IN THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA, NORTHERN DIVISION
TERRY ARCHIE, as ) Administrator of the ) Estate of Teria C. ) Archie, ) ) CIVIL ACTION NO. Plaintiff, ) 2:19cv508-MHT ) (WO) v. ) ) COVINGTON COUNTY, et al., ) ) Defendants. )
OPINION AND ORDER Plaintiff is the administrator of the estate of Teria Archie, who died at age 36 while detained pretrial at the Covington County Jail. According to the administrator’s complaint, Archie had hypertension and repeatedly requested medical assistance for chest pain and shortness of breath in the weeks before her death. Other than aspirin, she did not receive medical intervention until she was found nonresponsive in her cell in July 2017. For their alleged roles in Archie’s death, the administrator has named seven defendants in this lawsuit: Covington County, Alabama; then-county sheriff Dennis Meeks; Southern Health Partners, the private health-care provider for the jail; and several jail staff members,
including the jail administrator Alan Syler, a lower-level officer named Melissa Leslie, a nurse named Wanda Craft, and the jail’s doctor, Pamela Barber. The administrator asserts six claims. He asserts three
claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983: Count 1, for deliberate indifference to Archie’s serious medical needs against all defendants; Count 5, for failure to provide constitutionally adequate supervision and training
against all defendants except Leslie; and Count 6, for failure to act to address known problems with medical care at the jail against all defendants except Leslie and
Craft. He asserts two claims, Counts 2 and 3, against only the county, under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794. And he
asserts one state-law claim, Count 4, against all defendants for wrongful death. The court has
2 jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1331 (federal question), 28 U.S.C. § 1343 (civil rights), 28 U.S.C.
§ 1367 (supplemental jurisdiction), and 29 U.S.C. § 794a (Section 504). This case is now before the court on the partial motion to dismiss filed by Covington County, former
sheriff Meeks, and jail administrator Syler.1 See Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 41). These defendants move to dismiss the ADA and Section 504 claims (Counts 2 and 3) against the county for failure to state a claim; the
wrongful-death claim (Count 4) as barred by state-law immunity only insofar as it is brought against Meeks; the failure-to-supervise and failure-to-act claims (Counts 5
and 6) against the county because counties in Alabama are
1. The motion to dismiss asserts in the opening paragraph that it is also filed on behalf of officer Leslie. However, in the motion’s body and accompanying brief, there is no discussion about dismissal of any of the counts of the complaint as alleged against Leslie. See Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 41) and Brief (Doc. 42). This opinion therefore does not address Leslie in its discussion. 3 not empowered or obligated to supervise the jails present therein; and those same two claims against Meeks and
Syler as barred by qualified immunity. No party seeks dismissal of count 1, the deliberate-indifference claim. For the reasons set forth below, the motion will be granted in part and denied in part. Count 6, the
failure-to-act claim, is not sufficiently established in law and will be dismissed as against the county, Meeks, and Syler. In all other respects, the motion will be denied.
I. MOTION-TO-DISMISS STANDARD When considering a defendant’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion
to dismiss for failure to state a claim, the court accepts the plaintiff’s allegations as true, see Hishon v. King & Spalding, 467 U.S. 69, 73 (1984), and construes the complaint in the plaintiff’s favor, see Duke v. Cleland,
5 F.3d 1399, 1402 (11th Cir. 1993). The court may draw “reasonable inferences” from the facts alleged in the
4 complaint. Chesser v. Sparks, 248 F.3d 1117, 1121 (11th Cir. 2001).
To survive a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6), a complaint “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S.
662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570, (2007)). “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.
II. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
The factual allegations of the complaint indicate that at the time of her death, Archie was detained pretrial at Covington County Jail after she was arrested for unpaid child support. She had been at the jail for
about two months when she died in July 2017. Archie had a “history of high blood pressure” and
5 had been diagnosed with hypertension. Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 6, 14. According to the
complaint, “In the weeks leading up to her death, Archie continually requested medical attention because she was suffering severe chest pains and shortness of breath.” Id. at ¶ 16. Her blood pressure was checked and found
to be “unusually high at times for someone her age.” Id. at ¶ 25. She was not taken to a hospital or administered any diagnostic testing to determine the severity of her condition; instead, when she requested medical attention,
she would be given aspirin and ordered to return to her cell. See id. at ¶¶ 17-19. Defendant Barber, the jail’s doctor, “repeatedly refused to see Archie” when she
sought medical attention, and after several weeks of such requests, Barber and nurse Craft began simply removing Archie’s name from lists of inmates to be seen during Barber’s medical visitations. Id. at ¶¶ 21-22.
