Lopez v. LeMaster, 98-6203

• Decision Date: 09 April 1999
• Docket Number: No. 98-6203,98-6203
• Citation: 172 F.3d 756
• Parties: 1999 CJ C.A.R. 2220 Genaro LOPEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth LeMASTER, individually and as Sheriff of Jackson County, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit

Page 756

172 F.3d 756

1999 CJ C.A.R. 2220

Genaro LOPEZ, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Kenneth LeMASTER, individually and as Sheriff of Jackson County, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 98-6203.

United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit.

April 9, 1999.

Carson L. Carter III, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Rodney C. Ramsey, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, for Defendant-Appellee.

Before TACHA, BARRETT, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

BARRETT, Senior Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-appellant Genaro Lopez appeals from the district court's order granting summary judgment to defendant-appellee Kenneth LeMaster on appellant's complaint brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983. ¹ We affirm in part, reverse in part and remand for further proceedings.

On October 1, 1997, appellant was arrested and placed into a general population cell in the Jackson County, Oklahoma jail. That evening, another inmate in the jail poked appellant in the stomach with a broom and accused him of "messing with" the inmate's sister and mother. The inmate also spit on appellant and threatened to kill him. Appellant notified the jailer on duty, who took appellant to his office to prepare a written statement.

While in the jailer's office, appellant told the jailer he was afraid to go back to the general population cell because he thought the inmates there would jump him. The jailer did not respond but returned appellant to the cell. Appellant claims that the jailer was within earshot of the other inmates, while they were plotting their attack on him.

Appellant lay on his bunk in the cell for about five minutes before he was attacked by two cellmates. One of the inmates held his legs while the other hit him several times in the back of the head and neck. The inmates told appellant they were punishing him for being a "snitch." About five minutes later, the inmates returned with two more cellmates and the four of them jumped appellant and again beat and kicked him.

About ten minutes later, the jailer returned. Appellant told him he needed to go to the hospital. The jailer escorted appellant out of the cell and took him to the jailer's office. There, the jailer telephoned an unknown person, informed him that appellant had been jumped, and asked whether he should take him to the hospital. After this telephone conversation, the jailer told appellant that "you are still conscious, we don't have to take you." Appellant's App. at 79. The jailer gave appellant some aspirin and placed him in a different cell, but did not take him to the hospital.

Appellant was released the next morning. He went to the hospital and was treated there for contusions and strains. His physician, Dr. Altshuler, thereafter diagnosed him with "severe contusion to the skull with post-concussion syndrome" and "severe strain to the cervical, thoracic and lumbosacral spine." Id. at 182. Appellant then brought this action, seeking to hold Jackson County Sheriff Kenneth LeMaster liable both individually and in his official capacity as sheriff for failing to prevent the assault and for failing to respond to his serious medical needs.

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). We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard as it applied. See McKnight v. Kimberly Clark Corp., 149 F.3d 1125, 1128 (10th Cir.1998). This standard requires us to examine the record in order to determine whether any genuine issue of material fact was in dispute; if not, we determine whether the district court correctly applied the substantive law. See id. In doing so we examine the factual record and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion. See id. Where the nonmovant will bear the burden of proof at trial on a dispositive issue, however, that party must go beyond the pleadings and designate specific facts so as to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence, as a triable issue, of an element essential to that party's case in order to survive summary judgment. See id.

I. Liability for Failure to Protect

We recognize at the outset that neither prison officials nor municipalities can absolutely guarantee the safety of their prisoners. See Berry v. City of Muskogee, 900 F.2d 1489, 1499 (10th Cir.1990). They are, however, responsible for taking reasonable measures to insure the safety of inmates. See id.; Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 832-33, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). ²

This case is complicated by the fact that appellant attributes his injuries to two different forms of failure to protect him from harm. First, he argues that he was injured because his jailer placed him back in the general population cell after he had been threatened by his fellow inmates. This claim challenges an episodic act or omission of a jail official, rather than a condition, practice, rule or restriction at the jail. See Hare v. City of Corinth, 74 F.3d 633, 645 (5th Cir.1996). Appellant seeks to hold Sheriff LeMaster individually and officially liable for his jailer's actions on the basis of poor training and supervision.

