Trozzi v. Lake Cnty.

• Decision Date: 29 March 2022
• Docket Number: No. 21-3685,21-3685
• Citation: 29 F.4th 745
• Parties: Sheri TROZZI, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. LAKE COUNTY, OHIO ; Daniel Dunlap, Diane Snow, Ryan Stakich, and Scott Capron, in their individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

29 F.4th 745

Sheri TROZZI, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.LAKE COUNTY, OHIO ; Daniel Dunlap, Diane Snow, Ryan Stakich, and Scott Capron, in their individual and official capacities, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 21-3685

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Decided and Filed: March 29, 2022

ON BRIEF: Lewis A. Zipkin, Kevin M. Gross, ZIPKIN WHITING CO. LPA, Beachwood, Ohio, for Appellant. Frank H. Scialdone, Kathleen M. Minahan, MAZANEC, RASKIN AND RYDER CO., L.P.A., Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellees.

Before: BATCHELDER, NALBANDIAN, and READLER, Circuit Judges.

CHAD A. READLER, Circuit Judge.

While being held in a county detention center, Sheri Trozzi complained of abdominal pain to two correction officers and a jailhouse nurse. Those officials responded to Trozzi's complaints but stopped short of calling 911. The next day, a jail doctor examined Trozzi and sent her to a hospital, where she ultimately underwent surgery.

Invoking 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Trozzi sued the two officers and the nurse. According to Trozzi, the three were deliberately indifferent to her serious medical needs, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment, due to their failure to call for emergency help after her initial complaints. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants. Examining Trozzi's claims under the modified deliberate indifference standard announced in Brawner v. Scott County , we affirm.

I.

Following her arrest for suspected shoplifting, drug possession, and several traffic violations, Sheri Trozzi was detained at the Lake County Adult Detention Center. Five days after her arrival, Trozzi sought help with gastrointestinal health issues related to an earlier gastric bypass surgery

. Those difficulties had caused doctors to place Trozzi on a specialized diet and prescribe her antacids to prevent ulcers. While in jail, Trozzi submitted two written requests: one for help filling her prescription drugs for her mental health, and another for an adjustment in her diet to promote healthy eating. Trozzi later disclosed to a mental health consultant that she was having "issues with an ulcer." The next day, Trozzi again asked for an adjustment to her diet and "to be put back on [her] stomach medicine" to "prevent[ ] ulcers," which, she noted, were "already beginning to develop." As a result of these requests, Diane Snow, the jail nurse, scheduled Trozzi to meet with a doctor.

In the wee hours of the morning of the day before her appointment, Trozzi began experiencing abdominal pain, prompting her to call from her cell for help. Corrections Officer Ryan Stakich responded, finding Trozzi doubled over in pain. Stakich notified his supervisor, Scott Capron, of Trozzi's condition. When Capron arrived, he instructed that Trozzi be taken to a medical holding cell for observation. Stakich retrieved a wheelchair to transport Trozzi while Capron took Trozzi's vital signs. Trozzi was administered an over-the-counter antacid to alleviate her stomach pain before being transported to the holding cell. With Trozzi's vital signs showing a normal heart rate, blood pressure, and blood oxygen saturation

, Capron called Snow at home to apprise her of the situation. Snow advised Capron to continue monitoring Trozzi every 30 minutes until the next morning's sick call. According to Trozzi, after Stakich and Capron left, she became covered in her own urine, feces, and bloody vomit as she waited in her cell.

Several hours later, Snow visited Trozzi during a scheduled sick call. The parties diverge on what exactly transpired next. Trozzi, describing herself as "hysterical" and covered in human waste, maintains that Snow launched into a profanity ridden rant, telling her to shut up, sit down, and wait until the end of Snow's shift for any aid. When Snow returned a few hours later, adds Trozzi, she told Trozzi she was not calling 911, leaving Trozzi to wait for the next nurse to attend to her. Snow denies that she used any such language and that she did not assess Trozzi. Instead, Snow claims she took Trozzi's vital signs and found Trozzi to be stable, an indication that she was not suffering from serious pain. Given Trozzi's scheduled doctor visit the following morning, Snow opted to continue with Trozzi's monitoring in the medical holding cell and to continue providing her with over-the-counter antacids.

At a scheduled appointment the next day, the jail doctor, upon examining Trozzi, decided to send her to the hospital. There, Trozzi underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer

.