This denial of medical care was apparently a routine practice at Covington County Jail. Medical care at the
6 jail was provided through a contract between the county and Southern Health Partners, which employed Barber and
staffed her to the facility. See id. at ¶¶ 11-12. Barber was supposed to conduct weekly visits with inmates requiring medical attention, but “[i]t was a known fact at the jail” that she “would pick and choose the inmates
she would see on her visits and, many times, would not show up for the regular weekly visits.” Id. at ¶ 26. Indeed, she often came to the jail only once a month to provide medical services. See id. As a result,
“[i]nmates with disabilities who needed to be seen by a doctor, including Archie, were left untreated or inadequately treated” as Barber and the other medical
staff “would pick and choose who they wanted to treat and when.” Id. at ¶ 28. One day in July 2017, after several weeks of experiencing severe chest pains and respiratory symptoms
and being refused medical care other than aspirin, Archie “began experiencing severe and sharp pains in her chest
7 area” while delivering trays as part of her work duties at the jail. Id. at ¶ 36. She told correctional staff
of her symptoms and asked “if she could either get medical assistance or return to her cell to lie down.” Id. Aside from Barber, all of the individual defendants named in this suit were present during this time and were aware
of Archie’s requests. See id. at ¶ 37. Archie’s requests were denied, and she was required to finish delivering trays. See id. at ¶ 36. Immediately after completing her work, Archie returned to her cell and started
repeatedly pressing an emergency call button for medical assistance. See id. at ¶¶ 36, 40. By the time a nurse arrived to check on Archie, she was nonresponsive, and
she was pronounced dead after attempts to resuscitate her failed. See id. at ¶¶ 36-37.
III. DISCUSSION
The court will address in turn each of the counts that the moving defendants now seek to dismiss.
8 A. Wrongful-Death Claim
Former sheriff Meeks moves to dismiss the state-law wrongful-death claim, Count 4, to the extent it is against him, arguing that he is immune from suit on that claim. State-law tort actions brought against Alabama
sheriffs for damages in their individual capacities are subject to the so-called “State immunity” imposed by Article I, Section 14 of the Alabama Constitution whenever the acts alleged were “performed in the line and
scope of their employment.” Ex parte Donaldson, 80 So. 3d 895, 897 (Ala. 2011) (quoting Suttles v. Roy, 75 So. 3d 90, 94 (Ala. 2010)); see also Ex parte Sumter County,
953 So. 2d 1235, 1239 (Ala. 2006). However, this immunity does not extend to individual-capacity suits for damages alleging that such officials “acted fraudulently, in bad faith, beyond their authority, or in a mistaken
interpretation of law, subject to the limitation that the action not be, in effect, one against the State.” Ex
9 parte Moulton, 116 So. 3d 1119, 1141 (Ala. 2013).2 Meeks contends that this articulation of the law of
State immunity mistakenly conflates that doctrine with “State-agent immunity,” a distinct form of more limited immunity for state officials developed by the Alabama Supreme Court in Ex parte Cranman, 792 So. 2d 392 (Ala.
2000), and subsequent cases. See Reply in Supp. Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 52) at 4-5. Meeks is wrong. The Alabama Supreme Court in Ex parte Moulton recognized an exception to State immunity, not State-agent immunity, for actions
for damages against State officials in their individual capacities under the conditions described above. See Moulton, 116 So. 3d at 1141. As the court said, “this
Court today restates the sixth ‘exception’ to the bar of State immunity under § 14 as follows: ... (b) actions for
2. In Todd v. Bailey, No. 3:12-cv-589-MHT, 2018 WL 1674459 (M.D. Ala. Apr. 6, 2018) (Thompson, J.), this court in a footnote incorrectly indicated that none of the exceptions to State immunity pertains to suits for money damages. See id. at *22 n.23. That footnote overlooked the exception articulated in Moulton. 10 damages brought against State officials in their individual capacity where it is alleged that they had
acted fraudulently, in bad faith, beyond their authority, or in a mistaken interpretation of law.” Id. And the court expressly distinguished this holding on the scope of State immunity from any potential application of
State-agent immunity to the case. See id.; see also Ala. State Univ. v. Danley, 212 So. 3d 112, 122-23 (Ala. 2016) (recognizing that Moulton articulated an exception to State immunity).
