Hyman v. Lewis

27 F.4th 1233

Veronica HYMAN, Personal Representative of the Estate of Deandre Christopher Lipford, Deceased, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Clyde J. LEWIS, Officer; State of Michigan ; Kenneth Romanowski, Warden; John Doe, Defendants-Appellees.

No. 21-2607

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

Decided and Filed: March 8, 2022

ON BRIEF: John C. Kaplansky, LAW OFFICE OF JOHN C. KAPLANSKY, PC, Bingham Farms, Michigan, Robert M. Sosin, ALSPECTOR, SOSIN & NOVECK, Bingham Farms, Michigan, for Appellant. Zachary A. Zurek, OFFICE OF THE MICHIGAN ATTORNEY GENERAL, Lansing, Michigan, for Appellee Lewis. Samuel Weiss, RIGHTS BEHIND BARS, Washington, D.C., Jennifer Wedekind, AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION, Washington, D.C., Megha Ram, RODERICK & SOLANGE MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER, Washington, D.C., David M. Shapiro, RODERICK & SOLANGE MACARTHUR JUSTICE CENTER, Chicago, Illinois, for Amici Curiae.

Before: McKEAGUE, BUSH, and READLER, Circuit Judges.

JOHN K. BUSH, Circuit Judge.

Deandre Lipford died tragically after he overdosed while detained in the Detroit Detention Center. At the jail that night, Officer Clyde Lewis was in charge of making rounds, but he failed to physically enter the holding area to check on Lipford as required by jail operating procedures. Veronica Hyman, Lipford's representative, sued Lewis and others, claiming several violations of Lipford's constitutional rights and state law. The district court granted summary judgment to Lewis, denying Hyman's deliberate-indifference claim. For the following reasons, we affirm.

I.

At around 8:50 p.m. on November 1, 2016, Detroit police officers stopped a vehicle driven by Lipford. He was wanted on a felony warrant, so he was arrested and taken to the Detroit Detention Center. That facility is operated jointly by the Detroit Police Department (DPD) and the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC). DPD and MDOC officers searched Lipford at the jail and did not find any contraband on his body. Jail health staff also asked Lipford whether he was under the influence of drugs or carrying any medication, and he denied both.

Following this questioning, at about 9:48 p.m., officers at the jail placed Lipford in the video-arraignment room, a glass-walled room used to hold multiple detainees awaiting arraignment. While in the room, Lipford laid down, sat back up, and eventually nodded off. He slid to the floor at around 11:02 p.m. Lipford laid on the floor motionless until 2:50 a.m., when a jail employee found him unresponsive. Employees began CPR, and Lipford was taken to a hospital. He was pronounced dead at 3:50 a.m. on November 2. Hospital staff found narcotics, including cocaine, heroin, and fentanyl, concealed in Lipford's rectum. Because of this finding, the medical examiner ruled Lipford's death an accidental overdose. Lipford did not disclose that he had concealed drugs in his body at any point during the intake process. Nor does the record suggest that any jail employee knew that Lipford possessed the narcotics. In fact, there is no evidence that Lipford told anyone at the jail that he was concealing drugs.

Lewis was the police officer responsible for making rounds in the jail and checking on the detainees on the night Lipford overdosed. The jail's operating procedures required that officers conduct rounds every 30 minutes and that they "physically open the cell doors and ensure that those detainees that are assigned to the cell are actually there." Officers were also required to "check to make sure that every detainee is living and breathing."

Although Lewis ostensibly made his rounds that night, he did not physically enter the video-arraignment room as required. Instead, he looked through the glass surrounding the room without entering the room or speaking with the detainees. The practice of avoiding such interaction with detainees was apparently common in the jail because officers were concerned that detainees would become agitated at officers entering the holding areas at night and waking detainees up. However, this practice not to disturb detainees violated the operating procedures. So Lewis was suspended without pay for several days.

Hyman, the representative of Lipford's estate, sued the City of Detroit, the DPD, the state of Michigan, the MDOC, and several DPD and MDOC officers, including Lewis. The district court dismissed the claims against the State of Michigan's entities and supervisors, leaving claims against Lewis, the City of Detroit, and the DPD. Hyman and Lewis cross-moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted Lewis's motion. Hyman dismissed her remaining claims and pursues only her claims against Lewis in this timely appeal.