Trozzi sued Stakich, Capron, and Snow under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the three officials were deliberately indifferent by failing to attend to her serious medical needs, in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Trozzi also brought a Monell claim against Lake County and its then-Sheriff Daniel Dunlap, asserting that the county had a policy, practice, or custom that resulted in the alleged deliberate indifference by Stakich, Capron, and Snow. Defendants moved for summary judgment on the basis of qualified immunity. The district court concluded that Trozzi lacked evidence to show that any defendant violated her constitutional rights. And it found the Monell claim equally lacking due to the absence of an underlying constitutional violation. Trozzi's timely appeal followed.

II.

On appeal, Trozzi challenges only the district court's grant of summary judgment with respect to Stakich, Capron, and Snow, apparently accepting the dismissal of her Monell claim. See Hardrick v. City of Detroit , 876 F.3d 238, 244 (6th Cir. 2017) (holding that Monell claims ordinarily will not be addressed on appeal where the appellant fails to raise the issue in their opening brief). We review the district court's grant of summary judgment to Stakich, Capron, and Snow de novo, construing the evidence and drawing reasonable inferences in Trozzi's favor. Burwell v. City of Lansing , 7 F.4th 456, 462 (6th Cir. 2021). Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute of a material fact. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). That occurs when no reasonable jury could find for the nonmoving party based on the evidence. Peffer v. Stephens , 880 F.3d 256, 262 (6th Cir. 2018).

A.

Before addressing Trozzi's claims, we begin with a review of our evolving law governing deliberate indifference claims. Starting from first principles, the Constitution "generally confer[s] no affirmative right to government aid, even where such aid may be necessary to secure life, liberty or property interests." DeShaney v. Winnebago Cnty. Dep't of Soc. Servs. , 489 U.S. 189, 196, 109 S.Ct. 998, 103 L.Ed.2d 249 (1989). But "in certain limited circumstances the Constitution imposes upon the State affirmative duties of care and protection with respect to particular individuals." Id. at 198, 109 S.Ct. 998.

One such instance concerns incarcerated individuals. Id. A prisoner's liberty deprivation renders him unable to "care for himself," thereby "just[ifying]" an affirmative duty of care for that prisoner. Estelle v. Gamble , 429 U.S. 97, 103–04, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976) (citation omitted). The Supreme Court unearthed this right from the Eighth Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment. And it determined if the right was violated by employing as a measuring stick the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society," see Trop v. Dulles , 356 U.S. 86, 101, 78 S.Ct. 590, 2 L.Ed.2d 630 (1958) (plurality opinion), a constitutional barometer that today is largely repudiated, see Bucklew v. Precythe , ––– U.S. ––––, 139 S. Ct. 1112, 1123, 203 L.Ed.2d 521 (2019) (recognizing that "cruel and unusual" should be interpreted "as a reader at the time of the Eighth Amendment's adoption would have understood those words"); see also Glossip v. Gross , 576 U.S. 863, 899, 135 S.Ct. 2726, 192 L.Ed.2d 761 (2015) (Scalia, J., concurring) (recognizing that Trop "has caused more mischief to our jurisprudence, to our federal system, and to our society than any other [case] that comes to mind" by "replac[ing] the judgments of the People with [the judiciary's] own standards of decency"). Before Estelle , these "evolving standards" had been understood to bar a state from imposing an "excessive" criminal sentence that offends "the dignity of man." Gregg v. Georgia , 428 U.S. 153, 173, 96 S.Ct. 2909, 49 L.Ed.2d 859 (1976) (plurality opinion) (quoting Trop , 356 U.S. at 100, 78 S.Ct. 590 ). Estelle extended that right to prohibit the state from failing to act, such that inaction results in the "unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain," 429 U.S. at 104, 97 S.Ct. 285 (citation omitted), or is otherwise "repugnant to the conscience of mankind," id. at 106, 97 S.Ct. 285 (quotation marks omitted). Under that standard, negligent medical care does not amount to a constitutional violation. Id.

Perhaps trying to stabilize Estelle's flimsy foundation, Farmer v. Brennan adopted a two-part test for when a prison official has an affirmative duty to protect a prisoner. 511 U.S. 825, 834, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994). First, the underlying deprivation suffered by the prisoner, measured objectively, must be sufficiently serious. Id . Second, the prison official's omission must be the product of a sufficiently culpable state of mind: deliberate indifference. Id. Aligning deliberate indifference with the standard for criminal recklessness, Farmer held that a prison official cannot be found liable unless the official subjectively "knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health or safety." Id. at 837, 114 S.Ct. 1970. In so doing, Farmer rejected an objective test for deliberate indifference in line with civil recklessness, which the opinion defined as an individual's failing to act in the face of an "unjustifiably high risk of harm" that is either subjectively known to the individual or is "so obvious that it should be known." Id. at 836–37, 114 S.Ct. 1970.

B.

For many years, Farmer ’s two-prong test governed claims of inadequate...