Kirk v. Davis v. Gregory Jones, Glenn Runge, and John Theis

Seventh Circuit

Kirk v. Davis v. Gregory Jones, Glenn Runge, and John Theis

936 F.2d 971, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 14682, 1991 WL 124439

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

DecidedJuly 11, 1991

Docket90-2336

StatusPublished

Cited by76 cases

This text of 936 F.2d 971 (Kirk v. Davis v. Gregory Jones, Glenn Runge, and John Theis) 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

Kirk v. Davis v. Gregory Jones, Glenn Runge, and John Theis, 936 F.2d 971, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 14682, 1991 WL 124439 (7th Cir. 1991).

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Opinions

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Kirk V. Davis suffered a scraped elbow and a one-inch cut in his temple when the Calumet Park Police arrested him in February 1988. A jury in this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 determined that the police had not used excessive force in reducing Davis to custody. 737 F.Supp. 1039. The jury also determined that by not immediately taking Davis to the hospital to obtain care for his wounds (or at least offering him that option), the police violated his right to due process of law. It awarded $1 in compensatory and $1,500 in punitive damages.

Defendants’ principal argument is that the judge erred in instructing the jury that police must offer medical care to a pretrial detainee whenever “jail authorities have reason to suspect” that an injury is serious, whether or not the problem turns out to be serious after further investigation. The court drew this instruction from Matzker v. Herr, 748 F.2d 1142, 1147 n. 3 (7th Cir.1984). The officers contend that this language from Matzker was a slip of the pen, but it was not. For some years courts have been trying to forge objective standards of official conduct. E.g., Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989); Titran v. Ackman, 893 F.2d 145 (7th Cir.1990). Cf. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Police must respond to conditions they can observe. Just as the Constitution does not demand that police obtain medical care for prisoners whose injuries appear to be slight but turn out to be serious, so the officers must obtain medical care when the wound reasonably appears to be serious even if the risk turns out to have been small. Police can act only on appearances; anything else is gambling with another person’s life, a wager the Constitution does not permit arresting officers to undertake. Whether the injury is actually serious is a question best left to a physician. Martin v. Tyson, 845 F.2d 1451, 1457-58 (7th Cir.1988), which reiterates the principal holding of Matzker that the due process clause requires prompt medical attention for arrested persons only if the injury is serious, does not address, and therefore does not diminish, the responsibilities of officers when injuries appear to be serious but turn out not to be.

Although we adhere to the footnote in Matzker, this does not in the end avail Davis. The evidence is too thin to allow a reasonable inference that Davis’s wounds appeared serious. Davis concedes that neither the cut nor the impact to his elbow actually required medical attention. The jury, which awarded only nominal compensatory damages, evidently thought the same. A physician who saw Davis two days after the arrest concluded that the cut was neither long enough nor deep enough to have been stitched shut (the skin never separated), and that no medical treatment at all was indicated then or at the time of arrest. Matzker and Martin stress that the due process clause requires treatment only for serious wounds — those that may be life threatening or pose a risk of needless pain or lingering disability if not treated at once. No reasonable person would believe that a one-inch cut presents such a [973]*973risk unless the injured person is a hemophiliac.

To say that deferring medical treatment for a superficial cut supports this verdict is to say that every claim of deferred medical care should be sent to a jury — which as in this case may choose to award punitive damages even though it believes that the wound did not need care! That would use Matzker’s footnote to undo both its text and the holding of Martin. Davis all but concedes this but contends that his case differs because the officers, in testifying that they offered him medical attention, necessarily admitted that they thought his injury serious. The jury rejected the officers’ testimony that they offered medical care, else it could not have awarded Davis even the dollar. Anyway, Davis’s recovery depends on an objective approach: the question is not what was in the officers’ heads but how things should have appeared to competent officers. The objectively reasonable officer would not have thought a shallow one-inch cut “serious”. No testimony in this case suggests that a reasonable person would have been concerned about these wounds. (Davis presented no medical testimony.) That these officers may have been overly solicitous cannot be turned against them.

