Rice v. Corr. Med. Servs. (In re Estate of Rice)

Decision Date20 March 2012
Docket NumberNos. 09–2804,10–2389.,s. 09–2804
Citation675 F.3d 650
PartiesEstate of Nicholas D. RICE, deceased, by: Rick D. RICE and Diane J. Waldrop, co-personal representatives, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CORRECTIONAL MEDICAL SERVICES, a Missouri corporation, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE

Sean W. Drew, I, Attorney, Michael R. Dezsi (argued), Drew Law Office, Niles, MI, for PlaintiffAppellant.

Michael B. Brennan (argued), Attorney, Gass Weber Mullins LLC, Milwaukee, WI, James F. Bleeke, Attorney, Bleeke Dillon Crandall, PC, Indianapolis, IN, Melanie L. Farr, Attorney, Haller & Colvin, Fort Wayne, IN, Nathaniel M. Jordan (argued), Attorney, Yoder, Ainlay, Ulmer & Buckingham, Goshen, IN, Lyle R. Hardman, Attorney, Hunt, Suedhoff & Kalamaros LLP, South Bend, IN, David C. Jensen (argued), Attorney, Eichhorn & Eichhorn, LLP, Hammond, IN, for DefendantsAppellees.

Before FLAUM, ROVNER, and EVANS,* Circuit Judges.ROVNER, Circuit Judge.

Nicholas D. Rice died in the Elkhart County Jail in December 2004, nearly fifteen months after he was booked at the jail pending trial on a charge of attempted bank robbery. Rice was known to suffer from schizophrenia, and shortly before his death a judge had found him incompetent to stand trial. Although he was seen by mental health professionals while he was being detained, Rice frequently refused to take his prescribed medications, cooperate with medical personnel at the jail, eat his meals, or bathe himself. He was briefly hospitalized at psychiatric and other medical facilities on several occasions during the period of his confinement, and at the time of his death he was awaiting placement at a state psychiatric facility pursuant to the judge's finding of incompetence. Rice died as a result of psychogenic polydipsia (excessive water drinking), which is a disorder known to manifest in a minority of persons with schizophrenia. Following Rice's death, his parents, representing his estate (the “Estate”), filed suit in federal court pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging among other things that jail officials and medical personnel had deprived Rice of due process by exhibiting deliberate indifference to his declining mental and physical condition. The district court entered summary judgment against the Estate on its section 1983 claims, finding in part that correctional and medical personnel had not consciously disregarded Rice's medical needs and that the ultimate cause of his death was not reasonably foreseeable to them. Estate of Rice ex rel. Rice v. Correctional Med. Servs., No. 06 C 697, Opinion & Order, 2009 WL 1748059 (N.D.Ind. June 17, 2009) (Miller, J.). The Estate then filed a second federal suit, invoking the court's diversity jurisdiction, in which it reasserted the state wrongful death claims that the judge in the first suit had dismissed without prejudice after disposing of the federal claims. The judge in the second suit dismissed that case on the basis of collateral estoppel, reasoning that his colleague's finding as to the foreseeability of the cause of Rice's death precluded recovery on any of the state claims. Estate of Rice ex rel. Rice v. Correctional Med. Servs., No. 09 C 319, Order (N.D.Ind. May 17, 2010) (Lozano, J.) (unpublished). The Estate appeals both judgments. On review of the record, we conclude that a material dispute of fact precludes summary judgment on one of the Estate's section 1983 claims: that his conditions of confinement were inhumane. We also conclude that the district court erred in dismissing his state claims. We therefore affirm in part and reverse in part.

I.

On March 5, 2003, Rice, then twenty years old, walked into the KeyBank in Nappanee, Indiana, and announced to a teller that he had a bomb that he would detonate if he was not given money. Then, without explanation and without having taken any money, Rice walked out of the bank. He made his way back to his hometown of Stevensville, Michigan, in a car he had stolen that morning from a neighbor. As he drove back into Stevensville, the owner of the car spotted Rice and summoned the police. Rice was jailed in Berrien County, Michigan, on a charge of auto theft.

It soon became apparent to the Michigan authorities that Rice had mental difficulties. Rice had begun to exhibit mental problems while he was in high school, and he was eventually diagnosed as suffering from undifferentiated schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is a chronic mental illness which interferes with a person's ability to accurately perceive what is going on around him, to distinguish fact from fantasy, and to regulate his emotions. Although Rice was prescribed medications for his illness, he did not take them consistently and stopped taking them altogether once he was no longer covered by his parents' health insurance. Not long after he was jailed in Michigan, various physical and mental problems—including weight loss, unresponsiveness, and lack of hygiene—resulted in Rice's hospitalization, a finding that he was not competent to stand trial, and eventually his commitment to the Kalamazoo Psychiatric Hospital for a period of nearly two months. The therapy and medication that Rice received during his commitment resulted in a marked improvement in his condition. His mother would later testify that Rice was in the best condition he had been in for quite some time. By the time Rice was discharged from the psychiatric hospital in late August 2003, Indiana authorities had identified him as the suspect in the KeyBank robbery, and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. After the Michigan charges against him were resolved, Rice was transferred to the Elkhart County Jail in Indiana, where he was booked on a charge of attempted robbery on September 8, 2003. His bail was set at $20,000.

