Keller v. Chippewa Cnty.
| Decision Date | 14 June 2021 |
| Docket Number | No. 20-2086,20-2086 |
| Parties | RALPH KELLER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. CHIPPEWA COUNTY, MICHIGAN BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS; CHIPPEWA COUNTY, MICHIGAN SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
NOT RECOMMENDED FOR PUBLICATION
File Name: 21a0287n.06
ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN
Before: CLAY, McKEAGUE, and LARSEN, Circuit Judges.
After Ralph Keller was arrested on an outstanding warrant, he was detained for three nights in the Chippewa County Jail, where officers took custody of his breathing inhalers and his prosthetic leg. Keller sued the Chippewa County Board of Commissioners and the Chippewa County Sheriff's Department, alleging disability discrimination under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), see 42 U.S.C. § 12132, and § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, see 29 U.S.C. § 794(a). The district court awarded summary judgment to the defendants. We AFFIRM.
Around 3:30 a.m. on January 16, 2016, Ralph Keller was booked into the Chippewa County Jail. He had been arrested on an outstanding warrant for a misdemeanor controlled-substance offense. During booking, officers made two confiscations that are central to Keller's suit.
First, they took custody of Keller's inhalers. Keller suffers from stage-four chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), which is the final and most severe stage. He uses three inhalers to manage his condition. The first, Proair, is a short-acting rescue inhaler. The other two, Symbicort and Tudorza, are long-acting.
According to the jail administrator, Lieutenant Paul Stanaway, the jail has a policy against allowing detainees to keep prescription medications in their cells due to the risk of overdose or sharing with other inmates. When told of this policy, Keller did not ask to keep the inhalers with him. He handed them over and informed the officers how often he takes them each day. However, because Keller did not have the original boxes with the prescription information, an officer contacted the jail's physician, Dr. Dood, to determine the appropriate dosage. Dr. Dood advised that Keller should be given Proair four times daily as needed, Symbicort twice per day, and Tudorza once per day. Keller expressed disagreement with the Tudorza recommendation. Keller maintains that he should have been given Tudorza twice per day because that is the dosage that his personal pulmonologist, Dr. Amarjeet Sethi, has chosen for him. For Dr. Sethi's part, he later testified that "once a day" is "normally standard" for Tudorza and that he did not have an issue with Dr. Dood's decision not to prescribe two doses per day.
Second, at the end of the booking process, officers told Keller to remove his prosthetic leg. Keller "told them that [he] need[s] [his] leg" but complied with the instructions to remove it. According to Lieutenant Stanaway, the jail confiscated the prosthesis because it "could be used as a weapon to harm others" and because Keller had a sore where it attached to his leg. The prosthesis was made of hard plastic and metal. Keller testified that it weighed "about 10 to 15 pounds." Stanaway represents that confiscating the leg was in accordance with the jail's "booking policies and procedures." The defendants also submitted an affidavit from an expert witness, who agreedthat this decision "was reasonably related to a legitimate detention objective of maintaining security within the facility." Keller says when he was detained at the same jail in 2010, he had been allowed to keep his prosthetic. The record is otherwise silent on the circumstances of Keller's 2010 incarceration.
After giving up his prosthesis, Keller asked the deputies, "How am I going to get around?" According to Keller, a deputy responded, "hop around or crawl." Despite this callous remark, Keller was not, in fact, always required to get around on his own. Keller acknowledges that officers placed him in a wheelchair to bring him to his holding cell after booking. Indeed, the record never suggests that Keller was required to move outside his cell without the use of a wheelchair. For example, Keller says that officers wheeled him to and from the jail's recreation area and transported him in a wheelchair to receive medical treatment.