Second, appellant challenges his jailer's failure to rescue him once the assaults began. His primary argument on this point centers less on the jailer's conduct than on constitutionally inadequate conditions at the jail which may have prevented the jailer from acting, such as understaffing, lack of monitoring equipment or lack of a means by which inmates could contact guards. We address each of these bases of liability in turn.

A. Failure to train and supervise jailer

Appellant alleges that his jailer's acts and omissions were the result of Sheriff LeMaster's failure to provide adequate training and supervision of jail personnel. He further contends that poor training and supervision were a county policy and should be attributed to Jackson County.

Appellant provided some evidence that jailers at the county facility were poorly trained. Gordon Paige, a former jailer at the facility, testified that he received no formal training during his employment at the jail. Moreover, state jail inspectors cited the jail twice, in December 1996 and in April 1997, for deficiencies in training its jailers.

It is not enough, however, for appellant to show that there were general deficiencies in the county's training program for jailers. Rather, he must identify a specific deficiency in the county's training program closely related to his ultimate injury, and must prove that the deficiency in training actually caused his jailer to act with deliberate indifference to his safety. See City of Canton v. Harris, 489 U.S. 378, 391, 109 S.Ct. 1197, 103 L.Ed.2d 412 (1989). Appellant did not meet that burden here.

Appellant not only did not name his jailer as a defendant in this suit, he failed to identify him at all. That omission seriously undermines his attempt to hold the county liable for any actions deliberately taken by the jailer. Appellant has presented no evidence concerning deficiencies in training of the particular jailer involved in his case. Nor has he shown that the county had a uniform policy of providing its jailers with insufficient training in the areas closely related to his ultimate injury from which we might infer that his particular jailer's training also was insufficient.

Gordon Paige admitted that the county had scheduled him for eventual CLEET training. There is no showing that appellant's jailer had not received such training, or that his failure to receive it was the cause of appellant's injuries. See City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 391, 109 S.Ct. 1197 ("[A]dequately trained officers occasionally make mistakes; the fact that they do says little about the training program or the legal basis for holding the city liable."). The same weaknesses exist with regard to his claim that the jailer was poorly supervised: appellant simply has failed to tie this claim to his injuries. We therefore conclude that the district court properly granted summary judgment to the county on this claim.

B. Inadequate conditions at jail

Appellant argues, in the alternative, that his injuries resulted from constitutionally infirm conditions at the jail. We consider first Sheriff LeMaster's individual liability for these conditions. To survive summary judgment on his individual claim against Sheriff LeMaster, appellant must present factual evidence that he was "incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm," see Farmer, 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, and that the sheriff was aware of and disregarded an excessive risk to inmate health or safety by failing to take reasonable measures to abate the risk, see id. at 847, 114 S.Ct. 1970. ³ Having carefully reviewed the record on appeal, we conclude that appellant presented sufficient evidence on these points to survive summary judgment.

We begin with the jail standards of the Oklahoma Department of Health which provide, in pertinent part, as follows:

310: 670-5-3 Supervision of prisoners

(a) The movement of prisoners shall be regulated.

(b) Staff shall provide twenty-four (24) hour supervision of prisoners.

(c) Jailer posts shall be located and staffed to monitor all prisoners either physically or electronically and close enough to the living areas to respond immediately to calls for help, quell disorders and respond to emergency situations. A jailer shall be on duty at all times on each floor where prisoners are confined or the facility shall have either closed circuit TV, or a video camera and an intercommunication system to aid in the monitoring of the prisoners.

(d) There shall be sufficient staff to perform all functions relating to security, control, custody and supervision of...