Steel v. Alameda Cnty. Sheriff's Office

• Decision Date: 23 December 2019
• Docket Number: Case No. 3:18-cv-05072-JD
• Citation: 428 F.Supp.3d 235
• Parties: Candace STEEL, et al., Plaintiffs, v. ALAMEDA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

428 F.Supp.3d 235

Candace STEEL, et al., Plaintiffs,

v.ALAMEDA COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, et al., Defendants.

Case No. 3:18-cv-05072-JD

United States District Court, N.D. California.

Signed December 23, 2019

Yolanda Huang, Law Offices of Yolanda Huang, Oakland, CA, for Plaintiffs.

Gregory B. Thomas, Temitayo O. Peters, Burke, Williams & Sorensen LLP, Oakland, CA, Peter G. Bertling, Bertling Law Group, Inc., Santa Barbara, CA, for Defendants.

ORDER RE MOTION TO DISMISS

Re: Dkt. No. 14

JAMES DONATO, United States District Judge

As alleged in the first amended complaint ("FAC"), Candace Steel was left alone in a jail cell to give birth to her child, Baby H, while in the pretrial custody of the Alameda County Sheriff's Office. Dkt. No. 10. Steel was not given any assistance or care during the delivery. Baby H was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, and Steel had to stick her fingers into Baby H's mouth to start respiration. Sheriff's deputies went into Steel's cell only after they heard Baby H cry.

Steel and Baby H are the plaintiffs in this civil rights action. Defendants are the Sheriff's Office, certain individuals, the California Forensic Medical Group ("CFMG"), which is under contract with Alameda County to provide medical services at the jail, and the County itself. CFMG answered the complaint and is not a party to the pending motion. Dkt. No. 17.

The Alameda County defendants have challenged the sufficiency of the allegations in the FAC under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Dkt. No. 14. Their main argument is that the FAC does not plausibly allege that plaintiffs' injuries were the result of a government pattern, practice, or custom under Monell v. Department of Social Services , 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978). " Monell is a case about responsibility." Pembaur v. City of Cincinnati , 475 U.S. 469, 478, 106 S.Ct. 1292, 89 L.Ed.2d 452 (1986). It requires "a plaintiff seeking to impose liability on a municipality under [Section] 1983 to identify a municipal ‘policy’ or ‘custom’ that caused the plaintiff's injury" to "ensure[ ] that a municipality is held liable only for those deprivations ... [that] may fairly be said to be" its own. Bd. of Cty. Comm'rs v. Brown , 520 U.S. 397, 403-04, 117 S.Ct. 1382, 137 L.Ed.2d 626 (1997) (citations omitted).

These standards are amply satisfied here as a pleading matter. Plaintiffs allege that their injuries arose out of the Sheriff's Office's contract with CFMG, which contained financial terms that discouraged adequate medical care, including procedures such as labor and delivery, for detainees. These allegations are sufficiently specific and concrete to plausibly state a policy or practice under Monell .

The outcome is different for the California state law claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress ("IIED") and negligence per se. These claims are not adequately supported by the facts and applicable law, and are dismissed with leave to amend.

BACKGROUND

Taking the FAC's nonconclusory allegations as true for the motion to dismiss, see Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 555-56, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007), the salient facts are straightforward. Steel was arrested on misdemeanor charges by local police officers, and jailed at the Santa Rita facility in July 2017. Dkt. No. 10 ¶ 37. The charges were subsequently dismissed.

At the time of arrest, Steel was visibly pregnant. Before going to the jail, the police officers took her to a hospital "for the purpose of medical clearance." Id. ¶ 38. Steel told the attending hospital staff that she had used controlled substances during the pregnancy, had not received any prenatal care, and did not know her due date. Id. ¶¶ 40, 42. She also said that she had had seizures and a spontaneous delivery in a previous pregnancy. Id. ¶ 41. Doctors evaluated Steel as at least 8 months pregnant and suffering from a urinary tract infection

("UTI"), which the FAC alleges is a condition associated with early delivery. Id. ¶¶ 39, 43-44.

Steel was surrendered to the Sheriff's Office and booked into Santa Rita Jail shortly after midnight on July 21, 2017. Id. ¶ 37. The jail intake form noted the medical information from the hospital -- Steel's overall condition, lack of prenatal care, recent substance use, history of pregnancy-related seizures, UTI diagnosis, and the fact that she was not sure about her due date. Id. ¶ 45. Later in her first day at the jail, Steel reported painful uterine cramping and contractions to the jail's medical staff from CFMG. Id. ¶¶ 47-48. She was taken back to the hospital, where she tested positive for fetal fibronectin, which the FAC alleges is also associated with preterm delivery

, like the UTI. Id. ¶¶ 49-50.

