George ex rel. Bradshaw v. Beaver Cnty.

• Decision Date: 03 May 2022
• Docket Number: 21-4006
• Citation: 32 F.4th 1246
• Parties: Kathy M. GEORGE, ON BEHALF OF the Estate of Troy BRADSHAW, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. BEAVER COUNTY, BY AND THROUGH the BEAVER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS; Cameron M. Noel; Randall Rose; Does 1-10, inclusive, Defendants - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

32 F.4th 1246

Kathy M. GEORGE, ON BEHALF OF the Estate of Troy BRADSHAW, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.BEAVER COUNTY, BY AND THROUGH the BEAVER COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS; Cameron M. Noel; Randall Rose; Does 1-10, inclusive, Defendants - Appellees.

No. 21-4006

United States Court of Appeals, Tenth Circuit.

FILED May 3, 2022

Eric Boyd Vogeler, Vogeler, PLLC, Salt Lake City, Utah, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Andrew R. Hopkins, Mylar Law, P.C. (Frank D. Mylar with him on the brief), Salt Lake City, Utah, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before HOLMES, McHUGH, and CARSON, Circuit Judges.

CARSON, Circuit Judge.

Order requires respecting policy. And volatile prison environments demand consistent training on institutional policies. But failing to follow prison policy is not a constitutional violation in and of itself. Successful 42 U.S.C. § 1983 municipal-and supervisory-liability claims involve a constitutional violation or pattern of constitutional violations. Violating policy alone supports neither.

We treat jail-suicide claims, like Plaintiff's, as failures to provide medical care. Such claims require proof that a prison official acted with deliberate indifference to the detainee's serious medical needs, violating the Eighth, or Fourteenth, Amendment. Although Plaintiff proved that certain officers failed to follow Beaver County's suicide-prevention policy, the district court granted summary judgment (1) to the County because Plaintiff failed to show it employed an unconstitutional policy and (2) to Sheriff Noel and Corporal Rose because the law entitles them to qualified immunity. We exercise jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.

I.

Beaver County Correctional Facility's ("BCCF") suicide-prevention policy requires officers to screen all prisoners for suicide risk. When screening suggests such a risk, officers must keep that prisoner in an observation cell in the booking area, check on him every fifteen minutes, and remove all property or implements that could be used for suicide. BCCF's practice was to give inmates on suicide watch only a suicide smock to wear and only a suicide-proof blanket for bedding. Once an officer places a prisoner on suicide watch, only a medical or mental-health provider may remove him. BCCF Officers may view BCCF's policy handbook, containing the suicide-prevention policy, on every computer in the facility. And officers must also complete a twelve-week training program at the Utah Peace Officer Standards and Training ("POST") Academy followed by forty hours of annual training, which includes a four-hour suicide prevention training. All deputies involved in this lawsuit are POST-certified officers in good standing. And before the events that occurred in this case, no inmate had ever committed suicide at the BCCF.

On June 13, Beaver County officers responded to reports of a truck running into parked cars. The decedent, Troy Bradshaw, drove the truck. When officers encountered him at the scene, he smelled of alcohol, spoke incoherently, and could barely stand and walk. The officers arrested Bradshaw for driving under the influence and placed him in Deputy Nathan Bastian's vehicle. Once in the patrol vehicle, Bradshaw complained of pain, so Deputy Bastian transported him to Beaver Valley Hospital. At the hospital, Bradshaw complained that his handcuffs hurt his left hand. When Deputy Bastian and Sergeant Laura Davis checked the cuffs, they discovered he was missing a finger from a previous injury. To avoid that injury from causing him discomfort, they instead uncuffed his wrists and cuffed his arms to the hospital bed. At the hospital, Bradshaw twice asked Sergeant Davis to kill him. The hospital cleared Bradshaw, and Deputy Bastian transported him to the BCCF.

At the BCCF, Deputy Cody Allen had Bradshaw take a breath test. Deputy Allen then completed the Initial Arrestee Assessment (IAA), which reflects that Bradshaw previously considered suicide; was not thinking about it currently; had a brother who committed or attempted suicide; and was intoxicated. Bradshaw stated that he would kill himself if placed in a cell.

