Thurmond v. Ryals
| Decision Date | 09 March 2021 |
| Docket Number | 4:17CV00223-BSM-JTK,4:17CV00289-BSM-JTK,4:17CV00224-BSM-JTK,4:17CV00248-BSM-JTK,4:17CV00368-BRW-JTK,4:17CV00222-BSM-JTK |
| Parties | SAM EDWARD THURMOND, SR., ADC #127149; KHALAN ELLINGTON, ADC #655082; RASHAN DIXON, ADC #108165; BOBBY RAY WYLES, JR., ADC #149401; TERRY DON BEAVER, ADC #657603; JEREMY TODD HALEY; PLAINTIFFS v. TIM RYALS, Sheriff, Faulkner County; et al. DEFENDANTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
Before the Court are Plaintiffs' and Defendants' briefing on county liability (Doc. Nos. 116, 117, 119, 120) and Plaintiffs' Motion for Trial (Doc. No. 118). This Court previously found "a sufficient dispute of fact concerning whether the alleged improper conditions at the Jail were the result of an unconstitutional custom or practice, thereby rendering the County accountable." (Doc. No. 103 at 19). On August 28, 2020, the Eighth Circuit reversed and remanded this Court's order with respect to qualified immunity for the individual Defendants, but found it lacked jurisdiction with respect to the County's appeal. See Thurmond v. Andrews, 972 F.3d 1007, 1013-14 (8th Cir. 2020).1 This Court ordered additional briefing on county liability in light of that opinion. (Doc. No. 115). Defendants have submitted a Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. No. 117), and Plaintiffs have submitted a Response in Opposition (Doc. No. 116). For the reasons setforth below, the Court grants in part Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment with respect to Plaintiffs' failure to train theory but denies it with respect to Plaintiffs' unofficial custom theory.
Plaintiffs are former inmates at the Faulkner County Detention Center ("Jail") who claim they were housed in unconstitutional living conditions at different times between 2016 and 2018. Since the facts have been sufficiently discussed in the February 20, 2019 Memorandum and Order, (Doc. No. 103 at 2-8), and the Eighth Circuit's Opinion, see Thurmond, 972 F.3d at 1010-11, this Court will incorporate those fact sections by reference and address the relevant facts in its analysis.
Pursuant to FED.R.CIV.P. 56(a), summary judgment is appropriate if the record shows that there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Dulany v. Carnahan, 132 F.3d 1234, 1237 (8th Cir. 1997). "The moving party bears the initial burden of identifying 'those portions of the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any,' which it believes demonstrate the absence of a genuine issue of material fact." Webb v. Lawrence County, 144 F.3d 1131, 1134 (8th Cir. 1998) (). "Once the moving party has met this burden, the non-moving party cannot simply rest on mere denials or allegations in the pleadings; rather, the non-movant 'must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.'" Id. at 1135. Although the facts are viewed in a light most favorable to the non-moving party, "in order to defeat a motion for summary judgment, the non-movant cannot simply create a factual dispute; rather, there must be a genuine dispute over those facts that could actually affect the outcome of the lawsuit." Id.
Analyzing qualified immunity for the individual Defendants, the Eighth Circuit stated, "[g]iven both our limited jurisdiction and the presence of factual disputes in this case, we will begin and end our inquiry with the clearly established prong." Thurmond, 972 F.3d at 1012. It found that "a right to sanitary prison conditions" was too broadly defined for purposes of the clearly established prong and could not find "either 'controlling authority' or a 'robust consensus of persuasive authority' clearly establishing a right to be free from Cladosporium, mold, or other allergens in the prison context at the levels alleged here." Id. at 1013.
Turning to county liability, it noted its qualified immunity analysis relied exclusively on the "clearly established" prong which "does not necessarily mean Faulkner County did not violate the rights of the plaintiffs, and so the determination of liability does not flow from the resolution of the qualified immunity issue." Id. However, in footnote three, the court flagged that "in the past that the lack of a clearly established right can, in some instances, foreclose a plaintiff's claim of municipal liability." Id. at 1013, n.3 (citing Szabla v. City of Brooklyn Park, 486 F.3d 385, 393-94 (8th Cir. 2007) (en banc)). The Eighth Circuit went on, "[a]s that issue was neither briefed nor argued here, we leave it for initial consideration by the district court on remand." Id. Due to this, the Court decided to gather additional briefing on the issue of county liability.
