Molton v. City of Cleveland

• Decision Date: 12 April 1988
• Docket Number: 85-3959,Nos. 85-3927,s. 85-3927
• Citation: 839 F.2d 240
• Parties: Martha MOLTON, Administrator for the Estate of William Molton, Plaintiff- Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. CITY OF CLEVELAND, Unnamed Employees, Officers and Agents of the City of Cleveland, Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

Page 240

839 F.2d 240

Martha MOLTON, Administrator for the Estate of William Molton, Plaintiff- Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. CITY OF CLEVELAND, Unnamed Employees, Officers and Agents of the City of Cleveland, Defendants-Appellants Cross-Appellees.

Nos. 85-3927, 85-3959.

United States Court of Appeals Sixth Circuit.

Argued March 27, 1987.

Decided Feb. 1, 1988.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied April 12, 1988.

Irving Berger (argued), Robert M. Wolff, Craig S. Cobb, Asst. Directors of Law, Cleveland, Ohio, for defendants-appellants, cross-appellees.

Bruce C. Allen (argued), Allen & Hodgman, Cleveland, Ohio, for plaintiff-appellee, cross-appellant.

Before KENNEDY, RYAN, and NORRIS, Circuit Judges.

RYAN, Circuit Judge.

Before us are cross-appeals by the defendant City of Cleveland, and plaintiff Martha Molton, Administrator for the estate of William Molton. Cleveland appeals from a jury verdict in plaintiff's favor on state wrongful death and assault and battery actions, and a 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 deliberate indifference claim. Plaintiff appeals the district court's judgment notwithstanding the verdict (j.n.o.v.) in favor of defendant on a Sec. 1983 excessive use of force claim, and the lower court's refusal to grant prejudgment interest or a new trial on damages.

I.

It is well to remember, as the facts of this case are related, that the only claims before us are against the City of Cleveland and not against any named individuals.

The City's version of the events that culminated in the tragic suicide of the plaintiff's decedent contrast sharply with the version presented by the plaintiff; but the jury returned a verdict for plaintiff, including interrogative verdicts, suggesting strongly that the jury disbelieved the City's account of the evidence and believed the version presented by plaintiff's witnesses. Therefore, in examining the evidence for sufficiency, we take the facts in a light most favorable to plaintiff. Cf. Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 469, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942).

Bill Molton was a recovering alcoholic. After leaving work on August 2, 1981, he accompanied some co-employees and friends to several local bars and became intoxicated. After leaving the last bar, Molton drove his van through a red light. Two Cleveland police officers, Juan Camacho and Kevin Cielec, ordered Molton to pull over to the side of the road. When he did, the officers demanded Molton's driver's license and registration. Molton slipped the papers through a slightly opened window. He was uncooperative and cursed at the officers, so they called for backup assistance. Officers Robert Haug and James Walsh came to the scene. The officers requested Molton to step out of the van. He refused. Officer Haug then forced open the side vent window, reached inside, and opened the door. As Haug reached in to unlock the door, Molton struck the officer's arm. The officers then forcibly removed Molton from the van. Immediately after Molton had been pulled from the van, one of the van's occupants, Charles Anderson, heard several loud crashes against the side of the vehicle. Shortly thereafter, the occupants stepped out of the van and saw Molton on the ground, doubled over, holding his ribs. When Anderson, who was living with Molton, attempted to get the keys to Molton's apartment so that he could go home, the officers said to him: "If you don't keep walking the same thing is going to happen to you."

The officers cuffed Molton's hands behind his back and drove him to the police station. Molton had to be dragged out of the car and into the police station because he resisted. When he was brought into the station booking area, there were three other prisoners present being booked on unrelated matters: Darren Roe, Kevin Roe, and Mark Shefcheck. None of the three knew Molton.

Molton continued to shout profanities at the officers, and refused to cooperate. At trial, Darren and Kevin Roe and Shefcheck testified that the officers threw Molton against a wall several times, smashing his face up against the glass window in the booking area. While Molton, who was still handcuffed, was pleading with the officers to leave him alone, one of the officers knocked Molton's feet from under him causing him to fall to the floor. Several more officers then rushed in from the office area and kicked and punched Molton repeatedly. Lisseth Keener, ¹ the jailer, shouted "kick his ass!" and struck Molton with a flashlight. Throughout the beating, Molton had his hands cuffed behind his back.