After the IAA, the officers placed Bradshaw on suicide watch. Three corrections officers and Deputy Allen walked Bradshaw to a holding cell in the booking area. Deputy Allen told Bradshaw that he would be in cell two—a "dry" cell without a toilet. Bradshaw moved away from Deputy Allen and said he would not go into the cell. Deputy Bastian grabbed Bradshaw's arm, and Bradshaw resisted. The officers then forced Bradshaw down to the ground, where Sergeant Davis secured his legs. Sergeant Davis ordered Bradshaw to stop resisting. He complied, and the officers rolled him on his side and placed him in cell two. Bradshaw beat on the cell door for two to three hours. Officers did not place him in a safety smock or create a suicide watch log, in violation of BCCF's suicide-prevention policy, but Corporal Sarah Kinross monitored Bradshaw by sitting in the booking area all night. Corporal Kinross's June 14, 2014 shift-change report reflected that Bradshaw was suicidal and in cell two. Corporal Kinross stated that, as a matter of practice, she would have orally passed this information on to Corporal Randall ("Randie") Rose, the oncoming corporal, but could not recall if that happened.¹

By June 14, 2014, Bradshaw was no longer acting violently, and Officer Shawn Higgins transferred Bradshaw from cell two to cell three. While cell three is in the booking area, it has a toilet, sink, and bed. Some officers were unaware that Bradshaw was on suicide watch. Corporal Rose was on duty when Bradshaw moved to cell three. While in cell three, Bradshaw received bedding, but the record does not reveal who gave it to him. Some officers may have thought that moving Bradshaw to cell three meant he was no longer on suicide watch because cell two ordinarily housed suicidal inmates (and without bedding), though BCCF sometimes kept suicidal inmates in cells one and three.

That same day, officers completed a second assessment of Bradshaw as part of the booking process. Corporal Rose, present for the assessment, heard Bradshaw respond "yes," when asked if he was thinking about committing suicide. The assessment conveyed Bradshaw was suicidal and should be on suicide watch. During the booking process, before officers placed him in a cell, a nurse saw Bradshaw, still wearing his street clothes. Concerned that Bradshaw would go into shock, the nurse directed officers to provide him a blanket. Bradshaw received his bedroll, which included a blanket, sheet, and pillowcase, while in cell three. Later that evening, officers took Bradshaw to the hospital to have his leg examined, and they returned him to cell three once back at the jail. The shift-change reports prepared on the evening of June 14, 2014, and on June 15, 2014, do not suggest that Bradshaw was suicidal. BCCF officers communicated a prisoner's suicidal status via shift-change reports and word of mouth. Several officers said they did not know that Bradshaw was on suicide watch.

By the time Corporal Rose arrived for his shift on June 15, 2014, Bradshaw had bedding and clothing. Bradshaw, seeming in good spirits, received breakfast and lunch. Officers last saw him alive at 11:45 a.m. Just after noon, they found him dead in his cell after he hanged himself with a pillowcase or sheet.

Plaintiff Kathy George, Bradshaw's mother, sued on behalf of her son's estate, asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 that Defendants Corporal Randie Rose, Beaver County, and Beaver County Sheriff Cameron Noel violated Bradshaw's Fourteenth Amendment rights and "Utah Code Article I, Section 7." Plaintiff voluntarily dismissed her state-law claim against Defendants. The district court granted summary judgment to all parties on her remaining claims because the law entitled Rose and Noel to qualified immunity and no Beaver County policy violated Bradshaw's constitutional rights.

II.

We review a grant of summary judgment based on qualified immunity de novo, applying the same standard as the district court. Becker v. Bateman, 709 F.3d 1019, 1022 (10th Cir. 2013) (citation omitted). Summary judgment is appropriate when "the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "[O]n summary judgment the inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion." Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986) (citation and alterations omitted). But when a defendant asserts qualified immunity on summary judgment, the burden shifts, and the plaintiff must show that (1) the defendant's conduct violated a constitutional right and (2) that the constitutional right was clearly established at the time of the incident. Becker, 709 F.3d at 1022 (citation omitted). Courts may address either prong first. Id. (citation omitted).

III.

Plaintiff argues the district court wrongfully granted Beaver County summary judgment because a reasonable jury could find the County's failure to implement sufficient safeguards or train its corrections officers on suicide prevention constituted deliberate indifference. Plaintiff also appeals the district court's determination that the law entitled Noel and Rose to summary judgment based on qualified immunity. She argues that a reasonable jury could find Noel liable as a supervisor and that Rose acted with deliberate indifference to Bradshaw's suicide risk.

A.

We conclude the district court properly granted summary judgment to Beaver County. Plaintiff cannot establish that the County was deliberately indifferent by failing to train its corrections officers on preventing suicide, failing to train on preparing shift-change reports, or failing to install CCTV monitoring cameras in certain cells.

In enacting § 1983, Congress did not intend to subject...