Thompson v. City of Charlotte

• Decision Date: 30 November 2020
• Docket Number: 3:20-cv-370-MOC-DSC
• Parties: LINDA GAIL THOMPSON, as Personal Representative of the Estate of JEROME THOMPSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHARLOTTE et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of North Carolina

LINDA GAIL THOMPSON,as Personal Representative of the Estate of JEROME THOMPSON, Plaintiff, v. CITY OF CHARLOTTE et al., Defendants.

3:20-cv-370-MOC-DSC

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF NORTH CAROLINA CHARLOTTE DIVISION

November 30, 2020

ORDER

THIS MATTER comes before the Court on three Motions to Dismiss for Failure to State a Claim, filed by Defendants Joseph B. Breedlove, Garry L. McFadden, and Louis L. Venant ("County Defendants") (Doc. No. 22), Defendant Ohio Casualty Insurance Company (Doc. No. 25), and the City of Charlotte ("the City") (Doc. No. 38).

I. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Linda Gail Thompson is the personal representative of the Estate of Jerome Thompson. Mr. Thompson died on July 12, 2018, after he jumped from a second-floor balcony at the Mecklenburg County Jail. Plaintiff filed the original Complaint in this action on July 10, 2020 and an Amended Complaint on August 26, 2020, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, N.C. GEN. STAT. § 162-55, and N.C. GEN. STAT. § 28-174. Plaintiff named as Defendants (1) City of Charlotte, (2) Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department ("CMPD") Chief Johnny Jennings, (3) Officer Adelaide Kinstler, (4) Officer Brian Kurcsak, (5) Officer Joseph Wilson, (6) Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, (7) Deputy Louis Venant, (8) Deputy Joseph Breedlove, (9) the Sheriff's surety, Ohio Casualty Insurance Company, (10) the Jail's medical provider, Wellpath LLC, and (11) Wellpath employees Ebonee Denise Roberts, Laura House, and Samantha Elliott-McLaren. (Amended Compl. at ¶¶ 1-7). Plaintiff has also sued "John Doe." (Id. at ¶ 7). Plaintiff brought this action alleging claims for deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of Mr. Thompson, a pretrial detainee, against the City, the CMPD Police Chief, CMPD officers, County Defendants, and Wellpath Inc. medical staff relating to medical care and detainment decisions made during the single day he was incarcerated at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center on July 11, 2018. Plaintiff requests damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, including compensation of attorney's fees, as well as punitive damages for the deliberate indifference towards Mr. Thompson causing his wrongful death.

II. FACTUAL ALLEGATIONS

On July 11, 2018, Mr. Thompson was arrested and taken into custody for questioning by the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department. (Doc. No. 35 at 3). Before Mr. Thompson's arrest, CMPD officers were informed that Mr. Thompson was suicidal and should be monitored as such. (Id.). While in the care and custody of CMPD, Mr. Thompson was seen on surveillance attempting to puncture an artery in his neck with a pen cap and intentionally falling backwards onto this head to injure himself. (Id.).

CMPD officers Kinstler, Kursack, and Wilson transferred Mr. Thompson to Carolinas Medical Center for injuries to his head but failed to notify medical staff that Mr. Thompson had attempted to harm himself twice before being seen at the medical facility. (Id.). On July 11, 2018, at around 3:55 p.m., CMPD officers Kinstler, Kursack, and Wilson transferred Mr. Thompson to the Mecklenburg County Detention Center, where he was placed in the care and custody of the Mecklenburg County Sheriff and his deputies. (Id. at 4).

Plaintiff alleges that when Mr. Thompson was placed in the jail, CMPD OfficersKinstler, Kursack, and Wilson provided intake personnel, including Defendants Venant and Breedlove, information regarding Mr. Thompson's prior suicide attempts, but that Defendants failed to act upon that information when screening Mr. Thompson. (Doc. No. 1, Compl. at ¶ 49). Plaintiff alleges alternatively that the CMPD officers failed to notify the jail intake personnel about Mr. Thompson's prior suicide attempts. (Doc. No. 35 at 4).