Reversed.

FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge,

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EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge.

Kirk V. Davis suffered a scraped elbow and a one-inch cut in his temple when the Calumet Park Police arrested him in February 1988. A jury in this suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 determined that the police had not used excessive force in reducing Davis to custody. 737 F.Supp. 1039. The jury also determined that by not immediately taking Davis to the hospital to obtain care for his wounds (or at least offering him that option), the police violated his right to due process of law. It awarded $1 in compensatory and $1,500 in punitive damages.

Defendants’ principal argument is that the judge erred in instructing the jury that police must offer medical care to a pretrial detainee whenever “jail authorities have reason to suspect” that an injury is serious, whether or not the problem turns out to be serious after further investigation. The court drew this instruction from Matzker v. Herr, 748 F.2d 1142, 1147 n. 3 (7th Cir.1984). The officers contend that this language from Matzker was a slip of the pen, but it was not. For some years courts have been trying to forge objective standards of official conduct. E.g., Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 109 S.Ct. 1865, 104 L.Ed.2d 443 (1989); Titran v. Ackman, 893 F.2d 145 (7th Cir.1990). Cf. Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982). Police must respond to conditions they can observe. Just as the Constitution does not demand that police obtain medical care for prisoners whose injuries appear to be slight but turn out to be serious, so the officers must obtain medical care when the wound reasonably appears to be serious even if the risk turns out to have been small. Police can act only on appearances; anything else is gambling with another person’s life, a wager the Constitution does not permit arresting officers to undertake. Whether the injury is actually serious is a question best left to a physician. Martin v. Tyson, 845 F.2d 1451, 1457-58 (7th Cir.1988), which reiterates the principal holding of Matzker that the due process clause requires prompt medical attention for arrested persons only if the injury is serious, does not address, and therefore does not diminish, the responsibilities of officers when injuries appear to be serious but turn out not to be.

Although we adhere to the footnote in Matzker, this does not in the end avail Davis. The evidence is too thin to allow a reasonable inference that Davis’s wounds appeared serious. Davis concedes that neither the cut nor the impact to his elbow actually required medical attention. The jury, which awarded only nominal compensatory damages, evidently thought the same. A physician who saw Davis two days after the arrest concluded that the cut was neither long enough nor deep enough to have been stitched shut (the skin never separated), and that no medical treatment at all was indicated then or at the time of arrest. Matzker and Martin stress that the due process clause requires treatment only for serious wounds — those that may be life threatening or pose a risk of needless pain or lingering disability if not treated at once. No reasonable person would believe that a one-inch cut presents such a [973]*973risk unless the injured person is a hemophiliac.

To say that deferring medical treatment for a superficial cut supports this verdict is to say that every claim of deferred medical care should be sent to a jury — which as in this case may choose to award punitive damages even though it believes that the wound did not need care! That would use Matzker’s footnote to undo both its text and the holding of Martin. Davis all but concedes this but contends that his case differs because the officers, in testifying that they offered him medical attention, necessarily admitted that they thought his injury serious. The jury rejected the officers’ testimony that they offered medical care, else it could not have awarded Davis even the dollar. Anyway, Davis’s recovery depends on an objective approach: the question is not what was in the officers’ heads but how things should have appeared to competent officers. The objectively reasonable officer would not have thought a shallow one-inch cut “serious”. No testimony in this case suggests that a reasonable person would have been concerned about these wounds. (Davis presented no medical testimony.) That these officers may have been overly solicitous cannot be turned against them.

Reversed.

FAIRCHILD, Senior Circuit Judge,

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936 F.2d 971, 1991 U.S. App. LEXIS 14682, 1991 WL 124439, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kirk-v-davis-v-gregory-jones-glenn-runge-and-john-theis-ca7-1991.

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