known medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

Stratman submitted an affidavit in which he attested that although he saw Garrett "on numerous occasions for various medical complaints" and "began the process to attempt to have Mr. Garrett transferred to Springfield for surgery," he was "advised . . . that the transport must be delayed until specifically directed by the designator's office to transport." (Id. at 51-52.) According to Stratman, "[a]s Clinical Director at the ADX, I could merely recommend transfer to a medical center for treatment. I did not have the authority to order an immediate transfer or to have the surgery conducted locally." (Id. at 52.) Materials submitted by Stratman on appeal state that one of his duties as clinical director was to "ensure that . . . [e]very effort is made to return the inmate to the institution or to transfer him/her to a Medical Referral Center as early as the patient's condition allows." (Appellant's Br. Attach. 4 at 4 (Federal Bureau of Prisons Program Statement 6000.05).) Also submitted with the summary judgment motion were fifty-four pages of Garrett's medical records, a large number of which were reviewed and initialed contemporaneously by Stratman, that show that Garrett made a number of medical visits regarding his shoulder pain while his transfer was pending.

Stratman moved for summary judgment, arguing that he was entitled to qualified immunity.³ As part of his response, Garrett's counsel submitted an affidavit requesting that the motion be denied to allow additional discovery under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(f). The district court adopted a magistrate judge's recommendation to deny summary judgment and grant Garrett's request for additional discovery. On appeal, Stratman challenges the district court's denial of summary judgment on the grounds that Garrett (1) "did not allege, or submit any evidence, that Stratman was responsible for the delay in [his] transfer," and (2) "failed to submit any evidence that the delay in surgery caused any harm." (Appellant's Br. at 12 (statement of the issues).) He states that "[s]ince Garrett did not allege that Dr. Stratman had any authority to effectuate his transfer, or submit any evidence in that regard, under Garrett's version of the facts, Dr. Stratman did not violate clearly established law." (Id. at 4 (internal quotation omitted).) Finally, Stratman argues (3) that the district court erred by granting Garrett's Rule 56(f) motion for additional discovery.

II

The Eighth Amendment states that the federal government shall not inflict cruel and unusual punishments. The Supreme Court has held that an inmate's rights under the amendment may be violated by a prison official's failure to prevent harm. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 83334 (1994). "Having incarcerated persons with demonstrated proclivities for antisocial criminal, and often violent, conduct, having stripped them of virtually every means of self-protection and foreclosed their access to outside aid, the government and its officials are not free to let the state of nature take its course." Id. at 833 (quotation and brackets omitted). A prison official violates an inmate's clearly established Eighth Amendment rights if he acts with deliberate indifference to an inmate's serious medical needs--if he "knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety." Id. at 837; Sealock v. Colorado, 218 F.3d 1205, 1209 (10th Cir. 2000).

To demonstrate a violation, an inmate must satisfy both objective and subjective elements. "The objective component is met if the deprivation is sufficiently serious." Sealock, 218 F.3d at 1209 (quotation omitted). "[A] medical need is considered 'sufficiently serious' if the condition 'has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment or . . . is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor's attention.'" Oxendine v. Kaplan, 241 F.3d 1272, 1276 (10th Cir. 2001) (quoting Hunt v. Uphoff, 199 F.3d 1220, 1224 (10th Cir. 1999)); see Sealock, 218 F.3d at 1209. The subjective component--deliberate indifference--is met if the prison official both was "aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference." Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837.⁴

Whether a prison official had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence, cf. [J. Hall, General Principles of Criminal Law 118 (3d ed. 1982)] (cautioning against "confusing a mental state with proof of its existence"), and a factfinder may conclude that a prison official knew of a substantial risk from the very fact that the risk was obvious. Cf. [1 W. LaFave & A. Scott, Substantive Criminal Law 3.7, at 335 (1986)] ("[I]f a risk is obvious, so that a reasonable man would realize it, we might well infer that [the defendant] did in fact realize it; but the inference cannot be conclusive, for we know that people are not always conscious of what reasonable people would be conscious of").

Id. at 842; see Oxendine, 241 F.3d at 1276. Finally, a delay in medical care "only constitutes an Eighth Amendment violation where the plaintiff can show that the delay resulted in substantial harm." Oxendine, 241 F.3d at 1276 (quotation omitted). We have held that the substantial harm requirement may be satisfied by lifelong handicap, permanent loss, or considerable pain. Id. at 1278 ("In addition, the delay in seeking specialized treatment apparently caused Oxendine substantial harm due to the fact that a specialist was not obtained until after a substantial portion of the reattached finger had already been lost to decay, and because Oxendine experienced considerable pain while the finger continued to rot."); Sealock, 218 F.3d at 1210; see also Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976) ("We therefore conclude that deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the 'unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain' proscribed by the Eighth Amendment." (quoting Gregg v. Georgia, 428 U.S. 153, 173 (1976))).

Under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388, 395 (1971), damages may be obtained for "injuries consequent upon a violation" of the Eighth Amendment by federal officials. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 831. We have recently reiterated, "[a]lthough actions for damages provide an important remedy for individuals injured by governmental officials' abuse of authority, such actions sometimes subject officials to costly and harassing litigation and potentially inhibit officials in performing their official duties." Gross v. Pirtle, 245 F.3d 1151, 1155 (10th Cir. 2001) (citing Anderson v. Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 638 (1987); Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 814 (1982)). The doctrine of qualified immunity accommodates this conflict: it "is intended to protect the public interest by encouraging public officials to act independently and without fear of the consequences if there is no violation of clearly established rights." 15A Charles Alan Wright et al., Federal Practice and Procedure 3914.10, at...