John Wright v. Granville County

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: March 3, 2025
• Docket: 24-1389
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

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UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 24-1389

JOHN H. WRIGHT, Administrator of the Estate of Chad E. Price,

Plaintiff – Appellant,

v.

GRANVILLE COUNTY; SHERIFF BRINDELL B. WILKINS, JR.; CHARLES ROYSTER NOBLIN, JR.; WESTERN SURETY COMPANY; SANDRA OVERBY LIMERICK; HAROLD WOODY; BARIKA LYONS; DAVID LAMONT; WADE WOODY; STEVEN HAYES, JR.; JOHNNY EVANS; TERESA ROBINSON; ALFRED CARTER; ALIXZINE BENSON; BONNY HICKS,

Defendants – Appellees.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. Richard E. Myers, II, Chief District Judge. (5:20-ct-03362-M)

Argued: December 13, 2024 Decided: March 3, 2025

Before WILKINSON, KING, and HEYTENS, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished opinion. Judge Heytens wrote the opinion, which Judge King and Judge Wilkinson joined.

ARGUED: David W. McDonald, MCDONALD WRIGHT LLP, Greensboro, North Carolina, for Appellant. Brian Florencio Castro, WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON (US) LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: James R. Morgan, Jr., WOMBLE BOND DICKINSON (US) LLP, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for Appellees. USCA4 Appeal: 24-1389 Doc: 64 Filed: 03/03/2025 Pg: 2 of 6

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.

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TOBY HEYTENS, Circuit Judge:

Chad Price died of fentanyl poisoning after he was detained overnight at Granville

County Detention Center. The administrator of Price’s estate sued the county and various

other defendants, asserting violations of federal and state law. The district court granted

summary judgment to the defendants on the federal-law claims and declined to exercise

supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims. We affirm.

I.

The district court committed no reversible error in dismissing the federal-law claims

against the 15 individual defendants named in the complaint. The administrator has not

appealed the district court’s initial order that dismissed two of the individual defendants

without prejudice, instead challenging only the district court’s later grant of summary

judgment to the 13 remaining individual defendants. On appeal, however, the

administrator’s brief makes no argument about 10 of those 13 individual defendants, and

the administrator admitted at oral argument to having abandoned all claims against them.

See Oral Arg. 3:45–4:06; see also Mayfield v. National Ass’n for Stock Car Auto Racing,

674 F.3d 369, 377 (4th Cir. 2012) (“A party’s failure to raise or discuss an issue in [their]

brief is to be deemed an abandonment of that issue.”). When it comes to the individual

defendants, we thus review only the district court’s grant of summary judgment to

corrections officials Alfred Carter, Sandra Limerick, and Barika Lyons. As always when

reviewing a grant of summary judgment, our review is de novo. See, e.g., Randall v. United

States, 95 F.3d 339, 348 (4th Cir. 1996).

The district court did not err in granting summary judgment to the three defendants

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whose dismissal the administrator challenges on appeal. The administrator sued those

defendants under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, asserting they violated “Price’s constitutional rights”

by “fail[ing] to provide [him] with access to medical attention.” Appellant Br. 14. Because

Price was a pretrial detainee, that claim must be analyzed under the Fourteenth

Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See Mays v. Sprinkle, 992 F.3d 295, 300 (4th Cir. 2021)

(“[T]he Fourteenth Amendment, and not the Eighth Amendment, governs [a pretrial

detainee’s] claim.”). To succeed on such a claim, the administrator would need to prove—

as relevant here—that a particular defendant “knew or should have known” that Price “had

a medical condition or injury that posed a substantial risk of serious harm” and the same

“defendant’s action or inaction posed an unjustifiably high risk of harm.” Short v. Hartman,

87 F.4th 593, 611 (4th Cir. 2023).

We conclude the administrator failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact

about whether Carter, Limerick, or Lyons acted or failed to act “in the face of an

unjustifiably high risk of harm that [was] either known or so obvious that it should [have]

be[en] known.” Short, 87 F.4th at 611 (emphasis removed). As the district court noted, the

video evidence shows that Price “appear[ed] to be walking normally, d[id] not appear to

be in medical distress and, when in the presence of officers, d[id] not seem to request

medical assistance.” JA 1508. And although the administrator contends the officers

“simply . . . ignore[d]” “calls for assistance by Price and the other inmates in the 10-man

cell,” Appellant Br. 28, the video footage shows several instances when Price or other

detainees pressed the call button and an officer responded within minutes. See Scott v.

Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380−81 (2007) (where a “version of events” is “utterly discredited”

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by a video whose authenticity is not subject to reasonable dispute, a court should “view[ ]

the facts in the light depicted by the videotape”).

Price’s death while in custody is undeniably tragic. But “[t]he law cannot demand

that officers be mind readers,” Short, 87 F.4th at 614 n.10 (quotation marks removed), and

the administrator failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact about whether Price’s

serious medical needs were known or obviously should have been known to Carter,

Limerick, or Lyons. We thus affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to the

individual defendants.

II.

The administrator’s lack of a valid claim against the individual defendants means

his claims against Granville County and his official capacity claims against the county

sheriff also fail.

The administrator argues the district court erred in dismissing his claims against the

county because he “offered proof from which the trier of fact could conclude” that the

county failed to train its officers, which caused “[t]he death from overdose that Price

experienced.” Appellant Br. 11, 23. But that is not enough to avoid summary judgment.

Federal law does not permit suing municipalities for having constitutionally inadequate

policies or failing to prevent even the most tragic harms. Rather, “at least in suits for

damages,” “municipalities cannot be liable under [42 U.S.C.] § 1983 without some

predicate constitutional injury at the hands of [an] individual state officer.” Waybright v.

Frederick Cnty., 528 F.3d 199, 203 (4th Cir. 2008) (alterations and quotation marks

removed; emphasis added); accord International Ground Transp. v. Mayor & City Council

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of Ocean City, 475 F.3d 214, 219 (4th Cir. 2007) (“[A] municipality may not be found

liable for a constitutional violation in the absence of an unconstitutional act on the part of

at least one individual municipal actor.”). Because the administrator failed to create a

genuine dispute of material fact about whether the harms Price suffered “were the result of

constitutional violations” by any individual officer, his claims against the county also fail

as a matter of law. English v. Clarke, 90 F.4th 636, 649 (4th Cir. 2024); see City of Los

Angeles v. Heller, 475 U.S. 796, 799 (1986) (per curiam).

The administrator’s official capacity claims against the sheriff have the same basic

problem. “[A]n official-capacity suit is, in all respects other than name, to be treated as a

suit against” the entity that employs the officer because that entity is “the real party in

interest.” Kentucky v. Graham, 473 U.S. 159, 166 (1985). For that reason, the administrator

cannot maintain an official capacity action against the county’s sheriff without a valid

claim against the county itself. And because the administrator has no valid claim against

the county, his official capacity claims against the sheriff also cannot succeed. See English,

90 F.4th at 649.

* * *

The district court’s judgment is

AFFIRMED.