Patricia Esch v. County of Kent. Mich.

699 F. App'x 509
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedJuly 19, 2017
Docket16-2520
StatusUnpublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 699 F. App'x 509 (Patricia Esch v. County of Kent. Mich.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Patricia Esch v. County of Kent. Mich., 699 F. App'x 509 (6th Cir. 2017).

Opinions

CLAY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff Patricia T. Esch (“Plaintiff’), the personal representative of the Estate of Stephen Stiles, appeals from the judgment entered by the district court on September 27, 2016, granting summary judgment to Defendants Jim McFadden, R.N., Esther West, R.N., Minerva Booker, R.N., and David Sova, D.O. (collectively, “Defendants”). Stephen Stiles (“Stiles”) died of a seizure shortly after he was taken into custody on an outstanding warrant for failure to pay child support. Defendants are medical officials at the county jail where Stiles was being detained. Plaintiff alleges that Defendants caused Stiles’ death through their failure to give him his anti-seizure medication in a timely manner. The district court granted Defendants’ motions for summary judgment, reasoning that there was no evidence suggesting that Defendants were deliberately indifferent to Stiles’ serious medical needs. Plaintiff asks us to reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment, and remand her claims for trial. We have subject matter jurisdiction over this appeal pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the district court’s judgment.

BACKGROUND

I. Factual History

On May 31, 2011, at approximately 4:48 a.m., the Grand Rapids Police Department arrested Stiles on an outstanding warrant for failure to pay child support. Stileá was taken for holding at the nearby Kent County Correction Facility (“the jail”).

Once Stiles arrived at the jail at approximately 4:55 a.m., he was taken to a medical intake screening conducted by Defendant Jim McFadden (“Nurse McFadden”). Nurse McFadden noted that Stiles suffered from epilepsy, grand mal seizures, and hypertension, and was also under the influence of alcohol, which can exacerbate the risk of seizures. Stiles also told Nurse McFadden that he had suffered a serious seizure two weeks prior to his arrest. Stiles provided nurse McFadden with the name of his treating physician and a phone number for his pharmacy so that Nurse McFadden could verify Stiles’ prescription for an anti-seizure medication known as Dilantin. Stiles was prescribed to take Dilantin twice daily—once in the morning, and once in the evening. At the time Stiles entered the jail, he had not taken his previous night’s Dilantin dose, but Nurse McFadden failed to ask him when he had last taken his medication. Nurse McFadden entered Stiles’ information into the jail’s computer system, and then placed his chart in a stack for the next duty nurse to review. Nurse McFadden’s shift ended sometime between 6:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m.

The next nurse on duty was Defendant Esther West. Nurse West started her shift at roughly 6:00 a.m. and worked until roughly 2:30 p.m. At roughly 10:42 a.m., Nurse West called Stiles’ pharmacy and was able to verify his Dilantin prescription. After verifying the prescription and updating Stiles’ chart, Nurse West apparently took no further actions to assure that [512]*512Stiles received his Dilantin beyond placing the chart in a place where it would be viewed by a physician capable of issuing prescriptions.

At some time between 2:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m., Stiles asked a guard, to inquire how long it would be before he received his anti-seizure medication. The guard relayed the inquiry to an unidentified person in the jail’s medical office.

At roughly 12:00 p.m., Defendant David Sova (“Dr. Sova”) arrived for his shift as the attending physician at the jail. Dr. Sova’s shift ran from 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., but Stiles’ medical records reflect that his prescription for Dilantin was noted at 6:45 p.m. Dr. Sova testified during his deposition that one of the nurses on call should have identified Stiles as a must-see patient because of his seizure condition. Nevertheless, after prescribing Dilantin to Stiles, Dr. Sova apparently took no further steps to assure that Stiles received his anti-seizure medication immediately.

From roughly 2:30 p.m. .to 10:30 p.m., Defendant Minerva Booker (“Nurse Booker”) took over for Nurse West as the nurse on call at the jail. Although Nurse Booker hypothetically would have received Stiles’ chart in a stack of intake paperwork from Nurse West, there is no evidence in the record that Nurse. Booker ever saw Stiles’ chart, or was involved in his medical care in any way.

At 8:00 p.m., jail medical staff sent a cart around to deliver prescriptions to the inmates, including Stiles. At 8:lj3 p.m., when Stiles did not come to the cart or respond to a call made over the jail’s loudspeaker system, jail staff approached his cell. Stilés was found unconscious therein, He was pronounced dead at 8:41 p.m. from a fatal seizure.

II. Procedural History

On May 2, 2013, Plaintiff brought suit on behalf of Stiles’ estate in the Western District of Michigan, asserting claims pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for: (i) Monell1 liability against Kent County, the County Sheriff, and Corizon Health, Inc. (the jail’s health care contractor) for failing to have adequate policies in place to assure that inmates with acute medical needs received prescription medication in a timely fashion; and (ii) individual liability against Dr. Sova and the numerous nurses that had worked in the jail on the day Stiles died. The claims for individual liability alleged that the jail medical staff had been deliberately indifferent to Stiles’ serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.

On March 24, 2016, after discovery, the various defendants in this suit moved for summary judgment against all of Plaintiffs claims. On September 27, 2016, the district court granted the summary judgment motions in their entirety. