Hare v. City of Corinth, Miss.

Decision Date22 November 1996
Docket NumberCivil Action No. 1:91cv248-D-D.
Citation949 F.Supp. 456
PartiesRichard HARE, individually and in his official capacity as administrator of the estate of Tina Hare, and as natural father and next friend of Haley Hare, a minor, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CORINTH, MISSISSIPPI, et al., Defendants.
CourtU.S. District Court — Northern District of Mississippi

Ronald Dale Michael, Booneville, MS, for Plaintiff.

Susan Fahey Desmond, Jackson, MS, for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

DAVIDSON, District Judge.

Upon remand of this cause from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, this court again takes up the motion of the defendants for the entry of summary judgment on the plaintiff's claims. After careful consideration of the defendants' motion and all of the submissions before the court, the undersigned finds that the motion is not well taken and shall deny it.

I. Procedural Background

The plaintiff originally filed this suit on September 11, 1991. After engaging in discovery, the parties filed with this court cross motions for summary judgment. This court granted in part and denied in part those motions by memorandum opinion and order dated March 1, 1993. Hare v. City of Corinth, 814 F.Supp. 1312, 1327 (N.D.Miss. 1993) ("Hare I"). The undersigned denied the motions as to the custodial defendants' claim of qualified immunity against the plaintiff's claims arising under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Hare I, 814 F.Supp. at 1327. The defendants appealed this court's order, and a three-judge panel of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal. Hare v. City of Corinth, 22 F.3d 612, 616 (5th Cir. 1994) ("Hare II") ("Because this appeal presents more than a pure question of law the denial of summary judgment is not appealable...."). That opinion and order of the Fifth Circuit was later withdrawn, however, and replaced by a subsequent opinion and order to the same effect. Hare v. City of Corinth, 36 F.3d 412, 417 (5th Cir.1994) ("Hare III"). This was not the end of the Fifth Circuit's attention to the case, for it later granted an en banc rehearing. Hare v. City of Corinth, 74 F.3d 633, 650 (5th Cir. 1996) ("Hare IV"). Upon this latest consideration of this court's order denying summary judgment, the Fifth Circuit created new law in this circuit and declared:

In sum, we hold (1) that the State owes the same duty under the Due Process Clause and the Eighth Amendment to provide both pre-trial detainees and convicted inmates with basic human needs, including medical care and protection from harm, during their confinement; and (2) that a state jail official's liability for episodic acts or omissions cannot attach unless the official had subjective knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm to a pretrial detainee but responded with deliberate indifference to that risk.

Hare IV, 74 F.3d at 650 (emphasis added); see also Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (adopting "deliberate indifference" standard for Eighth Amendment conditions of confinement claim); Sanderfer v. Nichols, 62 F.3d 151, 154-55 (6th Cir.1995) (applying Farmer deliberate indifference standard to pretrial detainee medical care claim); Murphy v. Walker, 51 F.3d 714, 717 (7th Cir.1995) (same).

In making its decision in 1993, this court was without the benefit of the 1994 United States Supreme Court decision of Farmer v. Brennan, and instead had relied upon previous law which stated that state jail officials were liable for any action of reckless indifference to a pretrial detainee's "vulnerability to suicide" of which those officials knew or should have known. Hare I, 814 F.Supp. at 1320-21; see Colburn v. Upper Darby TP., 946 F.2d 1017, 1024 (3rd Cir.1991); Lewis v. Parish of Terrebonne, 894 F.2d 142, 145-46 (5th Cir.1990). Because the Fifth Circuit adopted a standard for liability which required subjective knowledge of the risk of suicide instead of the objective standard utilized by this court, the court of appeals reversed this court's order and remanded the case to the undersigned for application of the new standard to the extent that it is relevant to the defendants' claim of qualified immunity. Hare IV, 74 F.3d at 650.

II. Factual Background

The factual basis underlying this cause has been previously recited by this court as well as the Fifth Circuit more than once, and the undersigned finds no reason to re-invent the wheel at this juncture. See, e.g., Hare IV, 74 F.3d at 636-38; Hare III, 36 F.3d at 413-14; Hare II, 22 F.3d at 613-14; Hare I, 814 F.Supp. at 1314-17. It is sufficient at this point to direct the reader to those previous recitations of fact and state that Corinth law enforcement officials housed Tina Hare in the Corinth City Jail in Corinth, Mississippi, after her arrest on outstanding warrants for petty larceny and forgery. While housed in the city jail, Ms. Hare committed suicide. This action followed.

