Pittman v. Madison Cnty.

108 F.4th 561

Reginald PITTMAN, BY AND THROUGH his guardian and next friend, Robin M. HAMILTON, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MADISON COUNTY, ILLINOIS, et al., Defendants-Appellees.

No. 23-2301

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit

Argued April 2, 2024

Decided July 16, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. No. 3:08-cv-00890-DWD — David W. Dugan, Judge.

Ross T. Anderson, Attorney, Anderson Law Offices, Edwardsville, IL, for Plaintiff-Appellant.

John L. Gilbert, Attorney, Sandberg Phoenix & Von Gontard P.C., Edwardsville, IL, Timothy Charles Sansone, Attorney, Sandberg Phoenix & Von Gontard P.C., Clayton, MO, Benjamin R. Wesselschmidt, Attorney, Sandberg Phoenix & Von Gontard P.C., St. Louis, MO, for Defendants-Appellees.

Before Rovner, Hamilton, and Scudder, Circuit Judges.

Scudder, Circuit Judge.

Reginald Pittman, a pretrial detainee at the Madison County jail, attempted suicide while awaiting trial. He survived but suffered a severe brain injury. Complaining that two guards ignored his requests to see crisis counseling before the suicide attempt, Pittman sued Madison County and various jail officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that they violated the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to provide him with adequate medical care. What followed is a lengthy procedural history including three appeals and three trials. On appeal from the third trial and verdict for the defendants, Pittman challenges a key jury instruction for his Fourteenth Amendment claim. He contends that the instruction erroneously required proof that the officers were subjectively aware or strongly suspected a high likelihood of self-harm.

Pittman pressed this argument in a prior appeal, and we rejected it. But much has evolved in our case law since that decision, as numerous cases have required us to grapple with the nuances of the state-of-mind requirements in claims brought by pretrial detainees. Aided by those decisions, we agree with Pittman that the jury instruction contained an error. Pittman did not need to prove subjective awareness of the risk of harm to establish liability. Instead, the jury should have been instructed to answer whether the defendants made an intentional decision with respect to Pittman's conditions of confinement, and from there, whether defendants acted objectively unreasonably by failing to mitigate the risk Pittman posed to himself.

In the end, though, we cannot conclude that the jury instruction error prejudiced Pittman. We reach that conclusion based on a thorough examination of the evidence presented at trial and the arguments of the parties. So we affirm.

I

A

The trial record following our most recent remand supplies the operative facts.

In August 2007, Reginald Pittman entered the Madison County jail as a pretrial detainee. Within a few months, he reported mental distress. In late October, he told a jail officer, Deputy Matthew Werner, that he was suicidal. Deputy Werner referred Pittman to a social worker from Chestnut Health Systems, also known as "crisis" counseling, and placed him on suicide watch for several days. A few weeks later, Pittman requested to see crisis counseling once again. At a counselor's suggestion, Sergeant Randy Eaton temporarily relocated Pittman to the Special Housing Unit for additional observation.

On December 19, Pittman attempted suicide. He hung himself from the bars of his cell with a bed sheet, resulting in a severe brain injury. Pittman left a suicide note stating that "the [g]uards" were "f***ing with [him]" and would not let him talk to "crisis [counseling]."

According to Bradley Banovz, an inmate housed near Pittman's cell, Pittman had asked Deputy Werner and Sergeant Eaton to refer him to crisis counseling in the days leading up to his suicide attempt, but neither did. Banovz testified that Pittman asked Deputy Werner to put him on the list for crisis counseling on Friday, December 14. As Banovz remembered, Deputy Werner did not take the request seriously, joking that Pittman did not need counseling. Deputy Werner reportedly told Pittman that he would be back on Monday and schedule him for crisis counseling then. That never happened.

Banovz also recalled that Pittman asked Sergeant Eaton to refer him to crisis counseling a few days later, on Tuesday, December 18. As Sergeant Eaton made his rounds that night, Banovz overheard Pittman—who was crying—ask to see crisis counseling with Eaton responding that he would schedule an appointment. But Sergeant Eaton did not refer Pittman to crisis counseling either.

Deputy Werner and Sergeant Eaton both testified and offered an altogether different account. To be sure, they were quick to admit knowing that Pittman had been on suicide watch in October 2007. But they rejected Banovz's account and denied ever hearing or seeing any indication of subsequent mental distress from Pittman or, more specifically, ever hearing him ask to return to crisis counseling. And, going further, Deputy Werner and Sergeant Eaton insisted that had Pittman asked for crisis counseling, they would have referred him for mental health treatment.