Mr. Thompson was processed and booked into the jail and assessed by the jail's medical personnel, Defendants Roberts and McLauren. (Id.). Mr. Thompson's screening showed he suffered extreme depression and was taking multiple medications for this condition. (Id.). Later, Mr. Thompson was again seen by the jail's medical unit as a result of bleeding from his bandaged head. (Id.). Plaintiff has alleged that Defendants failed to provide a proper mental health screening which would have required further observation. (Id.). Instead, Plaintiff was placed on the second floor of the jail in a unit with regular inmates, where he jumped from the balcony and later died from the injuries sustained in the fall. (Id.).

III. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) provides that a motion may be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. A motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) tests the sufficiency of the complaint without resolving contests of fact or the merits of a claim. Republican Party of N.C. v. Martin, 980 F.2d 943, 952 (4th Cir. 1992). Thus, the Rule 12(b)(6) inquiry is limited to determining if the allegations constitute "a short and plain statement of the claim showing the pleader is entitled to relief" pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 8(a)(2). To survive a defendant's motion to dismiss, factual allegations in the complaint must be sufficient to "raise a right to relief above a speculative level." Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). Thus, a complaint will survive if it contains "enoughfacts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face." Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).

For the purposes of a Rule 12(b)(6) analysis, 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." (Id.) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556). The Court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in favor of the plaintiff. Priority Auto Grp., Inc. v. Ford Motor Co., 757 F.3d 137, 139 (4th Cir. 2014). In a Rule 12(b)(6) analysis, the Court must separate facts from legal conclusions, as mere conclusions are not entitled to a presumption of truth. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Importantly, "[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements, do not suffice." (Id.). However, well-pleaded factual allegations are entitled to a presumption of truth, and the court should determine whether the allegations plausibly give rise to an entitlement to relief. (Id. at 679).

III. DISCUSSION

A. Deliberate Indifference to Mr. Thompson under § 1983

Plaintiff first purports to bring claims against the City, the CMPD Police Chief, CMPD officers, County Defendants, Wellpath Inc., those employed by Wellpath at the Mecklenburg County Jail, and "John Doe" for deliberate indifference to Mr. Thompson's serious medical needs in violation of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Plaintiff advances this claim differently against the various Defendants, and these different arguments will be examined below.

Nevertheless, all these claims must meet the following legal standards. A Section 1983 action premised on a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment for inadequate medical care requires allegations that each defendant acted with deliberate indifference to the decedent'sserious medical needs. Castro v. Cty. of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060, 1067-68 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc). Inmates bringing deliberate indifference claims against prison officials "may do so under the Eighth Amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause or, if not yet convicted, under the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause." Id. at 1067-68; see also Mendiola-Martinez v. Arpaio, 836 F.3d 1239, 1246 n.5 (9th Cir. 2016) ("Eighth Amendment protections apply only once a prisoner has been convicted of a crime, while pretrial detainees are entitled to the potentially more expansive protections of the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."). Nevertheless, under either clause, a plaintiff must show that the prison officials acted with "deliberate indifference." Id. at 1068. While the standard for finding deliberate indifference under the Eighth Amendment is clear, the standard under the Fourteenth Amendment is in flux.

To state a claim for deliberate indifference in violation of the Eighth Amendment, an inmate must establish two requirements: (1) a sufficiently serious deprivation occurred, resulting "in the denial of the minimal civilized measure of life's necessities," and (2) the prison official had a sufficiently culpable state of mind. Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994) (internal quotation marks omitted). In the medical context, an inmate "must demonstrate that the officers acted with 'deliberate indifference' to the inmate's 'serious medical needs.'" Iko v. Shreve, 535 F.3d 225, 241 (4th Cir. 2008) (quoting Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976)).

A "serious medical need" is "one that has been diagnosed by a physician as mandating treatment or one that is so obvious that even a lay person would easily recognize the necessity for a doctor's attention." Iko, 535 F.3d at 241 (quoting Henderson v. Sheahan, 196 F.3d 839, 846 (7th Cir. 1999)). A prison official is deliberately indifferent if he has actual knowledge of and purposefully disregards "the risk posed by the serious medical needs of the inmate." Iko, 535F.3d at 241 (citing Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837); see also Makdessi v. Fields, No. 13-7606, 2015 WL 1062747, at *9 (4th Cir. Mar. 12, 2015) (holding that the subjective prong "may be proven by circumstantial evidence that a risk was so obvious that it had to have been known"). To be liable under this standard, the prison official "must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the inference." Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837.

Furthermore, not "every claim by a prisoner [alleging] that he has not received adequate medical treatment states a violation of the Eighth Amendment." Estelle, 429...