As noted above, this exception to State immunity is subject to the caveat that the suit may “not be, in effect, one against the State.” Moulton, 116 So. 3d at
1141. To determine “whether an action against a state officer or employee is, in fact, one against the State,” courts should “consider such factors as the nature of the action and the relief sought.” Phillips v. Thomas, 555
So. 2d 81, 83 (Ala. 1989); see also Moulton, 116 So. 3d at 1141 (citing Phillips to explain this caveat). So,
11 for instance, a negligence action for personal injury implicates State interests that are “far too incidental
to supply the requisite nexus for extension of constitutional immunity.” Phillips, 555 So. 2d at 83 (quoting Barnes v. Dale, 530 So. 2d 770, 783 (Ala. 1988)). A suit is effectively brought against the State when
“a result favorable to the plaintiff would directly affect a contract or property right of the State,” when “the defendant is simply a ‘conduit’ through which the plaintiff seeks recovery of damages from the State,” or
when “a judgment against the officer would directly affect the financial status of the State treasury.” Danley, 212 So. 3d at 124 (quoting Moulton, 116 So. 3d
at 1131). But see Moulton, 116 So. 3d at 1131 (explaining these as limitations on suits against State officers in their official capacities). At one point, the Alabama Supreme Court declared that any suit for money damages
brought against an officer in his or her individual capacity necessarily fails to qualify as a suit against
12 the State because such a suit seeks personal payment from the officer sued rather than money from the State. See
Ex parte Retirement Sys. of Ala., 182 So. 3d 527, 533 n.4 (Ala. 2015); Barnhart v. Ingalls, 275 So. 3d 1112, 1126 (Ala. 2018). The court has since limited that holding, explaining that when a “necessary element” of an
individual-capacity claim is met “only because of the positions” held by the officers, the claim remains barred by State immunity. Barnhart, 275 So. 3d at 1126-27 (emphasis in original). For example, in an
individual-capacity suit for breach of fiduciary duty, a State officer may be immune if the fiduciary duty alleged to have been breached existed only because of the
officer’s official position. See id. In sum, Meeks, as a former sheriff, may claim the benefits of State immunity under § 14 on the administrator’s wrongful-death claim to the extent that
such immunity applies to this case. There are two ways in which that immunity may be inapplicable: if Meeks’s
13 actions were outside “the line and scope” of his employment, Donaldson, 80 So. 3d at 899, or if the
administrator alleges that Meeks “acted fraudulently, in bad faith, beyond [his] authority, or in a mistaken interpretation of law,” Moulton, 116 So. 3d at 1141. If the administrator takes the latter approach, the court
must further consider whether the claim is “in effect, one against the State,” id., which may be the case even though the claim is brought against Meeks in his individual capacity if a “necessary element” of the
wrongful-death claim can be established solely because of Meeks’s former position as sheriff. Barnhart, 275 So. 3d at 1126.
The complaint alleges that former sheriff Meeks was personally aware of Archie’s growing complaints of severe chest pain and shortness of breath and that he deliberately ignored her requests for medical assistance.
See Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶ 38. Because he undertook these actions in the course of overseeing
14 the jail, they may have fallen within the line and scope of his role as sheriff. See Ex parte Burnell, 90 So. 3d
708, 711-12 (Ala. 2012). But the complaint adequately alleges that Meeks “acted fraudulently, in bad faith, beyond [his] authority, or in a mistaken interpretation of law,” Moulton, 116 So. 3d at 1141. There is no
good-faith way to intentionally withhold medical care from a person until they die. Cf. Taylor v. Hughes, 920 F.3d 729, 734-35 (11th Cir. 2019) (denying § 14 immunity to guards at Covington County Jail who told detainee who
had been in car crash to “shut up” when he “cr[ied] out in pain for several hours and stat[ed] that he was ‘dying’ and ‘broke up’ inside,” leading to death from internal
bleeding). As all state officials are bound by the obligations of the United States Constitution, see U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1, it was not within Meeks’s authority to deliberately ignore the pleas for help of a
dying inmate in his custody. And to the extent that Meeks believed his alleged conduct was justified, he
15 acted under a mistaken interpretation of the law. Nor does the wrongful-death claim, unlike the claim
for breach of fiduciary duty considered in Barnhart, depend on an element that is met solely because of Meeks’s position as sheriff. Wrongful death in Alabama is a statutory claim requiring only that a “wrongful act,
omission, or negligence” of the defendant caused the decedent’s death and that the decedent would have been able to sue for that act, omission, or negligence if she had not died. Ala. Code § 6-5-410(a). Per the
complaint’s allegations, Meeks and his correctional staff prevented Archie from obtaining medical care on the day she died by forcing her to finish delivering trays before
letting her return to her cell to start calling for emergency medical assistance. See Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 36-38. Causing a person’s death by stopping her from getting medical care she needs
gives rise to a wrongful-death claim; the statute does not require a defendant who behaves that way to have a
16 sheriff’s duties in order for liability to attach. See, e.g., Ex parte Russell, -- So. 3d ---, 2020 WL 3478514,
at *2 (Ala. 2020) (wrongful-death claim against hospital guard and supervisor where guard was permitted to call police on emergency room patient, causing the patient’s meningitis to go untreated). Accordingly, Meeks is not
entitled to State immunity on the administrator’s wrongful-death claim.
B. Failure to Train and Supervise Claim
Covington County seeks dismissal of Count 5, the failure-to-train-and-supervise claim. For this argument, the county relies on the decision of the en
banc Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Turquitt v. Jefferson County, 137 F.3d 1285 (11th Cir. 1998) (en banc), in which the appellate court held that supervision of inmates in county jails is delegated to Alabama’s
sheriffs, and that sheriffs act as officers of the State, rather than of individual counties, when operating the
17 jails they oversee. See id. at 1289. Covington County seems to have misunderstood the
allegations made in the second amended complaint. The administrator does not allege that the county is liable for failing to supervise sheriff Meeks in his oversight of the Covington County Jail. Instead, the administrator
alleges that the county itself contracted for the provision of health care at the jail with Southern Health Partners, the private health-care provider named as a defendant in this case, and that the county failed to
supervise Southern Health Partners’ performance under that contract or to afford Southern Health Partners sufficient resources to ensure constitutionally adequate
medical care at the jail. See Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 110, 117. The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Turquitt does not free the county from its responsibility to supervise the execution of its own
contract for health care at the Covington County Jail. And the complaint adequately alleges that the county
18 failed to supervise this contract by maintaining policies or customs of underfunding Southern Health Partners’
staffing levels and services and by declining to monitor the organization’s work, leading to constitutionally deficient medical care at the jail. See id. at ¶¶ 31-33. As such, this claim against Covington County will not be
dismissed. Former sheriff Meeks and jail administrator Syler also move to dismiss the failure-to-train-and-supervise claim against them based on qualified immunity. Claims
for failure to supervise subordinates differ from claims for failure to train and are subject to different--and generally broader--liability requirements. See Keith v.
DeKalb County, 749 F.3d 1034, 1052 (11th Cir. 2014) (drawing this distinction). Although the administrator’s complaint conflates these two theories in discussing Count 5, the allegations presented in support of that
claim make clear that the count rests, at least in part, on a theory of failure to supervise, and the court will
19 analyze it accordingly. See, e.g., Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶ 111.
Determining whether qualified immunity bars relief involves two distinct questions: whether the complaint adequately alleges a violation of a constitutional right and whether that right was clearly established at the
time of the alleged violation. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 232 (2009). Courts may “exercise their sound discretion in deciding which of the two prongs of the qualified immunity analysis should be addressed first in
light of the circumstances in the particular case at hand.” Id. at 236. There are three ways in which a plaintiff in the
Eleventh Circuit can show that a right was clearly established for the purposes of qualified immunity. First, “the plaintiff can point to a materially similar case decided at the time of the relevant conduct by the
Supreme Court, the Eleventh Circuit, or the relevant state supreme court”--the case “need not be directly on
20 point,” but it must “have placed the statutory or constitutional question beyond debate.” Patel v. Lanier
County, 969 F.3d 1173, 1186 (11th Cir. 2020) (quoting J W ex rel. Williams v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., 904 F.3d 1248, 1259-60 (11th Cir. 2018)). Second, the plaintiff “can identify a broader, clearly established principle
that should govern the novel facts of the situation.” Id. Or, third, the plaintiff can demonstrate that the alleged conduct “so obviously violated the Constitution that prior case law is unnecessary.” Id.