II.

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment de novo. Jackson v. City of Cleveland , 925 F.3d 793, 806 (6th Cir. 2019). And we affirm the district court if the record "shows that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). "[W]e view the factual evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, and draw all reasonable inferences in that party's favor." Burwell v. City of Lansing , 7 F.4th 456, 462 (6th Cir. 2021) (alteration in original) (citation omitted).

Pretrial detainees have a right to adequate medical care under the Fourteenth Amendment. City of Revere v. Mass. Gen. Hosp ., 463 U.S. 239, 244, 103 S.Ct. 2979, 77 L.Ed.2d 605 (1983). An officer violates that right if that officer shows "deliberate indifference to [a pretrial detainee's] serious medical needs[.]" Greene v. Crawford County , 22 F.4th 593, 605 (6th Cir. 2022) (citing Griffith v. Franklin County , 975 F.3d 554, 566 (6th Cir. 2020) ).

Following our recent decision in Brawner v. Scott County , a plaintiff must show "(1) that [the detainee] had an objectively serious medical need; and (2) that [the defendant's] action (or lack of action) was intentional (not accidental) and [that] she ... recklessly failed to act reasonably to mitigate the risk the serious medical need posed to [the detainee], even though a reasonable official in [the defendant's] position would have known" of that risk. 14 F.4th 585, 597 (6th Cir. 2021). While Brawner is far from clear, we can distill a couple of principles from it. First, Brawner left the "objectively serious medical need" prong untouched. See id. at 591, 597. Second, under the modified second prong, we know that Hyman must prove "more than negligence but less than subjective intent—something akin to reckless disregard." Id. at 596 (citation omitted). And third, we know that the modified second prong asks whether the defendant acted " ‘recklessly in the face of an unjustifiably high risk’ that is either ‘known or so obvious that it should be known’ " to a reasonable official in the defendant's position. Britt ex rel. Britt v. Hamilton County , No. 21-3424, 2022 WL 405847, at *2 (6th Cir. Feb. 10, 2022) (quoting Brawner , 14 F.4th at 596–97 ); see also Greene , 22 F.4th at 607.

With those principles in mind, Hyman needed to show that a reasonable officer in Lewis's position would have known that Lipford was potentially concealing drugs, subjecting himself to an excessive risk of harm, and that Lewis's ignoring this risk was objectively reckless. She has not met this burden. First, there is no evidence that a reasonable officer in Lewis's position would have been aware of Lipford's needs. For one, Lipford never suggested to jail staff that he had narcotics in his possession. And no staff member observed Lipford manifesting an overdose while he was at the jail. Further, there were at least three other detainees present in the room when Lipford was discovered, none of whom signaled any concern that there might be something wrong with him. On these facts, we cannot say that a reasonable officer would have had reason to know of Lipford's needs.

Second, Lewis's actions that night were not reckless. Hyman has pointed to no evidence that Lewis intentionally ignored Lipford's needs. She repeatedly notes that Lewis "intentionally" did not check on Lipford every 30 minutes. That is insufficient. Lewis's admitted intentional violation of jail operating procedures does not mean he intentionally ignored Lipford's needs. Hyman also argues that "Recklessnes [sic] equals gross negligence" under Michigan law. She cites Mich. Comp. Law § 691.1407(8)(a): " ‘Gross negligence’ means conduct so reckless as to demonstrate a substantial lack of concern for whether an injury results." But this is inapt. On the facts before us, Lewis was at most negligent, not grossly negligent or reckless. His failure to open the doors to the video-arraignment room to check on detainees individually violated operating procedures. When asked why he did not physically enter the arraignment room, Lewis provided several reasons, chief among them that officers did not want to irritate inmates by repeatedly waking them up while they were sleeping. While Lewis's actions might have been imprudent, they do not show that Lewis was acting "in the face of an unjustifiably high risk" that any reasonable officer would have known. Lewis made his rounds, looking into the video-arraignment room and monitoring the inmates inside. He had no reason to know that Lipford had concealed narcotics in his body.

Lewis no doubt violated the jail's operating procedures. But "failure to follow internal policies, without more," does not equal deliberate indifference. Winkler v. Madison County...