Gray v. City of Detroit

• Decision Date: 01 March 2005
• Docket Number: No. 03-2515.,03-2515.
• Citation: 399 F.3d 612
• Parties: Darryl GRAY, Personal Representative of Estate of Mark Gray, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF DETROIT and Police Officer Douglas Gross, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

399 F.3d 612

Darryl GRAY, Personal Representative of Estate of Mark Gray, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CITY OF DETROIT and Police Officer Douglas Gross, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 03-2515.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Argued: December 10, 2004.

Decided and Filed: March 1, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

ARGUED: Jana Holbrook Sibson, Pinckney, Michigan, for Appellant. Joanne D. Stafford, City of Detroit Law Department, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Jana Holbrook Sibson, Pinckney, Michigan, for Appellant. Joanne D. Stafford, City of Detroit Law Department, Detroit, Michigan, for Appellee.

Before: MERRITT, GIBBONS, and ROGERS, Circuit Judges

OPINION

MERRITT, Circuit Judge.

This § 1983 case arises from the suicide of plaintiff's decedent, Mark Gray, while in pre-trial custody. Plaintiff Estate has sued Police Officer Gross for failing to adequately monitor Mr. Gray in his cell and the City of Detroit for failing to train its officers to foresee and prevent jail suicides. We agree with the District Court's conclusion to grant summary judgment in favor of defendants. Officer Gross did not have the requisite knowledge that Gray was suicidal, and the suicide policies of the city, as well as its implementation of these policies, were constitutionally adequate in this case.

I. FACTUAL SUMMARY

Mark Gray was arrested on the evening of July 1, 2000, for breaking into and refusing to leave a rental property owned by Gray's brother, as well as for attempting to hit his brother with a metal pipe. One of the arresting officers testified that he knew Gray was a "mental" who had been arrested before. Officers transported Gray to a holding cell at Detroit's Fifth Precinct.

The following morning Gray appeared agitated; he was "talking loud" and "ranting." This culminated in his destroying some of his holding cell, including ripping the phone from the wall and breaking the sink and toilet. He was then moved to a so-called "suicide" cell at the precinct. Gray had not expressed any suicidal intent and defendants assert that this move was only intended to avoid further destruction of city property. Gray was no longer aggressive after transferring cells, although he did demonstrate "mood swings all day."

Later in the day, as a result of Gray's complaints of chest pains and breathing difficulties, he was moved to one of two police cells in the Detroit Receiving Hospital that were maintained for detainees with medical problems. The transferring officer testified that Gray gave no indication of being suicidal and that no one at the Fifth Precinct notified her that he was suicidal. On his arrival at the hospital he was screened regarding his medical complaints by an intake nurse before being placed in the holding cell.

Defendant Officer Gross was on duty in the Receiving Hospital cells from the time Gray arrived between 5:00 and 6:00 p.m., July 2, until he ultimately committed suicide about 7:30 p.m. the same day. Before Gray's arrival, at about 2:45 p.m., Gross checked the cells and cleared them of unsafe items. When Gray arrived, he was searched and put into leg irons as part of standard procedure. About 6:35 p.m., officers heard Gray banging on his cell door and yelling in an agitated state. In response, Gross and another officer re-entered the cell and handcuffed Gray's hands behind him to restrain his agitated behavior.

At approximately 7:30 p.m. another officer found Gray hanging in his cell by a hospital gown, having slipped his handcuffed hands under his feet to the front of his body. Although the exact source of the gown is unknown, parties speculate that it was either already present in the cell when Gray was placed there and Officer Gross failed to notice it on his 2:45 p.m. inspection or it was brought in later by another detainee or by hospital staff.

There is conflicting evidence regarding when Gray's status was visually checked. The only way to check on a prisoner was to leave the detail room (an entry room for the holding cells) and look directly through his cell door. Officer Gross testified that he did not leave the detail room from the time Gray arrived to the time he was found hanging. This is in conflict with the otherwise undisputed evidence that Officer Gross entered the cell at 6:35 to help handcuff Gray. Also, Gross testified that "I would have checked him at 6:30, 6:45, 7:00, [and] 7:15." Gross remembered viewing Gray at least one time and observed he was "just sitting on the bench, he was calmed down, he wasn't irate any more and he didn't appear to have any problems."