The constitutional right of inmates under the Eighth Amendment not to have serious medical needs deliberately ignored was established in binding case law long before
the events alleged in the administrator’s complaint. See, e.g., Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 104 (1976) (holding unconstitutional “deliberate indifference to serious medical needs of prisoners”); Brown v. Plata, 563
U.S. 493, 508 (2011) (noting constitutionally deficient medical care based on failure to provide adequate
21 treatment to inmate with hypertension). While claims involving the mistreatment of pretrial detainees are
governed by the Fourteenth Amendment rather than the Eighth, the Eleventh Circuit treats the standard for deliberate indifference to serious medical needs under the two amendments as “identical.” Goebert v. Lee
County, 510 F.3d 1312, 1326 (11th Cir. 2007).3 More specifically, the Eleventh Circuit long ago
3. In Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389 (2015), the United States Supreme Court held inapplicable to pretrial detainees the Eighth Amendment’s requirement that prisoners show subjective malice on the part of their jailers--in addition to objective unreasonableness--to state an excessive-force claim. See id. at 400-02; see also id. at 403 (finding unlawful a jury instruction requiring that jailers “recklessly disregarded” the plaintiff’s safety). Given the relationship between the deliberateness required for medical-neglect claims under the Eighth Amendment and the maliciousness required for excessive-force claims under that amendment, see, e.g., Whitley v. Albers, 475 U.S. 312, 320-21 (1986), it is unclear whether subjective intentionality should remain a necessary element of medical-neglect claims brought by pretrial detainees after Kingsley. That said, because the conduct alleged in this case meets the deliberate-indifference standard, the court need not consider whether Kingsley lowered that standard for claims brought by pretrial detainees such as Archie. 22 explained that an inmate with chest pains and shortness of breath may have a serious medical need, particularly
when these symptoms are coupled with a life-threatening underlying condition. See Adams v. Poag, 61 F.3d 1537, 1543 (11th Cir. 1995). A serious medical need may be determined by “whether a delay in treating the need
worsens the condition.” Mann v. Taser Int’l, Inc., 588 F.3d 1291, 1307 (11th Cir. 2009). It is a medical condition that “if left unattended, poses a substantial risk of serious harm.” Melton v. Abston, 841 F.3d 1207,
1222 (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting Mann, 588 F.3d at 1307). Given that delaying treatment of Archie’s severe hypertension symptoms on the day of her death led to her
demise, it is understandable that Meeks and Syler do not appear to contest in their motion to dismiss that her medical need was serious. Moreover, the allegations of the complaint
sufficiently indicate that the subordinates of Meeks and Syler at the Covington County Jail were deliberately
23 indifferent to Archie’s serious medical need. On the day she died, Archie complained to the jail’s correctional
staff about “severe and sharp pains in her chest area” and pleaded for medical attention. Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶ 36. The officers refused her requests and ordered her to finish handing out trays
before she could return to her cell to call for emergency medical aid. See id. Flatly ignoring a detainee’s serious medical needs constitutes deliberate indifference. See Taylor v. Hughes, 920 F.3d 729, 734
(11th Cir. 2019) (finding deliberate indifference when guards at Covington County Jail “ignored [the decedent’s] cries for help and medical attention”).