III. Summary Judgment Standard

Summary judgment is appropriate "if the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law." Fed.R.Civ.P. 56(c). The party seeking summary judgment carries the burden of demonstrating that there is an absence of evidence to support the non-moving party's case. Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 325, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 2553, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). Once a properly supported motion for summary judgment is presented, the burden shifts to the non-moving party to set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 249, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 2511, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986); Brothers v. Klevenhagen, 28 F.3d 452, 455 (5th Cir.1994). "Where the record, taken as a whole, could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party, there is no genuine issue for trial." Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 1362, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986); Federal Sav. & Loan Ins. v. Kralj, 968 F.2d 500, 503 (5th Cir.1992). The facts are reviewed drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the party opposing the motion. Matagorda County v. Russell Law, 19 F.3d 215, 217 (5th Cir.1994). With these principles in mind, the court now takes up the defendants' motion.

IV. Discussion — Liability of the Individual Defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1983

As has now been established by the Fifth Circuit, in order to prevail on the merits of his claim in this case against the individual defendants, the plaintiff will have to first show that the officials in question had actual, subjective knowledge of a substantial risk that Tina Hare would attempt to commit suicide. Secondly, the plaintiff will have to establish that those officials responded with deliberate indifference to that risk.

A. Tina Hare's "serious medical need"

The defendants argue to the court that they had no constitutional duty to prevent Tina Hare from committing the act of suicide in this case because such a risk implicated no "serious medical need" which triggered the constitutional duties owed to her. Defendants' Supplemental Brief, p. 4 (alleging that "The Constitution prohibits the State from being deliberately indifferent to serious medical needs, it does not place an affirmative duty on the state to keep an inmate from committing suicide.") This argument is based upon the defendants' selfsupplied premise that an inmate or detainee must suffer from some sort of mental illness in order to trigger the state's duty to protect them from suicide. The defendants provide no relevant authority for this proposition, however1, and the undersigned finds the assertion incredulous. While evidence of a defendant's knowledge of a detainee's mental problems is certainly relevant to both the merits of a plaintiff's claim as well as the defendant's entitlement to qualified immunity, there is no basis for a finding that knowledge of an inmate's or detainee's existing mental illness is an essential requisite to the maintenance of such a claim.

Hare IV speaks to the duty owed by the state to prevent suicide by those who are incarcerated:

Whether the State's obligation is cast in terms of a duty to provide medical care or protection from harm, its ultimate constitutional duty is to "assume some responsibility for [the] safety and general wellbeing" of persons whose state-occasioned confinement renders them unable to fend for themselves. The underlying purpose of requiring a state jail official to provide medical care to a pretrial detainee is to prevent the detainee from suffering further physical pain or harm. Imposing a constitutional duty upon jail officials to prevent physical abuse of a detainee, or to halt a beating that has already begun, serves the same underlying purpose. As DeShaney [v. Winnebago County Department of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989)] makes clear, the State's responsibility in both types of cases springs from the fact of incarceration and the resulting obligation to provide for the detainee's basic human needs. Given such similarities, the same legal measure should govern the due process rights of a pretrial detainee to medical care and to protection from harm or violence.

Hare IV, 74 F.3d at 644 (cites omitted) (emphasis added); see also Lewis v. Parish of Terrebonne, 894 F.2d 142, 145 (5th Cir.1990) ("One need not find a `goose case' to imbue a warden at a jail with a constitutional duty to protect a prisoner prone to suicide from self-destruction."). The defendants also premise their argument upon the assumption that the plaintiff's claim in this case arises from their duty to provide medical care. It is certainly viable under that theory, for a substantial risk of death, regardless of the source, most assuredly...

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  • Mroz v. City of Tonawanda, 96-CV-403C(F).
    • United States
    • United States District Courts. 2nd Circuit. United States District Court of Western District of New York
    • March 31, 1998
    ...and again found a material issue of fact existed to warrant denial of defendants' motion for summary judgment. Hare v. City of Corinth, 949 F.Supp. 456 (N.D.Miss.1996).25 By comparison, in the instant case, the evidence fails to show Thiebolt, Boldt or Reiss had overheard any suicide threat......
  • Hare v. City of Corinth, Miss., 96-60872
    • United States
    • United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit)
    • February 12, 1998
    ...withdrawn and superseded on rehearing by 36 F.3d 412 (5th Cir.1994), on rehearing en banc, 74 F.3d 633 (5th Cir.1996), on remand, 949 F.Supp. 456 (N.D.Miss.1996). However, that panel revised its opinion, holding: (1) that "the jail officials were under a clearly established constitutional d......

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