Immediately after booking, officers brought Keller to a holding cell. Officers wheeled Keller to the cell's doorway. When Keller got out of the wheelchair, he "scooted along with [his] one leg" as he "[h]eld [himself] against the wall or something" until he arrived at a bench where he could sit. The cell was about twenty-by-twenty feet in size. It was equipped with a bench, toilet, sink, and telephone, as well as an intercom system, which allows inmates to contact corrections officers. Officers hand-delivered three meals per day to the cell, and Keller was able to eat them. Officers would bring meals to the door of the holding cell, and Keller's two young cellmates would carry the food to him. The jail also provided Keller with a cup so that he could have warm water from the sink, which helps with his COPD. Keller testified that he was able to use the toilet and the sink in the holding cell, but he had a "hard time" getting there. Without his prosthetic leg, he had to "shuffle[]" to the toilet, but nothing in the record reveals how far he had to go or whether he had access to any handrails for assistance.
On his second or third day in jail, Keller was moved to an "observation cell" to facilitate medical treatment and monitoring of his COPD. The observation cell was smaller than the previous holding cell. While he was in this new cell, officers handed Keller his meals directly. Keller also had access to an emergency call button that could be used whenever he needed assistance. Keller does not assert that the absence of his prosthetic leg caused him any difficulty in the new cell.
Jail records show—and Keller does not contest—that he received his inhaler treatments as prescribed by Dr. Dood. However, his COPD still caused him great difficulty breathing. When Keller was having trouble catching his breath, he was able to inform jail personnel, and he received treatment. On more than one occasion, officers administered Keller's rescue inhaler when he requested help via the intercom system or emergency button in his cell. When treatments did not produce the desired effect, officers contacted Dr. Dood, who would advise them on how to proceed. In response, Dood prescribed prednisone and nebulizer treatments; Keller agrees that the jail administered these treatments.
During one COPD flare-up, Keller asked officers to take him to the hospital, and the officers contacted Dr. Dood for guidance. Dood responded that Keller was only to be taken to the hospital if "he [was] turning blue" or his "temperature [was] low," neither of which occurred. Tests revealed that Keller's blood oxygen level was at 96 percent and that his temperature was 98.1 degrees. So, rather than taking Keller to the hospital, officers gave him another nebulizer treatment. After the treatment, Keller was "breathing normally" and "felt much better" according to the jail incident report. Keller admitted at his deposition that this treatment made him feel "[a] little better."
On Keller's fourth day in jail, he pleaded guilty to his outstanding charges. He was sentenced to time served and a $120 fine. The jail released Keller that morning and returned his inhalers and prosthetic leg. Keller indicated that he was going to call an ambulance to take him to the hospital, but one of the officers volunteered to drive him there. Keller accepted the offer. The deputy drove him to the hospital and accompanied him inside.
After his release from jail, Keller sued the Chippewa County Board of Commissioners (the County) and the Chippewa County Sheriff's Department, alleging disability discrimination in violation of both the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. Specifically, he alleged that the defendants discriminated against him "by removing his prosthetic leg" and "by not allowing [him] to retain the use of his breathing aid." He alleged that it was necessary for him "to have the use of his prosthetic leg and inhaler for him to effectively obtain his meals, comply with orders, have his meals, maintain hygiene and otherwise have full access to the Chippewa County Jail facilities and services."
After discovery, the County and the Sheriff's Department moved for summary judgment. The district court dismissed Keller's claims against the Sheriff's Department on the ground that the department is one-and-the-same with the county government and is not a separate entity capable of being sued—a decision that Keller does not contest. The district court then granted summary judgment to the County on the merits of Keller's ADA and Rehabilitation Act claims. Keller timely appeals.
We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Anderson v. City of Blue Ash, 798 F.3d 338, 350 (6th Cir. 2015). A "court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgmentas a matter of law" based on specific facts in the record. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a), (c); see Cincinnati Bell Tel. Co. v. Allnet Commc'n Servs. Inc., 17 F.3d 921, 923-24 (6th Cir. 1994). The nonmoving party must show that the record contains sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to rule in his favor on each "element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial." Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 (1986). We view the record and draw all reasonable inferences in the manner most favorable to the nonmoving party. Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587 (1986).
Title II of the ADA provides that "no qualified individual with a disability shall, by reason of such disability, be excluded from...
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