Shorter v. Baca

• Decision Date: 16 July 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-56051,16-56051
• Parties: Lecia L. SHORTER, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Leroy D. BACA; Gloria Molina ; Mark Ridley-Thomas ; Don Knabe; Michael D. Antonovich ; Avalos, Deputy Sheriff; Ortiz, Deputy Sheriff; County of Los Angeles; Does, 1 through 10 inclusive; Zev Yaroslavsky, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

895 F.3d 1176

Lecia L. SHORTER, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Leroy D. BACA; Gloria Molina ; Mark Ridley-Thomas ; Don Knabe; Michael D. Antonovich ; Avalos, Deputy Sheriff; Ortiz, Deputy Sheriff; County of Los Angeles; Does, 1 through 10 inclusive; Zev Yaroslavsky, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 16-56051

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

Argued and Submitted December 8, 2017 Pasadena, California

Filed July 16, 2018

William F. Abrams (argued) and David H. Kwasniewski, Steptoe & Johnson LLP, San Francisco, California, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

Rina M. Mathevosian (argued) and Henry Patrick Nelson, Nelson & Fulton, Los Angeles, California, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw and Ronald M. Gould, Circuit Judges, and Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers,^* District Judge.

WARDLAW, Circuit Judge:

Lecia L. Shorter appeals the district court's partial grant of summary judgment in favor of the County of Los Angeles, Leroy Baca, Jacqueline Ortiz, and Alejandra Avalos (the County or County Defendants) on her 42 U.S.C. § 1983 inadequate medical care claim, and the denial of Shorter's motion for a new trial on her § 1983 claim based on her classification as mentally ill, her conditions of confinement, and the strip searches to which she was subjected as a pretrial detainee at the Century Regional Detention Facility (CRDF) in Lynwood, California.

At trial, Shorter presented uncontroverted evidence that the County, tasked with supervising high-observation housing for mentally ill women, has a policy of shackling the women to steel tables in the middle of an indoor recreation room as their sole form of recreation, and that jail officials routinely leave noncompliant detainees naked and chained to their cell doors, for hours at a time without access to food, water, or a toilet. Shorter also presented the jail's daily logs during her pretrial detention, which show that Shorter was deprived of meals, showers, and recreation due, in part, to overcrowding and understaffing at CRDF. Shorter challenges the instructions given to the jury, which directed it to defer to the jail officials who enacted and carried out these policies and practices.

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we vacate the partial grant of summary judgment, reverse the denial of a new trial, and remand for further proceedings.¹

I.

Shorter was a pretrial detainee at the County's CRDF, an all-women's jail in Lynwood, California, from November 15, 2011, to December 17, 2011. On the day she arrived at the jail, a social worker diagnosed Shorter with an unspecified mood disorder and placed Shorter in Module 2300, the jail's high-observation housing (HOH) unit for women who are mentally ill. HOH inmates wear yellow shirts and blue pants, and are subject to more restrictive conditions than inmates in other parts of CRDF. HOH inmates, for example, live in single-person cells and are monitored by jail staff every fifteen minutes to prevent suicide and other harmful behavior. HOH inmates are handcuffed whenever they leave their cells, with the exception of taking showers. In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) commenced an investigation into the County jails' treatment of mentally ill inmates, and determined that the excessive use of shackles on the female inmates in HOH units was counterproductive to women's physical and mental health, and led to violations of the detainees' constitutional rights.

After her release from CRDF, Shorter filed this 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action, pro se and in forma pauperis.² She challenges several conditions of her confinement in HOH and the procedures that the County used to classify her as mentally ill.

Shorter contends that the County's policy unreasonably allowed social workers to rely on a fifteen-question screening test, a cursory review of the inmate's record, and a brief interview, to make a practically unreviewable determination about how inmates are housed at CRDF. Shorter tried to appeal her mental health classification when she arrived at HOH, but jail officials did not provide her with the grievance forms that she could use to appeal her classification.

