Plair v. Cnty. of Macomb

• Docket Number: 21-cv-12275
• Decision Date: 02 August 2023
• Parties: BRIELLE J. PLAIR, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE of KALIEB L. SOLOMON, Deceased, Plaintiff, v. COUNTY OF MACOMB, a political subdivision of the State of Michigan, and TIMOTHY RICKERT, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Michigan

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BRIELLE J. PLAIR, as Personal Representative of the ESTATE of KALIEB L. SOLOMON, Deceased, Plaintiff,
v.
COUNTY OF MACOMB, a political subdivision of the State of Michigan, and TIMOTHY RICKERT, Defendants.

No. 21-cv-12275

United States District Court, E.D. Michigan, Southern Division

August 2, 2023

OPINION AND ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART DEFENDANTS' MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT (ECF No. 27)

Paul D. Borman United States District Judge

I. INTRODUCTION

This case arises out of the tragic death of Kalieb Solomon, who committed suicide in Macomb County Jail on September 12, 2019.

After Solomon's death, Brielle Plair, as personal representative of Solomon's estate, sued Officer Timothy Rickert and Macomb County. Plair claims that Rickert is liable for acting with deliberate indifference to Solomon's serious medical needs, in violation of the Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments, and for negligently discharging his duty to care for Solomon, in violation of Michigan common law. Plair also claims that Macomb is liable for promulgating affirmative policies that

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were inadequate to protect those incarcerated from suicide risks, failing to properly train its officers, and acquiescing to a custom of officers not responding to requests for medical attention, all in violation of the Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendments.

Both Rickert and Macomb have moved for summary judgment. For the reasons that follow, the Court will GRANT their Motion on all of Plair's claims except for her claim that Rickert violated Solomon's Fourteenth Amendment right to be free from deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs.

II. STATEMENT OF FACTS

In 2002, after a string of suicides, the Macomb County Jail commissions a report on suicide prevention practices.

In the three years preceding April of 2002, seven people incarcerated in the Macomb County Jail (“MCJ”) committed suicide. (ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1310.) In response, MCJ Administrator Michelle Sanborn and Mark Hackel, of the Macomb County Sheriff's Office (“MCSO”), hired Assistant Director of the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives Lindsay Hayes to “determin[e] what steps, if any, were necessary to improve suicide prevention practices at [MCJ].” (ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1310.)

Hayes visited MCJ for two days, “met with and/or interviewed numerous correctional, medical and mental health staff,” reviewed “numerous documents,” and reviewed the “case files of the [seven] recent inmate suicides.” (ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1313.) The Report that he submitted in June of 2002 “noted that the MCSO

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ha[d] a good suicide prevention program, and [that] its health care services [were] accredited by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care.” (ECF No. 3220, PageID 1343.) But it also recommended some improvements.

MCJ appears to have implemented some of these recommendations. For example, at least recently, MCJ has ensured that “mental health evaluations [are] completed (separately from the intake mental health screening and assessment) by mental health staff within 14 days of an inmate's admission into the MCSO jail system” and has carried out “a formalized mortality review process [that] follow[s] an inmate suicide.” (ECF No. 27-5; ECF No. 32-5; ECF No. 32-14; ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1326, 1342.) It has also placed “suicidal inmates” on either “constant observation” or “close observation,” in which officers round “at staggered intervals not to exceed every 15 minutes.” (ECF No. 27-14, PageID 316; ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1335.)

MCJ has not, or not consistently, implemented other of the Report's recommendations. For example, MCJ still does not arrange for “medical or mental health[] personnel [to] conduct regularly scheduled (at least three times weekly) welfare checks of all inmates in ‘special housing units' (e.g., booking/holding, preclassification, medical disciplinary/administrative segregation, etc.).” (ECF No. 3220, PageID 1337; ECF No. 32-21, PageID 1413.) MCJ has also gone back and forth between requiring “correctional staff . . . to physically observe inmates placed in

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‘special housing' units . . . at the [recommended] 30-minute intervals” and requiring observation less frequently, at 60-minute intervals. (ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1338; ECF No. 32-21, PagelD 1377-98.)

MCJ has not always fully complied with the Report's two “minor” recommendations on officer training either. Although the Report found that “MCSO [] ha[d] a [generally] good suicide prevention training program,” it recommended that MCJ increase its “basic pre-service suicide prevention training” from five hours to eight and increase its annual suicide prevention training from one hour to two. (ECF No. 32-20, PageID 1317.) As far as the record shows, MCJ never took up the first recommendation. And it only fell in line with the latter in late 2021. (ECF No. 32-21, PageID 1400-01; ECF No. 32-37.)

More people incarcerated in MCJ commit suicide.

