Graham ex rel. Estate v. County of Washtenaw
| Decision Date | 10 February 2004 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-1614.,02-1614. |
| Citation | 358 F.3d 377 |
| Parties | Carolyn GRAHAM, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE OF Terance Anthony GRAHAM, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. COUNTY OF WASHTENAW, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
ARGUED: Hugh M. Davis, Jr. (argued and briefed), Cynthia Heenan, CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION ASSOCIATES, Detroit, Michigan, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Cynthia L. Reach, REACH, RANNEY & CARPENTER, Ann Arbor, Michigan, for Appellee.
ON BRIEF: Hugh M. Davis, Jr., CONSTITUTIONAL LITIGATION ASSOCIATES, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellant.
Raymond W. Morganti, Siemion, Huckabay, Bodary, Padilla, Morganti & Bowerman, Southfield, MI, Cynthia L. Reach (argued and briefed), Reach, Ranney & Carpenter, Ann Arbor, MI, for Defendant-Appellee,
Before: KEITH, MARTIN, and SUTTON, Circuit Judges.
This case arises from the tragic death of Terance Anthony Graham.1 Mr. Graham died in police custody shortly after secretly ingesting large quantities of cocaine upon being arrested for an unrelated marijuana offense. Carolyn Graham, the personal representative of Mr. Graham's estate, sued Washtenaw County pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming that the County's policy regarding the provision of medical care to prisoners in the County jail contributed to Mr. Graham's death. The district court granted the County's motion for summary judgment. For the following reasons, we affirm.
The facts giving rise to this case are, for the most part, undisputed. On May 6, 2000, at approximately 8:39 in the evening, Deputy Sinks arrested Mr. Graham for possession of marijuana. A few minutes after the arrest, the deputy permitted Mr. Graham to go behind a tree, allegedly to relieve himself. It was later determined that while behind the tree Mr. Graham had swallowed approximately an ounce of cocaine, which is a felony under Michigan law. Mr. Graham was escorted into the County jail at approximately 8:55. Most of the events occurring inside the jail were captured on videotape. Shortly after his arrival, jail personnel observed Mr. Graham walking and acting erratically. At one point, he pulled down his pants in full view of everyone in the booking area. Jail personnel asked him several times, "What did you take?" Instead of revealing that he had ingested cocaine, Mr. Graham stated that he had smoked marijuana and drank alcohol. After witnessing Mr. Graham's erratic behavior, a deputy requested that he be medically examined.
At approximately 9:00, Tracy Lakatos, a licensed practical nurse, responded and examined Mr. Graham. Nurse Lakatos was an employee of SecureCare, Inc., a company that the County had hired to provide medical care to prisoners in the County jail. Mr. Graham told her that he had been drinking and using marijuana that evening and that he had asthma. Nurse Lakatos gave him two doses of albuterol, a medication used to treat asthma that has a known side effect of causing an accelerated heart rate. At 9:06, Nurse Lakatos and Deputy Sinks took Mr. Graham to an interview room.2 After a blood alcohol test indicated that Mr. Graham was not intoxicated, Nurse Lakatos said that Deputy Sinks could interview Mr. Graham and she left the room at 9:11.
After providing a statement about his marijuana purchase — the event prompting his arrest — Mr. Graham was turned over to another deputy and was scheduled to be booked and then released. At this point, jail personnel observed him sweating profusely and using his shirt, which he had removed from his body, to wipe off the sweat. Jail personnel determined that he was not well enough to go through the booking process, so they placed him in a general population cell at 9:23.
While inside the cell, Mr. Graham admitted to a cellmate that he had ingested cocaine, but insisted that he did not want the jail personnel to find out. Statements from his cellmates indicate that while in the cell Mr. Graham "could barely talk," "was staggering," "looked sick," and "was holding his stomach and rubbing his throat." At approximately 10:00, a cellmate pounded on the plexiglass window and yelled "He's hurt!" Witnesses reported that Mr. Graham appeared to be having a seizure and that he had "a blank look on his face and his eyes were real glassy."