Shorter also claims that she was routinely denied recreation, meals, and showers as a pretrial detainee because of understaffing and overcrowding at CRDF. For recreation, deputies move the women to an indoor day room, where they leave the women with one arm restrained by a handcuff extended from a chain secured to the floor. The women sit individually at indoor steel tables and benches. Some watch television and others participate in group activities. Jail policy requires the women to remain handcuffed to the chain next to the table at all times, and HOH detainees do not have access to a gym or an outdoor recreation area. Shorter participated in two and half hours of this type of recreation during her thirty-two days in the jail. The jail's daily logs also show that on seven days of her confinement Shorter received less than three meals per day. And the same logs show that Shorter showered only three times, going six, seven, or eight days during her confinement without a shower, and instead relying on feminine pads for personal sanitation.

Shorter also challenges the jail's visual body cavity search policy, which all inmates are subjected to upon return from trips to court, and the jail's pervasive practice of leaving noncompliant detainees shackled to their cell doors. The search process begins with the detainee inside her cell, with both hands in handcuffs. The detainee then places her hands outside the chute of her cell, where the deputy, on the other side of the door, unlocks one of the handcuffs. Then, with one hand still handcuffed and attached to a chain outside of the door, the detainee removes her pants, socks, and shoes, as well as her shirt and bra, which remain attached to the chain extending from her handcuff. The detainee must then lift her breasts, lower her underwear, bend over, open her vagina and rectum, and cough. The County's official policy mandates that inmates shall not be required to "remain in any search position for more time than is reasonable and necessary to complete the search."

In practice, however, where the detainee failed to comply with the search procedures, it was common for deputies to leave the detainee chained to her cell door for hours at a time. Deputies Avalos and Ortiz testified that they were trained to leave noncompliant detainees who did not follow search procedures chained to their cell doors. Shorter testified that, on three occasions, deputies Avalos and Ortiz left her chained to her cell door for three to six hours, without access to food, water, or clothing. On one occasion, the deputies did not leave enough slack on Shorter's chain to allow her to reach the bathroom in her cell. Shorter testified that there was only enough slack on the chain to allow her to sit on the floor and hold her hand up in the air. Each time the deputies chained Shorter to her cell door, Shorter freed herself by manipulating her hand out of the restraints or by convincing another deputy to release the restraints. Shorter said that these incidents made her feel like "an animal on display."³

Lastly, Shorter maintains that the County provided her with inadequate medical care. Shorter has a blood condition that requires her to monitor her blood's thickness daily, and to take Coumadin, a prescription drug that prevents the blood from thickening too much. Left untreated, the condition may cause blood clots, heart attack, stroke, or death. Jail officials tested Shorter's blood once during her thirty-two day stay. At the time of the test, officials determined that Shorter's blood was "dangerously thin," and they discontinued Shorter's Coumadin prescription. Shorter was not tested again until after she left CRDF; at the time, doctors deemed her blood "dangerously thick." Because jail officials did not routinely monitor her blood, Shorter worried that she was vulnerable to health risks throughout her pretrial detention.

The County Defendants moved for summary judgment on all of Shorter's claims. They argued that Shorter could not establish policies, customs, or practices sufficient to establish a claim against the County or Sheriff Baca, in his official capacity, under Monell v. Department of Social Services , 436 U.S. 658, 691, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). They further maintained that Shorter's evidence did not raise a genuine dispute of fact that the County Defendants had violated Shorter's constitutional rights. Specifically, they argued that Shorter's conditions of confinement claims failed because there was no evidence that Shorter was deprived of recreation, food, or sanitation; that her inadequate medical care claim failed because Shorter could not show deliberate indifference to her medical needs; and that Shorter's excessive search claim failed because Shorter could not show that County officials used more than de minimis force. County Defendants also argued that Shorter had no constitutional right regarding her classification as "mentally ill" or any right to file a jailhouse grievance. Deputies Avalos and Ortiz moved for summary judgment on the ground of qualified immunity.

The district court granted partial summary judgment in favor of the County on Shorter's inadequate medical care claim, but it denied summary judgment on the remainder of the claims. The district court, construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Shorter, concluded that the deputies were not entitled to qualified immunity because their search practices violated law that was clearly established as of 2011—a decision that the deputies do not challenge here.

The case then proceeded to a jury trial before a magistrate judge. The magistrate judge, relying on Ninth Circuit Model Civil Jury Instructions, instructed the jury to "give deference to jail officials" in deciding Shorter's conditions of confinement and excessive search claims. The jury returned a verdict in...