As the Eighth Circuit made clear in its qualified immunity analysis for the individual Defendants, it only analyzed the clearly established prong and not whether Plaintiffs sufficiently alleged a constitutional violation. Still, Defendants place considerable weight on this passage from the Eighth Circuit's opinion:
This is not to say that there can never be a case in which the presence of mold or another environmental allergen may give rise to unsanitary prison conditions thatviolate inmates' Eighth Amendment rights. Nor does it mean that truly dangerous environmental conditions could not reach such a high level where the violation was obvious. Hope v. Pelzer, 536 U.S. 730, 738 (2002). But that is not the case here.
Thurmond, 972 F.3d at 1012. At first glance, this appears to suggest that no constitutional violation occurred. But in the sentences immediately preceding this passage, the Eighth Circuit clearly states it is not deciding whether a constitutional violation occurred:
Because the right at issue has not been properly defined and there are genuine disputes of material fact at play, it is not possible for us to determine whether the individual officers committed a constitutional violation in the Faulkner County Detention Center due to the presence of Cladosporium. To do so would require us to delve into genuinely disputed facts beyond our jurisdiction.
Id. Thus, while the conditions alleged in this case were not so egregious that they would obviously violate Plaintiffs' clearly established rights to unsanitary prison conditions, the question remains whether Defendants' conduct did in fact violate Plaintiffs' rights to sanitary prison conditions.
"Section 1983 liability for a constitutional violation may attach to a municipality if the violation resulted from (1) an 'official municipal policy,' (2) an unofficial 'custom,'; or (3) a deliberately indifferent failure to train or supervise." Corwin v. City of Indep., 829 F.3d 695, 699 (8th Cir. 2016) (citations omitted). In their briefing, Plaintiffs advance the latter two theories of county liability: 1) Defendants had an unofficial "custom of ignoring and insufficiently addressing sanitation complaints, which subjected Plaintiffs to unconstitutional conditions of confinement," and 2) Defendants failed "to train [their] employees to diligently and effectively heed to its policies and procedures." (Doc. No. 116 at 5). Since the Eighth Circuit suggested that this Court consider the failure to train theory on remand, it will begin there.
A municipality can be liable "for deficient policies regarding hiring and training policeofficers where (1) the city's hiring and training practices are inadequate; (2) the city was deliberately indifferent to the rights of others in adopting them, such that the 'failure to train reflects a deliberate or conscious choice by a municipality,' and (3) an alleged deficiency in the city's hiring or training procedures actually caused the plaintiff's injury." Andrews v. Fowler, 98 F.3d 1069, 1076 (8th Cir. 1996) (cleaned up). In its discussion of county liability, the Eighth Circuit flagged Szabla, and the Court will first address that case since it provides guidance on how to establish deliberate indifference for the second prong. See Szabla v. City of Brooklyn Park, 486 F.3d 385, 393-94 (8th Cir. 2007) (en banc)).
In Szabla, police officers came upon an abandoned car that had struck a tree and went searching for the driver. See id. at 388. A canine unit was called in to aid the search, and since they were not sure if "they were looking for a criminal suspect or an innocent injured person, he [the handler] gave Rafco [the canine] the command to 'track,'" which directed the dog to bite or apprehend the person they were tracking. Id. Without prior warning, the canine ultimately bit the plaintiff who was sleeping in a nearby shelter even though they later determined he had nothing to do with the car. See id. Plaintiff sued the city claiming his dog bite resulted from the police department's deliberately indifferent failure to train their officers about the usage of force with canines. See id. at 389. Since the city's policy did not compel unconstitutional acts, the city's policy for the use of dogs was lawful on its face. See id. at 391. Plaintiff argued that the city's failure to have a more direct policy giving guidance on the use of canines resulted in the constitutional violations, but the Eighth Circuit opined that municipal liability in that situation attaches "only where a city's inaction reflects a deliberate indifference to the constitutional rights of the citizenry, such that inadequate training or supervision actually represents the city's 'policy.'"Id. at 392. This inaction can either stem from a history of constitutional violations "such that the need for additional training or supervision was plain," or a single...
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