Estate of Ryan L. Clark v. Tina Kuehn

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedJuly 26, 2017
Docket16-3644
StatusPublished

This text of Estate of Ryan L. Clark v. Tina Kuehn (Estate of Ryan L. Clark v. Tina Kuehn) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Estate of Ryan L. Clark v. Tina Kuehn, (7th Cir. 2017).

Opinion

In the

United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ Nos. 16‐3560 & 16‐3644 ESTATE OF RYAN L. CLARK, Plaintiff‐Appellee,

v.

BRUCE WALKER and TINA KUEHN, Defendants‐Appellants. ____________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin. No. 14‐C‐1402 — Charles N. Clevert, Jr., Judge. ____________________

ARGUED MARCH 28, 2017 — DECIDED JULY 26, 2017 ____________________

Before FLAUM, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges. HAMILTON, Circuit Judge. Ryan Clark committed suicide five days after entering the custody of the Green Lake County Jail in Wisconsin. The officers on duty at the time of his death did not know that Clark had a high risk of committing sui‐ cide. When he entered the jail, however, he was assessed as having a maximum risk of suicide. The intake staff who were aware of that risk—Officer Bruce Walker and Nurse Tina Ku‐ ehn—had not initiated the jail’s suicide prevention protocol. 2 Nos. 16‐3560 & 16‐3644

Clark’s estate brought this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging that Walker and Kuehn violated Clark’s Eighth Amendment rights by acting with deliberate indifference toward his seri‐ ous risk of suicide. Walker and Kuehn moved for summary judgment. They argued there was insufficient evidence to allow a jury to find deliberate indifference, and they invoked qualified immunity. In a detailed order, the district court denied their motions. See Estate of Clark v. County of Green Lake, No. 14‐C‐1402, 2016 WL 4769365 (E.D. Wis. Sept. 12, 2016). The court found numerous issues of material fact regarding Clark’s suicide risk, the de‐ fendants’ knowledge of that risk, and who was responsible for initiating the suicide protocol (Walker or Kuehn). The court also rejected defendants’ qualified immunity arguments. As a preliminary matter, the court determined that Kuehn was un‐ able to invoke qualified immunity because she was a private contractor, not a government employee. On the merits, the court ruled that both defendants were not shielded by quali‐ fied immunity because it was clearly established in the Sev‐ enth Circuit that inmates have the right to be free from delib‐ erate indifference to a known risk of suicide. Both defendants appealed. Because this is an appeal from a denial of summary judg‐ ment, our jurisdiction is quite limited. We have jurisdiction to review only the denial of qualified immunity and only to the extent the denial turned on questions of law. This narrows our consideration to two issues: whether Nurse Kuehn was enti‐ tled to qualified immunity as a private medical contractor, and whether it was clearly established that Clark had a right to be free from deliberate indifference to his serious risk of suicide. We agree with the district court on both points, so we Nos. 16‐3560 & 16‐3644 3

affirm its denial of summary judgment for these two defend‐ ants.1 I. Factual and Procedural Background A. Clark’s History of Suicidal Behavior Our review on appeal from denial of summary judgment based on qualified immunity is limited to questions of law, so

1 The parties and the district court addressed Clark’s rights under the

Eighth Amendment. While the Eighth Amendment applies to convicted prisoners, the Fourteenth Amendment applies to pretrial detainees. See Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. —, —, 135 S. Ct. 2466, 2475 (2015) (“The language of the two Clauses differs, and the nature of the claims often dif‐ fers. And, most importantly, pretrial detainees (unlike convicted prison‐ ers) cannot be punished at all, much less maliciously and sadistically.”) (quotations omitted). Courts have expressed some uncertainty regarding which amendment controls for hybrid forms of detention, such as here where Clark’s extended‐supervision officer placed him on short “holds” in the county jail. See, e.g., Hoyt v. Gilden, No. 15‐cv‐437‐jdp, 2017 WL 90389, slip op. at *3 (W.D. Wis. Jan. 10, 2017) (“When plaintiff turned him‐ self in after violating the terms of his extended supervised release from his prior conviction, and was thus held in jail custody, it is not clear whether the law considered him a ‘prisoner’ or a ‘pretrial detainee.’”). We need not address this issue here, both because of the parties’ apparent agreement and because summary judgment was properly denied under the Eighth Amendment standard, which is at least as difficult for a plaintiff to satisfy as the Fourteenth Amendment standard. See, e.g., Cavalieri v. Shepard, 321 F.3d 616, 620 (7th Cir. 2003) (“as a pretrial detainee, [plaintiff] was entitled to at least the same protection against deliberate indifference to his basic needs as is available to convicted prisoners under the Eighth Amend‐ ment ”); see also Jackson v. Illinois Medi–Car, Inc., 300 F.3d 760, 764 (7th Cir. 2002) (“[W]hen considering a pretrial detainee’s claim of inadequate med‐ ical care, we frequently turn to the analogous standards of Eighth Amend‐ ment jurisprudence.”) (citations omitted). 4 Nos. 16‐3560 & 16‐3644

we recount the facts as stated by the district court in its assess‐ ment of the summary judgment record. See Locke v. Haessig, 788 F.3d 662, 665 (7th Cir. 2015). Ryan Clark struggled for years with alcoholism and de‐ pression. In 2009 he was released from Wisconsin state prison after serving time for his fifth offense of operating a vehicle under the influence of alcohol. His release was subject to ex‐ tended supervision. Over the next two years he was admitted to the Green Lake County Jail approximately eight times. Each time his extended‐supervision officer placed him on a “hold” due to alleged violations of his supervision rules, and each time he was intoxicated. Jail records show that Clark received regular medical treatment for depression while in custody. He was frequently given medication for depression, such as sertraline and fluox‐ etine, and his jail record stated that he experienced “anxiety attacks” when he did not receive his medication. The jail rec‐ ords also documented Clark’s serious risk of suicide. This in‐ cluded documentation of instances of self‐harm, including a suicide attempt in 2011. At times in the past, the jail had put Clark on “Special Watch Observation,” where he was ob‐ served every fifteen minutes to prevent suicide. B. Intake, Confinement, and Suicide On May 23, 2012, Clark was admitted once more to the Green Lake County Jail because he violated supervision rules by drinking alcohol. His breath test showed a blood alcohol level of 0.27, more than three times the legal limit for driving. Defendant Walker performed the intake process. Following standard practice, Walker administered the Spillman Initial Nos. 16‐3560 & 16‐3644 5

Inmate Assessment, which is a software program that in‐ cludes a suicide risk assessment. The program provides ques‐ tions for the intake officer to ask the inmate, and it uses the inmate’s responses to estimate his suicide risk.

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Estate of Ryan L. Clark v. Tina Kuehn, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/estate-of-ryan-l-clark-v-tina-kuehn-ca7-2017.