Finally, the standards by which supervisors may be held liable under § 1983 for the deliberate indifference of their subordinates were clearly established by the time of the instant conduct as well. See, e.g., Cottone
v. Jenne, 326 F.3d 1352, 1360 (11th Cir. 2003). As a result, the only question left is whether the factual
24 allegations supporting the failure-to-supervise count succeed in making out a claim that Meeks and Syler
violated this right. Under the law of the Eleventh Circuit, “to hold a supervisor liable [under § 1983] a plaintiff must show that the supervisor either directly participated in the
unconstitutional conduct or that a causal connection exists between the supervisor’s actions and the alleged constitutional violation.” Keith, 749 F.3d at 1047-48. The count of the administrator’s complaint alleging that
Meeks and Syler directly participated in deliberate indifference to Archie’s medical needs is separate from the failure-to-supervise count. The court will therefore
assess whether the latter claim shows a “causal connection” between the defendants’ acts and the alleged constitutional violations. Id. Such a connection may be shown when “a history of widespread abuse puts the
responsible supervisor on notice of the need to correct the alleged deprivation,” when the supervisor’s “custom
25 or policy ... result[s] in deliberate indifference to constitutional rights,” or when facts indicate “that the
supervisor directed the subordinates to act unlawfully or knew that the subordinates would act unlawfully and failed to stop them from doing so.” Id. at 1048 (alterations in original) (quoting Cottone, 326 F.3d at
1360). Meeks and Syler argue that the complaint fails to show a causal connection between their actions and the alleged constitutional violations “because it fails to
demonstrate a history of widespread abuse.” Br. in Supp. Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 42) at 17-18. But demonstrating a history of widespread abuse is only one of three ways
in which a plaintiff may show the “causal connection” necessary to establish liability on a failure-to-supervise claim. Keith, 749 F.3d at 1048. The court need not decide whether the previous incidents
alleged in the complaint are sufficient to demonstrate that abuse was widespread at the jail if the
26 administrator’s complaint otherwise succeeds in showing the requisite causal connection.
It does. The facts alleged in the complaint readily support an inference that Meeks and Syler “knew that the[ir] subordinates would act unlawfully and failed to stop them from doing so.” Id. (quoting Cottone, 326 F.3d
at 1360). According to the complaint, Meeks and Syler were aware of Archie’s medical needs before and during the emergency that ended in her death. See, e.g., Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 23, 37-40, 59-61.
Moreover, the complaint alleges that the defendants knew that Archie was not receiving treatment from their subordinates for her serious medical problems and that
they failed to ensure that their subordinates would provide such treatment. See, e.g., id. at ¶¶ 37-40. The complaint also alleges that it was widely known at the jail that Dr. Barber routinely skipped visits with
inmates seeking medical attention and often came only once per month to the jail to provide medical care. See
27 id. at ¶ 26. These allegations--which at this stage must be accepted as true--support an inference that Meeks and
Syler knew about what the complaint terms Barber’s “lackadaisical manner of treating inmates,” id. at ¶ 28, were aware that their subordinates were refusing Archie treatment for her severe symptoms on the day she died,
see id. at ¶¶ 36-38, and declined to intervene. Although Meeks and Syler acknowledge that any of the three approaches listed above is sufficient to establish the requisite causal connection under Eleventh Circuit
law, see Br. in Supp. Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 42) at 17, they argue elsewhere that a pattern of previous violations is nonetheless required to make out the
administrator’s claims here, see id. at 18. They base this argument on the Supreme Court’s decision in Connick v. Thompson, 563 U.S. 51 (2011), particularly the Court’s indication that, “A pattern of similar constitutional
violations by untrained employees is ‘ordinarily necessary’ to demonstrate deliberate indifference for
28 purposes of failure to train.” Id. at 62 (quoting Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 409 (1997)).
The very terms of the sentence that Meeks and Syler cite from Connick demonstrate its inapplicability here. The statement from Connick quoted above applies to claims for failure to train subordinates, not to claims for
failure to supervise. Compare Keith, 749 F.3d at 1053 (quoting Connick for the failure-to-train standard), with, id. at 1048 (noting the three ways described above to show a causal connection for a failure-to-supervise
claim). The Supreme Court’s decision in Connick is inapposite, and neither Meeks nor Syler is entitled to qualified immunity on the failure-to-supervise claim.
C. Failure to Act Claim Covington County, Meeks, and Syler all seek dismissal of Count 6, the failure-to-act claim, on the same grounds
described above. The allegations in the complaint pertaining to the failure-to-act claim appear redundant
29 with either Count 5, the failure-to-supervise claim, or Count 1, the deliberate indifference claim. See Second
Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 116-21. Indeed, as to the county, Meeks, and Syler, it is not at all clear what distinguishes the failure-to-act claim from the failure-to-supervise claim. And the Supreme Court has
declined to recognize a general failure-to-act claim under the Due Process Clause, holding that the Constitution instead imposes more specific and circumscribed obligations such as the responsibility of
jail officials to provide adequate medical care--a duty addressed by the administrator’s deliberate indifference and failure-to-supervise claims. See DeShaney v.
