Kathleen ex rel. Estate of Eilman v. Cason

• Decision Date: 26 April 2012
• Docket Number: No. 10-1487,10-1487
• Parties: KATHLEEN PAINE, as guardian of the estate of Christina Rose Eilman, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. RICHARD CASON, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

KATHLEEN PAINE, as guardian of the estate of Christina Rose Eilman, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
RICHARD CASON, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 10-1487

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 20, 2010
DECIDED APRIL 26, 2012

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 06 C 3173—Virginia M. Kendall, Judge.

Before EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge, and POSNER and ROVNER, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Chief Judge. Police arrested Christina Eilman on May 7, 2006, outside Chicago's Midway Airport. Eilman had arrived from California, her home state, on May 5, and on May 6 she tried to return. When a ticket agent at Frontier Airlines told Eilman that she lacked a reservation, Eilman threw a tantrum and was

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escorted from the airport. On May 7 she purchased a ticket from Southwest Airlines but behaved so oddly while waiting to board the airplane that agents called the police, who again escorted her from the airport. (The district court's opinion, 689 F. Supp. 2d 1027 (N.D. Ill. 2010), recounts the details; we provide only an outline.) Eilman walked to the rail and bus terminal of the Chicago Transit Authority, immediately outside the airport, where she started singing loudly, ranting about the price of oil, and screaming at other persons with her face only inches from theirs. She would not or could not stop, despite multiple requests, leading to her arrest.

Eilman, 21 and in college, had been in an auto accident the previous year. She recovered physically but developed bipolar disorder, spending 37 days in a mental hospital. (Whether the accident caused the bipolar disorder or just aggravated an existing condition is not important.) Eilman failed to take prescribed psychotropic medicines and had relapses. Experts in this litigation concluded that, during May 5 to 8, 2006, Eilman was in an acute manic phase. She did not tell the police about her mental-health background, however, and was uncooperative after her arrest— sometimes refusing to answer questions, sometimes screaming, sometimes providing false or unresponsive answers. Phone calls from her mother and her stepfather told officers in Chicago that Eilman had bipolar disorder, but the officers did not believe the stepfather (they thought that the call was fake), and the officer who took the calls from Kathleen Paine, Eilman's mother, failed to tell

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anyone else or record the information in Eilman's file. While Eilman was in custody, some officers thought that she was just being difficult, some thought that she was on drugs (expert reports relate that methamphetamine could cause similar symptoms), some thought that she was no worse than the run of loud and uncooperative people who don't want to be in custody, and those who thought that she needed mental-health care were ignored or overruled.

Police took Eilman from Midway Airport to the Eighth District station, at 3515 West 63rd Street, 2.6 miles from the airport by road (as are the other distances in this opinion). She was in custody from midafternoon of May 7 until that evening, when Lt. Earnest, the watch commander, decided that Eilman would be charged and held until she qualified for release on bond. That decision led to Eilman's transfer to the Second District station at 5101 South Wentworth Avenue, about 5.7 miles from the Eighth District station (and 7.3 miles from the airport). The Second District has a holding facility for women; the Eighth District does not. While at the Second District, Eilman alternated between calm and manic conduct, sometimes chatting amiably while sometimes screaming, chanting rap lyrics, smearing menstrual blood on the cell's walls, and taking off her clothes. Officers processed the paperwork to release her on an individual-recognizance bond. Eilman signed the bond at about 6:30 PM on May 8 and walked out of the stationhouse.