Despite Hayes' Report, and any changes that MCJ made in response to it, at least 23 people incarcerated at MCJ have committed suicide since 2010. (ECF No. 32-2, PageID 587-88.) 21 of these people hanged themselves with sheets or blankets; one stabbed himself in the neck with a razor; and one is the decedent in this case, who choked himself with a towel. (ECF No. 32-2, PageID 587-88.)

Many lawsuits stemmed from these suicides, and in at least two of these suits, other people incarcerated at MCJ complained of a lack of care from the officers there. In the first case, Rettia Macleod and Sue Pregizer testified that in July 2013

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“[t]he corrections officers were doing nothing to help [Jennifer Meyers, the decedent in that case], no matter how many times medical kites for [Meyers] were turned in to the guards.” (ECF No. 32-43; ECF No. 32-44.) In the second case, Jeremy Gordon and Joseph Piasecki testified that when they were in MCJ in July of 2017 officers “rarely respond[ed] to [their] requests for help when [they] used the intercom system.” (ECF No. 32-41, PagelD 2203, 2257-63; ECF No. 32-42.)

In 2018, Kalieb Solomon, the decedent in this case, is booked and screened.

On September 28, 2018, Kalieb Solomon, the decedent in this case, was arrested and charged with armed robbery (and related offenses). (ECF Nos. 27-2, 6.) Three days later, he was booked into MCJ. (ECF No. 27-4.)

During the booking process, Solomon and those assessing him answered “no” to a series of questions meant to determine whether he was a suicide risk. Specifically, on an MCJ “Initial Classification / Temporary Cell Assignment” form, Screening Deputy Backers indicated that Solomon stated that he was not “contemplating suicide” nor “experiencing visual or auditory hallucinations,” that he had not “experienced any suicidal or self-injury behavior in the past 3 months,” that he was not “arriving to the jail directly from a hospital or psychiatric facility where [he] had received treatment for a suicide attempt,” and that he did not “have a history of recent psychiatric hospitalization occurring within 1 month prior to admission to the jail.” (ECF No. 27-4, PageID 280.) On that same form, Deputy Backers indicated that

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Solomon was not “talking to himself,” “appearing confused or incoherent,” or “refusing to answer questions regarding mental health history,” that Solomon's crime was not “unusually shocking or heinous in nature,” that Solomon was not “a person of respect in the community or high profile,” and that the screening deputy did not “believe [Solomon] [was] not being honest during [the] assessment.” (ECF No. 27-4, PageID 280.)

A screening completed by Wellpath Medical, MCJ's medical service provider, returned similar results. On Wellpath's “Receiving Screening” form, Registered Nurse Zachary Year^[1] indicated that it was not Solomon's first arrest and his charges did not include murder, kidnapping, or a sexual offense, that Solomon's “[a]rresting or transporting officer” did not believe that Solomon was “a suicide risk,” and that Solomon did not “[l]ack[] close family/friends,” was not “[w]orried about major problems other than [his] legal situation,” did not have family members or a significant other or close friends who had “attempted or committed suicide,” did not have a history of psychiatric treatment or taking psychotropic medications, did not hold a “position of respect in [the] community,” had not committed a “shocking” crime, had not “[e]xpresse[d] thoughts about killing” himself, did not have “a suicide plan and/or suicide instrument in possession,” had not previously attempted suicide,

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had not “[e]xpresse[d] feeling [that] there [was] nothing to look forward to in the future (feelings of helplessness and hopelessness),” had not “[s]how[ed] signs of depression” such as “crying or emotional flatness,” did not “[a]ppear[] overly anxious, afraid or angry” nor “to feel unusually embarrassed or ashamed,” was not “acting and/or talking in a strange manner” by, for example, not focusing or “hearing or seeing things not there,” and was not “apparently under the influence of alcohol or drugs.” (ECF No. 27-5, PageID 284.) Nurse Year further indicated that Solomon appeared alert and was speaking and behaving appropriately, following a logical thought process, and exhibiting an appropriate affect and mood. (ECF No. 27-5, PageID 285.) He recommended that MCJ place Solomon in a “General Population” housing unit. (ECF No. 27-5, PageID 286.)

Two days later, on October 3rd, an MCJ officer assigned Solomon to the security class level of 7 (“close”), on a scale from level 1 (“very low”) to level 8 (“maximum”). (ECF No. 27-6, PageID 288.)

Eight days after that, Registered Nurse Jamie Koelder^[2] completed a Wellpath Medical History and Physical Assessment with Mental Health form for Solomon. (ECF No. 27-7.) After asking Solomon many of the same suicide risk questions

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listed above, Nurse Koelder found that...