B

Through his guardian, Pittman sued Madison County, Deputy Werner, Sergeant Eaton, and others, bringing claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. Pittman's § 1983 claim alleges that defendants violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by failing to respond to his requests for mental health treatment.

Pittman's case has a lengthy history, including three prior appeals. See Pittman ex rel. Hamilton v. County of Madison (Pittman I), 746 F.3d 766 (7th Cir. 2014) (reversing in part a grant of summary judgment for defendants because a triable issue of fact existed on Pittman's claims against Deputy Werner and Sergeant Eaton); Pittman ex rel. Hamilton v. County of Madison (Pittman II), 863 F.3d 734 (7th Cir. 2017) (reversing and remanding for a new trial because the district court erroneously excluded Banovz's recorded interview at the first trial); Pittman ex rel. Hamilton v. County of Madison (Pittman III), 970 F.3d 823 (7th Cir. 2020). Most relevant to this appeal is Pittman III, which involved a pivotal jury instruction articulating the elements of Pittman's Fourteenth Amendment claim. In Pittman III, we held that a portion of that jury instruction misstated the law and remanded for a new trial.

The case then went to trial for the third time. Over Pittman's objection, the district court instructed the jury in line with our ruling in Pittman III, using materially identical language to that which we approved in Pittman III. The jury returned a verdict for defendants, and this appeal followed.

II

The sole issue before us is whether the district court accurately instructed the jury on the elements of Pittman's Fourteenth Amendment claim. Pittman believes that the instruction improperly injected a subjective component into an otherwise objective inquiry, contravening Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 135 S.Ct. 2466, 192 L.Ed.2d 416 (2015), and our precedent.

"We evaluate [ ] jury instructions anew when deciding if they accurately state the law." Miranda v. County of Lake, 900 F.3d 335, 350 (7th Cir. 2018). If the instruction contains a legal error, we will reverse only if the error prejudiced Pittman. See Cotts v. Osafo, 692 F.3d 564, 567 (7th Cir. 2012).

A

Incarcerated persons have a constitutional "right to receive adequate medical treatment," including mental health treatment and protection from self-harm. Miranda, 900 F.3d at 350 (citing Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104-05, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976)). But the source and scope of that right turns "on the relationship between the state and the person in the state's custody." Collins v. Al-Shami, 851 F.3d 727, 731 (7th Cir. 2017) (quoting Currie v. Chhabra, 728 F.3d 626, 630 (7th Cir. 2013)).

For convicted prisoners, the Eighth Amendment's proscription on "cruel and unusual punishments" protects against deliberate indifference to serious medical needs. See Estelle, 429 U.S. at 102-04, 97 S.Ct. 285. These claims measure state-of-mind, specifically, deliberate indifference, using a subjective standard: to be liable a prison official must be "aware of a substantial risk of serious harm, and effectively condone[ ] the harm by allowing it to happen." Jones v. Mathews, 2 F.4th 607, 613 (7th Cir. 2021) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted). "This subjective standard," we have explained, "is closely linked to the language of the Eighth Amendment." Miranda, 900 F.3d at 350.

Pretrial detainees, however "stand in a different position: they have not been convicted of anything, and they are still entitled to the constitutional presumption of innocence." Id. "[P]retrial detainees (unlike convicted prisoners) cannot be punished at all," Kingsley, 576 U.S. at 400, 135 S.Ct. 2466, so "the [Eighth Amendment's] punishment model is inappropriate for them," Miranda, 900 F.3d at 350. Instead, they "are protected from certain abusive conditions" by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause. Id.; see also Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535-36, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979) (explaining that "the restrictions and conditions of the detention facility" cannot "amount to punishment" because "a detainee may not be punished prior to an adjudication of guilt in accordance with due process of law").

These "different constitutional provisions" lead to "different standards." Collins, 851 F.3d at 731 (quoting Currie, 728 F.3d at 630). Yet for many years we "assessed pretrial detainees' medical care (and other) claims under the Eighth Amendment's [subjective] standards." Miranda, 900 F.3d at 350. That changed in Kingsley.

In Kingsley, the Supreme Court held that an objective reasonableness standard applies to a pretrial detainee's claim of excessive force. 576 U.S. at 392, 135 S.Ct. 2466. Such a claim, the Court explained, involves "two separate state-of-mind" questions: (1) "the defendant's state of...