She had no idea where she was and did not do the most sensible things—hail a taxi or head for a CTA station

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(three were nearby) and get out of the area during the remaining daylight. (Sunset that day was 7:57 PM.) It was evening; the police station was close to the Robert Taylor Homes, a public-housing project with an exceptionally high crime rate; the police had not returned her cell phone, so she could not easily summon aid; she was lost, unable to appreciate her danger, and dressed in a manner that attracted attention (a cutoff top with a bare midriff, short shorts, and boots); and she is white and well off while the local population is predominantly black and not affluent, causing her to stand out as a person unfamiliar with the environment and thus a potential target for crime. Officer Pauline Heard saw Eilman standing, with a puzzled look, in the stationhouse's parking lot. Heard pointed toward 51st Street. Eilman began walking but did not leave the neighborhood. She stopped in the J &J Fish Restaurant at 5401 South Wentworth. The restaurant's staff and customers have related that she was babbling and acting strangely.

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This map shows the location of the police station (the arrow) and the restaurant (the pin); M symbols indicate the nearest CTA stations (bus stops are unmarked); the Robert Taylor Homes were east of Federal Street between 39th and 54th Streets. Chicago began

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demolishing the buildings in 2005, but some of the structures were still there in May 2006, with many apartments empty as residents had been evicted in anticipation of the demolition, which was completed in 2007. Vacant apartments, like vacant buildings, render an area more dangerous because such places can become havens for criminals.

Eilman left the restaurant, walked two blocks north (and one block east), and joined a cluster of 15 to 20 people on a street corner outside 5135 South Federal Street, one of the project's high-rise buildings. She accompanied several young men to Apartment 702, which was vacant and had been taken over as a hangout. Some of the occupants told her that it was unsafe and that she should leave, but Eilman was too confused to act on that advice. One man nonetheless led her to his grandmother's house, but when Eilman said that she needed a place to sleep for the night she was returned to Apartment 702. About five hours after the police let Eilman go, Marvin Powell found her there, forced others out, and raped her at knifepoint. People outside tried and failed to break down the door in time to save Eilman. Trying to escape, Eilman jumped out the window, which was seven stories above ground. She may have been pushed or thrown out but cannot tell us what happened, because although she survived the fall her brain was seriously damaged. She has undergone years of physical therapy, but her brain functioning is permanently that of a child. This suit under 42 U.S.C. §1983 against the City of Chicago and 13 police officers (or civilian aides at the police stations) was filed by

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Kathleen Paine, Eilman's mother, in her capacity as Eilman's guardian. The district court granted judgment in favor of some defendants but denied others' motion to dismiss. On this interlocutory appeal 10 of the 13 individual defendants contend that they are protected by qualified immunity.

The district court rejected the defendants' claim of immunity because, in the judge's view, detainees' right to medical care is clearly established—and because a reasonable jury could find that Eilman needed care, and the police knew it. An interlocutory appeal from a qualified-immunity decision is limited to legal issues, see Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304 (1995), so we accept the district court's conclusion that Eilman's captors knew that she was mentally disabled (or were reckless in disregarding the signs observable to them). This has allowed us to omit a great deal of factual detail.

Although the district court saw only one legal theory, Paine actually has three, and these require separate treatment. The first theory is the one the district judge discussed: the right to medical care while in custody. The second theory is that Eilman should have been kept in custody longer to facilitate medical care. These theories are related but distinct. The first theory takes the time of release as given and asks what medical treatment is required while custody continues; the second emphasizes the medical care and asks how this affects the time of release. Paine's third theory is that the defendants gratuitously put Eilman in danger by releasing her where and when they did, and in a mental state

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that left Eilman unable to protect herself. These three theories have different implications for qualified immunity. We address them in order.

1. Police must provide care for the serious medical conditions of persons in custody. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825 (1994); Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976). That right is clearly established. See Ortiz v. Chicago, 656 F.3d 523 (7th Cir. 2011) (discussing this duty and why it applies even if the custody is expected to be short). See also Cobige v. Chicago, 651 F.3d 780 (7th Cir. 2011). As we have already explained, whether the police should have understood that Eilman had a serious medical condition is a factual issue that cannot be decided on an interlocutory appeal.

What appellants say about this theory is not that the law was too uncertain to establish Eilman's right to medical care. It is instead that Paine has not...