Steel went into labor on July 23, 2017, approximately 60 hours after she arrived at the jail. She told jail personnel that she was experiencing severe cramping and pain, and could not stand or walk, but only crawl on hands and knees. Id. ¶¶ 51-52. Other inmates who saw Steel's distress told the jailers that there was a medical emergency. Id. ¶ 53. A CFMG nurse examined Steel, and concluded that her cervix was not dilated and that she was experiencing nothing but a stomach ache. Id. ¶ 54. The FAC alleges that the nurse also said Steel was exaggerating her distress. Id. After hearing the nurse's report, sheriff's deputies removed Steel to an isolation cell. Id. ¶ 55.

Steel went into labor and delivery in the isolation cell. She alleges that she spent hours screaming in pain, alone and unattended, before giving birth to Baby H. Id. ¶¶ 57-58. In addition to the obvious physical travails from giving birth without any modern palliatives or a physician's care, Steel was distraught and terrified that she and her child could die in the cell. Id. ¶ 59.

Baby H was born with the umbilical cord around her neck. Id. ¶ 61. Steel noticed Baby H was not breathing and stuck her fingers in Baby's H mouth to try to stimulate respiration. Id. Only when deputies heard Baby H crying did they enter Steel's cell to attend to the mother and newborn child. Id. ¶ 62.

The FAC states that Alameda County had outsourced medical care of detainees at Santa Rita jail to CFMG. Id. ¶¶ 24-36. Plaintiffs allege that the contract with CFMG made it liable for all costs associated with hospital stays and services, without any compensation from Alameda County. Id. ¶¶ 25-28. They contend this arrangement created "a financial incentive and imperative for CFMG to refuse and withhold inpatient hospitalization services to all inmates, including inmates in active labor." Id. ¶ 33.

DISCUSSION

I. LEGAL STANDARDS

The pleading requirements in Rule 8, as construed in Twombly and Iqbal , apply to Section 1983 claims against local government entities. AE ex rel. Hernandez v. Cty. of Tulare , 666 F.3d 631, 636-37 (9th Cir. 2012). Under these familiar standards, the complaint must provide "a short and plain statement of the claim showing that the pleader is entitled to relief," Fed. R. Civ. P. 8(a)(2), including "enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Twombly , 550 U.S. at 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955. "A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged." Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (citing Twombly , 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). The plausibility analysis is "context-specific" and not only invites, but "requires the reviewing court to draw on its judicial experience and common sense." Id. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

To hold local entities like the Sheriff's Office or Alameda County liable under Section 1983, plaintiffs must plausibly allege that "the challenged conditions were part of a policy, custom or practice officially adopted by [those] defendants." Upshaw v. Alameda Cty. , 377 F. Supp. 3d 1027, 1032 (N.D. Cal. 2019) (citing Monell , 436 U.S. at 690, 98 S.Ct. 2018 ). Specifically, they must "identify a custom or policy, attributable to the" government entity "that caused [their] injury," and "demonstrate that the custom or policy was adhered to with deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of [the jail's] inhabitants." Castro v. Cty. of L.A. , 833 F.3d 1060, 1076 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc) (internal quotation and citation omitted) (alteration in original). Deliberate indifference is "an objective inquiry." Id.

Steel's Section 1983 claims arise under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, not the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. That is so because Steel was a pretrial detainee at the time of the alleged misconduct and had not been convicted of an offense. See Upshaw , 377 F. Supp. 3d at 1031 ; see also Kingsley v. Hendrickson , 676 U.S. 389, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 2475, 192 L.Ed.2d 416 (2015) ; Castro , 833 F.3d at 1067. To state a claim for inadequate medical care as a pretrial detainee, Steel must plead facts showing that:

(i) the defendant made an intentional decision with respect to the conditions under which the plaintiff was confined; (ii) those conditions put the plaintiff at substantial risk of suffering serious harm; (iii) the defendant did not take reasonable available measures to abate that risk, even though a reasonable official in the circumstances would have appreciated the high degree of risk involved -- making the consequences of the defendant's conduct obvious; and (iv) by not taking such measures, the defendant caused the plaintiff's injuries.

Gordon v. Cty. of Orange , 888 F.3d 1118, 1125 (9th Cir. 2018). An objective standard again governs here, which requires proof of "more than negligence but less than subjective intent -- something akin to reckless disregard." Id. (citations omitted).

The parties do not dispute that the same Fourteenth Amendment standards should guide the evaluation of Baby H's federal civil rights claims. Baby H was not,...