Mays v. Sprinkle

• Decision Date: 30 March 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-1964,19-1964
• Citation: 992 F.3d 295
• Parties: Jeffery A. MAYS, Administrator for the Estate of David Wayne Mays, deceased, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. Sheriff Ronald N. SPRINKLE; Delbert Dudding; Kenny Parker; Daniel R. Faulkner; Deputy Golla; Deputy Honaker; Lieutenant T. Belcher; Deputy M. C. Prillaman; Sergeant B. M. Byers, Defendants - Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

992 F.3d 295

Jeffery A. MAYS, Administrator for the Estate of David Wayne Mays, deceased, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v.Sheriff Ronald N. SPRINKLE; Delbert Dudding; Kenny Parker; Daniel R. Faulkner; Deputy Golla; Deputy Honaker; Lieutenant T. Belcher; Deputy M. C. Prillaman; Sergeant B. M. Byers, Defendants - Appellees.

No. 19-1964

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: October 27, 2020

Decided: March 30, 2021

ARGUED: Isaac Abraham McBeth, HALPERIN LAW CENTER, Glen Allen, Virginia, for Appellant. Christopher S. Dadak, GUYNN WADDELL CARROLL & LOCKABY, P.C., Salem, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Jonathan E. Halperin, Andrew Lucchetti, HALPERIN LAW CENTER, Glen Allen, Virginia; Paul R. Thomson, III, THOMSON LAW FIRM, PLLC, Roanoke, Virginia, for Appellant. Jim H. Guynn, Jr., GUYNN WADDELL CARROLL & LOCKABY, P.C., Salem, Virginia, for Appellees.

Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and DIAZ and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Chief Judge Gregory and Judge Diaz concurred.

RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge:

This suit stems from allegations of deliberate indifference to the medical needs of David Mays. After Mays was arrested for public intoxication, he was placed in a cell at the county jail to sober up. He was later found dead. His estate then sued the officers involved. But the district court granted the officers’ motion to dismiss. We disagree. Mays has alleged enough facts to plausibly state a claim for constitutionally inadequate medical care for which the officers are not entitled to a dismissal based on qualified immunity at this litigation stage. So we reverse.

I. Background

In 2016, a Botetourt County deputy found Mays asleep and slumped over the steering wheel of his parked vehicle. Sitting next to Mays was a bag of prescription pills. And, upon awaking, Mays claimed to have taken gabapentin and alprazolam. Slurring his speech, Mays struggled to stand up and stay awake. On that night, he was charged with profane swearing and public intoxication but was "released on his own recognizance, as he was sober enough to leave under his own power." J.A. 35.

The next evening, Mays was again intoxicated in his vehicle. A 911 call reported that Mays "had consumed alcohol and prescription narcotics and that he was extremely intoxicated." J.A. 35.¹ The caller asked for help getting Mays out of the truck and requested medical care. Deputy Daniel Faulkner responded first. He saw Mays "sitting in the cab of his pickup truck so intoxicated that he could hardly lift his head to communicate." Id. With bloodshot eyes, Mays mumbled and slurred his speech. Deputy Faulkner escorted Mays to the back of the truck, where Mays held on to steady himself. Mays eventually laid down in the bed of the truck even though it was full of water. Deputy Faulkner noticed a bag in the truck containing bottles of prescription narcotics: gabapentin and citalopram. The gabapentin had been prescribed three days earlier and was missing ninety-one capsules. The citalopram was from almost three weeks earlier and was missing all thirty capsules.

With this information, Deputy Faulkner called the Commonwealth Attorney's Office to discuss potential charges. Based on that discussion, he arrested Mays for public intoxication. Sergeant Steven Honaker arrived and helped Mays into a patrol car to go see a magistrate judge. On the way, Mays passed out and began to snore, prompting Deputy Faulkner to try to wake him. Mays only woke up when they arrived. But then he was unable to get out of the car by himself. So Deputy Faulkner took Mays's feet and placed them on the ground.

Once Mays was helped from the car, Deputy Michael Prillaman and Lieutenant Travis Belcher walked Mays into the courtroom. There, Mays was unable to sit upright on the bench, so Lieutenant Belcher directed him to "sit at the end of the bench and lean against the wall to keep from falling over." J.A. 37. After a brief hearing, the magistrate judge ordered Mays held until he became sober.

Sergeant Brandon Byers and Lieutenant Belcher took Mays to the county jail. Mays required assistance removing his shoes, eyeglasses, and other personal effects before being put in a cell. At no point—from the 911 call to the door of his cell closing—did Mays receive any medical attention.

Several hours later, Lieutenant Belcher and Deputy Prillaman conducted a security check and saw Mays lying on a sleeping mat on the floor of his cell. Roughly twenty minutes later, Sergeant Byers again checked on Mays and realized Mays was unconscious. He tried unsuccessfully to wake Mays before deputies performed CPR until emergency medical personnel arrived. Mays died from acute hydrocodone, gabapentin, citalopram, and alprazolam intoxication.

Mays's estate sued the officers. In Count II of the amended complaint, Mays asserted the officers’ failure to provide medical care violated his rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.² The officers sought to dismiss this count under Rule 12(b)(6). The district court granted the motion: holding both that Mays failed to plead enough facts to make out a deliberate-indifference-to-medical-care claim and that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity.

Mays timely appealed the dismissal of Count II, and we have jurisdiction. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

II. Discussion

We review de novo the district court's dismissal. Smith v. Smith , 589 F.3d 736, 738 (4th Cir. 2009). A Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss tests only "the sufficiency of a complaint." Edwards v. City of Goldsboro , 178 F.3d 231, 243 (4th Cir. 1999). So the district court must accept as true all well-pleaded allegations and draw all reasonable factual inferences in plaintiff's favor. Erickson v. Pardus , 551 U.S. 89, 94, 127 S.Ct. 2197, 167 L.Ed.2d 1081 (2007). But "legal conclusions" and "conclusory statements" will not suffice. Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). To survive, "a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’ " Id. (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007) ). "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Id.

To infer that the officers may be liable requires that they both (1) violated the Constitution and (2) are not entitled to qualified immunity. We first discuss the legal framework and then apply it under the motion-to-dismiss standard.

A. Legal framework

Mays alleged that the denial of medical care violated both the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment and the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. But since Mays was a "pretrial detainee and not a convicted prisoner," the Fourteenth Amendment, and not the Eighth Amendment, governs his claim. Martin v. Gentile , 849 F.2d 863, 870 (4th Cir. 1988). As a pretrial detainee, Mays cannot be subject to any form of "punishment." Belcher v. Oliver , 898 F.2d 32, 34 (4th Cir. 1990). The "precise scope" of this Fourteenth Amendment right remains "unclear." Martin , 849 F.2d at 871. But a pretrial detainee makes out a violation at least where "he shows deliberate indifference to serious medical needs" under cases interpreting the Eighth Amendment. Id. (quoting Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 104, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) ); see also id . (observing that "[t]he due process rights of a pretrial detainee are at least as great as the eighth amendment protections available to the convicted prisoner"). So even though Mays's claim arises under the Fourteenth Amendment, we have traditionally looked to Eighth Amendment precedents in considering a Fourteenth Amendment claim of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.

An Eighth Amendment claim for deliberate indifference to serious medical needs includes objective and subjective elements. Jackson v. Lightsey , 775 F.3d 170, 178 (4th Cir. 2014). The objective element requires a "serious" medical condition. Id. A medical condition is objectively serious when it either is "diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment" or is "so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor's attention." Scinto v. Stansberry , 841 F.3d 219, 225 (4th Cir. 2016) (quoting Iko v. Shreve , 535 F.3d 225, 241 (4th Cir. 2008) ). And for the subjective element, the prison official must have acted with a "sufficiently culpable state of mind." Farmer v. Brennan , 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). The subjective state of mind required is that of "deliberate indifference ... ‘to inmate health or safety.’ " Scinto , 841 F.3d at 225 (quoting Farmer , 511 U.S. at 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970 ). And deliberate indifference requires that the official have "had actual subjective knowledge of both the inmate's serious medical condition and the excessive risk posed by the official's action or inaction." Jackson , 775 F.3d at 178 ; Parrish ex. rel. Lee v. Cleveland , 372 F.3d 294, 302 (4th Cir. 2004) ("[D]eliberate indifference requires a showing that the defendants ... actually knew of and ignored a detainee's serious need for medical care." (quoting Young v. City of Mount Ranier , 238 F.3d 567, 575–76 (4th Cir. 2001) )).

Mays now argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Kingsley v. Hendrickson , 576 U.S. 389, 135 S.Ct. 2466, 192 L.Ed.2d 416 (2015), altered this deliberate-indifference standard when applied to pretrial detainees. Kingsley , he claims, requires turning the subjective element into a purely objective one.³ We need not resolve this argument as that standard would make no difference here because of qualified immunity.

"Qualified immunity shields federal and state officials from money damages unless a plaintiff pleads facts showing (1) that the official violated a...