II. ANALYSIS

"To state a claim under § 1983, a plaintiff must allege the violation of a right secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and must show that the alleged deprivation was committed by a person acting under color of state law." West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42, 48, 108 S.Ct. 2250, 101 L.Ed.2d 40 (1988).

A. Officer Gross is Entitled to Qualified Immunity

This Court has adopted a three step analysis in determining when qualified immunity applies. Champion v. Outlook Nashville, Inc., 380 F.3d 893, 900-901 (6th Cir.2004). First, while viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, the Court determines whether a violation of plaintiff's constitutional rights has occurred. Id. Second, the Court asks if the violation "involved a clearly established constitutional right of which a reasonable person would have known." Id. Third, the Court determines if the plaintiff has offered evidence sufficient to show that the official's conduct was objectively unreasonable in light of the clearly established constitutional right at issue. Id. A negative answer to any of the three questions means that the officer is entitled to qualified immunity.

To answer the first question, we must determine what rights a pre-trial detainee possesses with respect to his suicidal behavior. While the Eighth Amendment does not apply to pre-trial detainees, the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does provide them with a right to adequate medical treatment that is analogous to prisoners' rights under the Eighth Amendment. See City of Revere v. Mass. Gen. Hosp., 463 U.S. 239, 244, 103 S.Ct. 2979, 77 L.Ed.2d 605 (1983); Watkins v. City of Battle Creek, 273 F.3d 682, 685-86 (6th Cir.2001). In order to sustain a § 1983 claim against individuals for failure to provide adequate medical care, a plaintiff must show that defendants acted with "deliberate indifference to serious medical needs." Watkins, 273 F.3d at 686 (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976)).

Suicide is a difficult event to predict and prevent and often occurs without warning. Both the common law and the recently developed constitutional law applying to those in custody have taken this uncertainty into account in developing rules of liability based on foreseeability. In Barber v. City of Salem, this Court held that:

the proper inquiry concerning the liability of a City and its employees in both their official and individual capacities under section 1983 for a jail detainee's suicide is: whether the decedent showed a strong likelihood that he would attempt to take his own life in such a manner that failure to take adequate precautions amounted to deliberate indifference to the decedent's serious medical needs.

953 F.2d 232, 239-40 (6th Cir.1992) (adopting the holding of Popham v. City of Talladega, 908 F.2d 1561, 1563-64 (11th Cir.1990)). Barber confirmed an earlier holding that there is no general constitutional right of detainees to receive suicide screenings or to be placed in suicide safe facilities, unless the detainee has somehow demonstrated a strong likelihood of committing suicide. See Danese v. Asman, 875 F.2d 1239, 1244 (6th Cir.1989); Crocker v. County of Macomb, 119 Fed.Appx. 718, 724 (6th Cir.2005) (unpublished) (finding no change in the law since Danese was decided in 1989). As one commentator put it, "[a] right to screening for suicidal propensities or tendencies arises when it is obvious that an inmate has such tendency or propensity" (emphasis added) — in other words, when the suicide is clearly foreseeable. George J. Franks, The Conundrum of Federal Jail Suicide Case Law Under Section 1983 and Its Double Bind for Jail Administrators, 17 Law & Psychol. Rev. 117, 125 (1993).

Here, plaintiff has presented no evidence to support his claim that Officer Gross actually knew that Gray was at risk of committing suicide. All of Gray's complaints had been of a physical nature, and none of his behavior had been self-injurious. He did not demonstrate a "strong likelihood" of committing suicide. The only conceivable way that any individual officer could have possibly concluded that Gray was a suicide risk was to have obtained and appropriately pieced together the knowledge of every other officer involved in the case. And as the District Court said, "[t]he test for deliberate indifference is a subjective test ... not an objective test or collective knowledge."

Because Gray's conduct and statements did not give rise to a constitutional duty on the part of his jailors to screen or monitor him for suicide, there is no evidence that Officer Gross violated Gray's constitutional rights in any way. Officer Gross is therefore entitled to qualified immunity.

B. There Is No Evidence That a Policy or Custom of the City of Detroit Was the "Moving Force" Behind a Violation of Gray's Constitutional Rights

The plaintiff seeks to hold the City directly liable for Gray's suicide even if no city employee is individually liable under the Due Process Clause. "[A] municipality can be liable under § 1983 only where its policies are the `moving force [behind] the constitutional violation.'" City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 389, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989) (quoting Monell v. New York City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 694, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978))....