The Elkhart County Jail had an ongoing contract with Correctional Medical Services (CMS) to provide comprehensive health care services to inmates of the jail. To serve the general medical needs of the jail's inmate population, CMS provided the jail with a staff which, in 2004, included the equivalent of approximately six fulltime licensed practical nurses, one full-time registered nurse, one half-time social worker, and a physician who served as the jail's medical director. CMS in turn contracted with Oaklawn Psychiatric Center in Goshen, Indiana, to provide psychiatric services to jail inmates as needed. Pursuant to that contract, mental health treatment decisions were reserved to Oaklawn and one of its physicians, Dr. Bryce B. Rohrer. Rohrer is board–certified in family medicine rather than psychiatry, but he has practiced family psychiatry for many years (his specialty is drug and alcohol addiction), and by the time of Rice's detention he had been providing psychiatric services to the jail for the previous ten years. Rohrer generally spent one-half day per week at the jail.

The CMS medical personnel who performed a screening upon Rice's arrival at the jail had access to his medical records and were aware of his psychiatric history and the psychotropic medications he had been prescribed for his schizophrenia. Dr. Rohrer met with Rice two days after he was booked into the jail and wrote him a prescription for Seroquel, an anti-psychotic medication that he had been taking prior to his transfer from Michigan. When Rohrer examined Rice several weeks later, Rice had been placed in the jail's “tank” because he was not communicating. Rohrer's notes indicate that Rice was not taking his prescribed medication but was practicing self-care. Rohrer was not sure if he was eating. Rohrer concluded that Rice's behavior was likely explained by psychosis, a traumatic event, or malingering (i.e., feigning illness for secondary gain) and noted his intent to hospitalize Rice at Oaklawn if further observation revealed that Rice was not eating or was outwardly psychotic.

In late October, Rohrer petitioned an Indiana state court to involuntarily commit Rice to a mental facility for a period of seventy-two hours, explaining that Rice was “refusing psychotropic medication and refusing to eat, refusing to communicate most of [the] time, diagnosed as schizophrenic.” R. 198–70 at 3. The court granted the petition, and Rice was admitted to Oaklawn. He was given an intramuscular injection of Haldol, a psychotropic medication, upon his arrival at Oaklawn, but his treating physician there, Dr. Salvador Ceniceros, who is board-certified in both psychiatry and neurology, concluded in short order that there was no probable cause to believe that Rice met the criteria for involuntary commitment or forced medication. Ceniceros would later testify that Rice showed no signs of psychosis, answered his questions plainly and coherently, interacted with others appropriately, was eating and drinking, and accepted medication voluntarily. At Ceniceros' instruction, Rice was discharged back to the jail less than twenty-four hours after he was admitted.1

In the following months, Rice continued to exhibit the sort of behavior at the jail which had led Rohrer to seek his involuntary commitment to Oaklawn in October. Rohrer's notes from November 2003 and January 2004 indicated that although at times Rice was communicative and appeared to be doing better, at other times he was refusing to take his medication and uncommunicative and that his psychotic disorder appeared to be worsening.

On November 16, 2003, Rice struck his cellmate in the eye, causing the cellmate to seek medical attention. When Rice subsequently refused an instruction by the correctional staff to step out of the cell, Officer Jennifer Shelton directed her colleague, Jason Koontz, to spray Rice's face with pepper foam, and Rice was then placed in a restraint chair. Nurses Cindy Lambright and Joy Bell were present when Rice was pepper-sprayed, and they helped rinse his face and eyes. Rice later refused multiple invitations to leave the restraint chair and...

To continue reading

Request your trial
1011 cases
  • Freeman v. City of Milwaukee
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Wisconsin
    • January 15, 2014
    ...375, 379 (7th Cir.2005) (citing McTigue v. City of Chicago, 60 F.3d 381, 382 (7th Cir.1995)). See also Rice ex rel. Rice v. Correctional Med. Servs., 675 F.3d 650, 675 (7th Cir.2012) (“An official policy or custom may be established by ... a widespread practice which, although unwritten, is......
  • Smith v. City of Chi.
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • November 9, 2015
    ...because Plaintiffs' Monell claims rely on the unofficial stop and frisk policy articulated above. See Rice v. Correctional Med. Servs. , 675 F.3d 650, 675 (7th Cir.2012) (official custom may be established by widespread practice "although unwritten, is so entrenched and well-known as to car......
  • Pindak v. Dart
    • United States
    • U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois
    • August 27, 2015
    ...resulting from their policies and practices." Hahn v. Walsh, 762 F.3d 617, 640 (7th Cir.2014) (quoting Rice ex rel. Rice v. Corr. Med. Servs., 675 F.3d 650, 675 (7th Cir.2012) ). A plaintiff may establish the existence of an official policy or custom in several ways. The plaintiff may ident......
  • Hahn v. Walsh
    • United States
    • U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
    • September 9, 2014
    ...law may, like municipalities, be held liable for injuries resulting from their policies and practices.” Rice ex rel. Rice v. Corr. Med. Servs., 675 F.3d 650, 675 (7th Cir.2012). As with municipal defendants (like Sheriff Walsh, in his official capacity), the plaintiff “must show that his in......
  • Request a trial to view additional results
1 books & journal articles
  • Part two: case summaries by major topic.
    • United States
    • Detention and Corrections Caselaw Quarterly No. 58, January 2014
    • January 1, 2014
    ...U.S. Appeals Court DUE PROCESS HYGIENE MEDICAL TREATMENT PSYCHIATRIC CARE RESTRAINTS Rice ex rel. Rice v. Correctional Medical Services, 675 F.3d 650 (7th Cir. 2012). Following a pretrial detainee's death while incarcerated, his parents, representing his estate filed suit pursuant to [secti......

VLEX uses login cookies to provide you with a better browsing experience. If you click on 'Accept' or continue browsing this site we consider that you accept our cookie policy. ACCEPT