At about that time Carlin Roe arrived at the public report counter of the precinct in order to post bail for his brothers Kevin and Darren. When Carlin heard the policemen beating Molton, he thought they were beating his brothers. He yelled to the officers to stop beating his brothers, whereupon he was arrested for disorderly conduct. The officers took Carlin into the booking area and, pointing to Molton, asked, "Is this your brother?"

Carlin Roe, now a prisoner himself, was booked and placed in a cell directly across from Molton. Molton told Carlin that "he couldn't stand the pain from the policemen beating him," and that he was going to hang himself. As Molton, using his shirt, was attempting to rig a noose in order to hang himself from the upper part of the cell, Carlin Roe began shouting loudly for help. Molton failed at his first effort to hang himself because his shirt tore; however, upon the second attempt he was successful and ended his life. Medical experts testified that it took several minutes for Molton to die from the hanging. Although Darren and Kevin Roe and Shefcheck heard the shouts for help from the booking area, no officer responded. Carlin shouted for some ten to fifteen minutes before one of the officers told Keener to "go see what he wants." Keener found Molton hanging from the cell bars, and the officers cut him down.

The administrator of Molton's estate sued the City, and the jury returned a verdict in favor of plaintiffs in the total amount of $78,200. The jury returned both a general verdict and a series of interrogative verdicts. It found the City liable on the Sec. 1983 claim for deliberate indifference to a strong likelihood that Molton would commit suicide, and on the state wrongful death claim based on the City's negligence. The jury allocated twenty percent of the causal negligence to Molton and eighty percent to the City of Cleveland. The jury also concluded that the officers exercised unconstitutionally excessive force in beating Molton, and found the City liable for the assault and battery of Molton. The jury awarded $10,000 for the assault and battery claim, $45,000 for the state wrongful death action, $20,000 for the Sec. 1983 deliberate indifference action, and $3,200.00 for the medical and funeral expenses. The district judge granted the City's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict on plaintiff's excessive use of force claim on the ground that plaintiff had failed to meet the "severity of injury" requirement.

Defendant's Appeal

II.

Under Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), a prison official's deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of inmates amounts to cruel and unusual punishment, and violates the eighth amendment. To sustain such a claim, it is not necessary that the prison officials consciously sought to inflict pain by withholding treatment; it is sufficient to show deliberate indifference to an inmate's serious medical needs. Westlake v. Lucas, 537 F.2d 857, 860 n. 3 (6th Cir.1976). A pretrial detainee's constitutional rights under the eighth and fourteenth amendments are denied by deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs just as such indifference denies the corresponding rights of a convicted prisoner. Anderson v. City of Atlanta, 778 F.2d 678, 686-87 n. 12 (11th Cir.1985); Garcia v. Salt Lake County, 768 F.2d 303, 307 (10th Cir.1985).

Plaintiff's Sec. 1983 "deliberate indifference" claim is that a policy of the City of Cleveland caused the officers to be deliberately indifferent to the strong likelihood that Molton would commit suicide. There is some support for this theory of liability. See Partridge v. Two Unknown Police Officers of Houston, 791 F.2d 1182 (5th Cir.1986); Roberts v. City of Troy, 773 F.2d 720 (6th Cir.1985); State Bank of St. Charles v. Camic, 712 F.2d 1140, 1145 n. 3 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 995, 104 S.Ct. 491, 78 L.Ed.2d 686 (1983). In Roberts, 773 F.2d at 724-25, this court determined that in a Sec. 1983 action against a city for failing to prevent the suicide of a pretrial detainee, a plaintiff must prove deliberate indifference; and that deliberate indifference constitutes the purposeful punishment necessary for finding a fourteenth amendment violation. We specifically rejected the contention that such an action could be maintained on a theory of mere negligence. The conduct for which liability attaches must be more than negligence, Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. at 105-06, 97 S.Ct. at 291-92, it must demonstrate deliberateness tantamount to an intent to punish.

III.

The City attacks the jury's verdict in favor of plaintiff on the deliberate indifference claim on a number of grounds. We consider only one of them, however, because we conclude therefrom that we must set aside the jury's verdict because plaintiff introduced no evidence proving the City had a custom or policy which caused the officers to be deliberately indifferent to Molton's serious medical needs.

Cleveland cannot be held vicariously liable under Sec. 1983 for damages inflicted by its officers. Rather, the municipality may be required to respond in damages under Sec. 1983 only for its own actions. Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati, 475 U.S. 469, 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986); Oklahoma City v. Tuttle, 471 U.S. 808, 105 S.Ct. 2427, 85 L.Ed.2d 791 (1985); Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56...