Nurse Lakatos responded and asked what was wrong. Again, instead of telling Nurse Lakatos the truth, Mr. Graham only said that he had swallowed some pills. Nurse Lakatos used a pulse oximeter to determine his heart rate. One cellmate observed that the pulse oximeter indicated a high heart rate, which Nurse Lakatos apparently explained was due to the marijuana. Satisfied that Mr. Graham needed no additional medical care, Nurse Lakatos left the cell at approximately 10:05.
At 10:16, Nurse Lakatos responded to another cry from a cellmate that Mr. Graham had "passed out." At this point, he was taken to the medical room in the jail building, requiring assistance from jail personnel to stay on his feet. At approximately 10:40, he began to have multiple seizures, at which point an ambulance was summoned. He was transported to a hospital emergency room a few minutes later and was pronounced dead at 11:31.
On May 12, 2000, Carolyn Graham, the personal representative of Mr. Graham's estate, filed a complaint against the County, its Sheriff and certain officers. She filed an amended complaint four days later. The claims against the Sheriff and officers were subsequently dismissed, leaving a section 1983 municipal liability claim against the County, which is the only claim at issue in this appeal. The essence of the municipal liability claim is that the County's contract with SecureCare constituted a municipal "policy" that led to a deprivation of Mr. Graham's constitutional right to adequate medical care while in police custody. Specifically, the complaint alleges that: (1) the contract impermissibly creates a policy of "automatic deference" by jail personnel to the decisions of SecureCare staff concerning the medical treatment of prisoners; and (2) the contract improperly permits licensed practical nurses — like Nurse Lakatos — to perform duties that exceed their competence under Michigan law.
On August 3, 2001, the County filed a motion for summary judgment, which was supplemented on August 28. On October 1, the district court denied the motion without prejudice and allowed Graham additional time to conduct further discovery and to amend her complaint. She made no attempt to file an amended complaint during the allotted time. On February 4, 2002, the County renewed its motion for summary judgment and, on February 11, filed a motion for sanctions pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 based upon Graham's failure to withdraw the case in light of this Court's decision in Watkins v. Battle Creek, 273 F.3d 682 (6th Cir.2001). In Watkins, we affirmed an award of summary judgment to individual and municipal defendants in a section 1983 case arising out of the death of an individual who, like Mr. Graham, died in police custody after secretly ingesting cocaine upon his arrest. Id.
On February 19, without requesting leave of the district court, Graham attempted to file an amended complaint that purportedly "clarified" her claim against the County and asserted additional section 1983 claims, as well as a "medical negligence" claim against various new defendants, including SecureCare. The district court sua sponte rejected the attempted filing. On February 25, Graham filed a motion for leave to file the newly amended complaint.
On March 11, the district court held a hearing during which the following ruling was made from the bench:
It appears to the Court that at this time it must grant the defendant's motion for summary judgment because there is no showing of any unconstitutional custom or policy on the part of the Washtenaw County Jail which required the deliberate indifference which could have led to the plaintiff's death. Indeed any other ruling here would be extremely detrimental to prisoners who are incarcerated in Michigan jails because the presence of medical personnel is essential to their safety and their health. Unfortunately the plaintiff here, as Watkins, in his case, was the only person who knew what he had ingested, and he was asked on several occasions by the medical personnel and others, apparently, at this jail what was wrong, and he did not disclose what his medical need was. So I have to grant the motion for summary judgment in this case.
After granting the County's motion for summary judgment, the district court denied Graham's motion to file the amended complaint. Graham later filed a motion for reconsideration, which was denied on April 12. She also filed a medical malpractice action against SecureCare and other defendants in Michigan state court, which apparently is still pending.
After the completion of appellate briefing in this case, this Court decided Weaver v. Shadoan, 340 F.3d 398 (6th Cir.2003), another case involving the death of an individual in police custody after secretly ingesting cocaine. In Weaver, we relied upon our recent decision in Watkins to reverse the district court's denial of summary judgment to individual defendants on the plaintiff's section 1983 claims. Id.
On appeal, Graham argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the County, in denying her motion to file an amended complaint and in denying her motion for reconsideration. We find these arguments to be without merit.
We review de novo the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the County. Dotson v. Wilkinson, 329 F.3d 463, 466 (6th Cir.2003). Summary judgment should be granted when "the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that...
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