Winnebago Cnty. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 489 U.S. 189, 198-200 (1989). Accordingly, because the theory of the administrator’s failure-to-act claim is not sufficiently
established in precedent, Meeks and Syler are entitled to qualified immunity on that count. Similarly, although
30 the court is unpersuaded by the county’s argument from Turquitt for the reasons discussed above, the county is
nonetheless entitled to dismissal of Count 6 against it for failure to state a claim because the count does not make out allegations sufficient to show a violation of any established legal duty.
D. ADA and Section 504 Claims Covington County also moves to dismiss the administrator’s ADA and Section 504 claims, Counts 2 and
3, for failure to state a claim under those statutes. For all purposes relevant to the county’s motion to dismiss, the same standards apply to the ADA and Section
504, so the court will not separately analyze the two claims at issue. See Cash v. Smith, 231 F.3d 1301, 1305 (11th Cir. 2000). Title II of the ADA, the statutory section under
which the administrator’s claim is brought, provides that “no qualified individual with a disability shall, by
31 reason of such disability, be excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs,
or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.” 42 U.S.C. § 12132; see also Shotz v. Cates, 256 F.3d 1077, 1079 (11th Cir. 2001). The county argues that the factual allegations
supporting the administrator’s ADA and Section 504 claims may show deliberate indifference to Archie’s medical needs, but that they do not show discrimination on the basis of disability. See Br. in Supp. Motion to Dismiss
(Doc. 42) at 8. As the county explains, “it is alleged that the decedent, who suffered from hypertension, was denied necessary medical treatment for her condition
while detained in the Covington County Jail.” Id. “The alleged fact that Defendants failed to provide adequate medical care for the decedent’s hypertension does not, standing alone, support the claim that they discriminated
32 against her because of her hypertension.” Id. at 7.4 As with the failure-to-supervise claim, the trouble
for the county is that the allegations it points to are not the ones on which the administrator relies to support the complaint’s ADA and Section 504 claims. Instead, the administrator alleges that the county, in contracting for
health care services at the jail, failed to provide sufficient staff and training of medical personnel for
4. In a footnote in defendants’ reply brief, the county notes for the first time that “an argument can be made that the Decedent was not disabled as defined by” the ADA and Rehabilitation Act. Reply in Supp. Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 52) at 4 n.1. This is so, the county says, because the complaint “made no allegation that the Decedent was in any way limited because of her hypertension.” Id. This argument, to the extent that defendants’ footnote endeavors to press it, was not included in the motion to dismiss and so will not be addressed at this time. United States v. Evans, 473 F.3d 1115, 1120 (11th Cir. 2006) (“[A]rguments raised for the first time in a reply brief are not properly before a reviewing court.” (quoting Herring v. Sec’y, Dep’t of Corrs., 397 F.3d 1338, 1342 (11th Cir. 2005))). Moreover, it mischaracterizes the allegations of the complaint, which include, inter alia, that Archie’s hypertension caused “debilitating” pain that interfered with her ability to carry out her work at the jail. Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 36, 40. 33 inmates with serious medical needs, such as Archie, to avoid death or other harm due to inadequate medical
assistance. See Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40) at ¶¶ 33, 80. In other words, the administrator alleges that the county, through its contract with Southern Health Partners, provided adequate medical care for
non-disabled inmates but not for inmates with conditions serious enough to make them “individual[s] with a disability” under the ADA, 42 U.S.C § 12131(2). The United States Supreme Court has held that medical
services provided to inmates are among the “services, programs, or activities of a public entity” to which the ADA and Section 504 extend. Pa. Dep’t of Corrs. v.
Yeskey, 524 U.S. 206, 210 (1998) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 12132). Providing staff and training sufficient to address the needs of inmates with minor medical issues but not those of inmates with disabilities discriminates
against disabled inmates in the provision of such services. See, e.g., Second Amended Complaint (Doc. 40)
34 at ¶¶ 23-25 (alleging that Archie was repeatedly given aspirin rather than more significant medical intervention
in response to her high blood pressure and complaints of severe chest pains). The administrator’s ADA and Section 504 claims will not be dismissed. * * *
Accordingly, it is ORDERED that: (1) Defendants’ motion to dismiss (Doc. 41) is granted to the extent that Count 6 of the complaint, as alleged against defendants Covington County, Dennis
Meeks, and Alan Syler, is dismissed. (2) In all other respects, the motion to dismiss (Doc. 41) is denied.
DONE, this the 29th day of March, 2021. /s/ Myron H. Thompson UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE