McGee v. Parsano

• Decision Date: 15 December 2022
• Docket Number: 20-2414
• Parties: Felita MCGEE, Independent Administrator of the Estate of Michael Carter, Sr., Deceased, and as next of kin, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry PARSANO, et al., Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

55 F.4th 563

Felita MCGEE, Independent Administrator of the Estate of Michael Carter, Sr., Deceased, and as next of kin, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Larry PARSANO, et al., Defendants-Appellants.

No. 20-2414

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued January 21, 2021

Decided December 15, 2022

Rahsaan A. Gordon, Attorney, Law Office of Rahsaan A. Gordon, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

William W. Kurnik, Attorney, Knight, Hoppe, Kurnik & Knight, Ltd., Rosemont, IL, for Defendants-Appellants Larry Parsano, Terry Collins, Michael Patton, Joshua Page.

Keith E. Fruehling, Attorney, Heyl, Royster, Voelker & Allen, PC, Champaign, IL, for Defendant-Appellant Randell West.

Before Sykes, Chief Judge, and Manion and St. Eve, Circuit Judges.

Sykes, Chief Judge.

Five days after Michael Carter, Sr., was booked into the Macon County Jail, he tragically died of diabetic ketoacidosis—a serious complication of diabetes

. In the hours preceding his death, Carter exhibited symptoms commonly associated with diabetic ketoacidosis : confusion, lethargy, and labored breathing. But he was denied timely medical care because the jail nurse thought he was faking his condition. She assured the corrections officers tasked with transferring Carter out of the medical unit that his vitals were within a normal range. Relying on the nurse's medical judgment, the officers declined to intervene and proceeded to relocate Carter, believing that his failure to follow orders stemmed from deliberate refusal, not medically induced incapacity.

Following Carter's death, Felita McGee, the administrator of his estate, sued the Macon County Sheriff's Department and the medical and corrections staff who attended to him before he died. She filed numerous claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including one against the five corrections officers. This appeal concerns only whether those officers are entitled to qualified immunity. The district judge denied the officers' motions for summary judgment on that issue, finding there to be a material factual dispute over whether they had reason to know that Carter was receiving inadequate medical care and thus had a duty to intervene. McGee v. Macon Cnty. Sheriff's Dep't , 473 F. Supp. 3d 818, 839 (C.D. Ill. 2020). We reverse. Established circuit precedent entitles a corrections officer to defer to the judgment of medical professionals. See, e.g., King v. Kramer , 680 F.3d 1013 (7th Cir. 2013). Because that is what the officers did here, they are entitled to qualified immunity.

I. Background

As the summary-judgment standard requires, we recount the facts in the light most favorable to McGee as the non-moving party. After Michael Carter, Sr., was charged with attempted cocaine distribution, a warrant was issued for his arrest. On July 13, 2015, officers arrested Carter and booked him into the Macon County Jail. Carter's intake form indicated that he was diabetic and used insulin

. A medical-administration record completed the same day noted that Carter had been prescribed two medications to manage his Type 2 diabetes : Metformin and Glyburide.

Over the next few days, Carter intermittently received Metformin

but never Glyburide. Then on July 16 he submitted a sick-call request stating that he felt exhausted and had been vomiting. Nurse Edna Morgan responded to Carter's request and administered Zofran, an anti-nausea medication. The next day a call from Carter's worried mother prompted Nurse Ashley Mattingly to also examine Carter. She observed that he was experiencing tachycardia and low blood pressure, so she moved him into the medical unit for a 23-hour observation.

That evening Dr. Robert Braco briefly examined Carter in the medical unit. Dr. Braco mistakenly believed that Carter had been experiencing only respiratory symptoms. So while he gave Carter two medications to alleviate his coughing and anxiety, he did nothing to address his diabetes

.

Carter remained in the medical unit overnight. Early in the morning of July 18, Nurse Jo Bates informed Corporal Randall West that Carter was ready to leave the medical unit and return to general population. West instructed Officer Larry Parsano to relay this news to Carter. But when Parsano arrived at Carter's medical cell shortly after 9 a.m., Carter neither looked at nor responded to him. Parsano soon requested the assistance of other officers.

The disturbing events that followed were captured on the jail's surveillance camera. But because the video lacks audio, our account of the dialogue comes from the parties' summary-judgment filings. A few minutes after Officer Parsano requested assistance, Corporal West arrived at Carter's medical cell and learned that Carter was not responding to orders. He was sitting near the shower, leaning against the wall and the toilet. Though Carter's medical condition at this time is unclear, Nurse Bates remarked that his vital readings were better than her own and that he was "faking" an illness. However, West did not observe Bates check Carter's vitals. She instead used smelling salts to determine whether Carter was "playing possum"—or in her words, "playing like [he was] dead." Carter responded to the smelling salts by slightly moving his head, but he did not follow Corporal West's order to stand.

Officer Joshua Page then arrived. Page had been assigned to meal duties the morning of July 18, so he knew Carter was diabetic. He also thought Carter appeared sick, in part because his breathing was labored. But Nurse Bates told Page that Carter was "faking" an illness. According to Officer Page, it was not uncommon for inmates at the jail to fake symptoms of an illness.

The video next shows Corporal West kicking Carter several times with varying degrees of force. He also stood on Carter's hand while twisting his foot back and forth. Believing that Carter was refusing to comply with his orders, West decided to move Carter to "deadlock"—the disciplinary portion of the jail.

Corporal Michael Patton and Officer Terry Collins then joined the group of jail staff, though Patton stood outside Carter's cell. Patton recalls Nurse Bates telling him that Carter's vitals were within a normal range, so he figured that Carter was likely faking his symptoms. Bates similarly told Officer Collins upon his arrival that she had taken Carter's vitals and that he was fine. But again, the video never shows Bates performing any vital checks. Collins observed that Carter appeared lethargic, like he was drunk. And both Page and Collins noticed red Kool-Aid powder throughout Carter's cell and on his hands and feet.

Around 9:15 a.m. Nurse Bates entered Carter's cell with a pulse oximeter

. Because she was unable to secure it to his finger, she left without obtaining a reading. Then Officer Parsano, who had positioned himself behind Carter, applied a pressure-point technique designed to encourage Carter to stand. This proved unsuccessful, so together Parsano and Collins dragged Carter to the door of his cell.

Once the officers had positioned Carter near the door, Nurse Bates spent about two minutes tending to him. Officer Page noticed Carter was cool to the touch, so he asked Bates to check Carter's oxygen levels. The video shows Bates doing so. But beyond that, not much is clear—several officers gathered around Carter, making it difficult to identify from the video which tests she performed. McGee contends that Nurse Bates never checked Carter's blood pressure or other vital signs. Because the video does not clearly contradict her contention and because we must construe the facts in her favor, we adopt this interpretation as our own.

Shortly before 9:25 a.m. the officers lifted Carter into a wheelchair and transported him to deadlock. Officer Brandon Wallar, the corrections officer assigned to deadlock on July 18, noticed that Carter appeared sick; he was incoherent and pale. He recommended that Carter be taken back to the medical unit. Officer Page likewise felt that Carter should have remained in the medical unit. But the transporting officers opted to leave Carter in deadlock.

The jail's deadlock unit lacks continuous surveillance, so our description of the remaining events comes solely from the parties' summary-judgment filings. After Carter had been moved to deadlock, Officer Parsano returned to Carter's medical-unit cell to clean and prepare it for another inmate. While cleaning, Parsano found two uneaten trays of food, both marked "D" for diabetic. Figuring that Carter was diabetic—a fact he had not previously known—Parsano told Officer Collins to have Nurse Bates check Carter for low blood sugar. Collins located Bates and told her about the discovery of the untouched trays. When he asked her to check Carter's blood-glucose level, she remarked, "[I]f you want me to, I guess I can."

Officers Collins and Page accompanied Nurse Bates to Carter's deadlock cell and watched her check Carter's vitals and conduct a finger-prick blood-glucose test. Carter's blood-glucose level exceeded the glucometer's

maximum reading of 500 milligrams per deciliter. Diabetic ketoacidosis, a process where acid accumulates in the bloodstream, is associated with levels above 300.¹ But neither Collins nor Page understood the reading's significance, and Nurse Bates did not appear alarmed.

Bates then located Corporal West and stated that she wanted to give Carter a shot. West understood this to mean that Bates wanted to administer an insulin injection

. So around 10:15 a.m. West escorted Nurse Bates back to Carter's cell and watched her give the injection. Bates told West that Carter's symptoms should improve within about ten minutes and that she would check on him in an hour.

About a half-hour after Carter received his insulin injection

, his lawyer arrived at the jail and asked to meet with him. Officer Page went to retrieve Carter from his cell. At that time Page learned from Corporal West that Nurse Bates had given Carter a medication. When Officer Page asked Carter whether he wanted to see his lawyer, Carter...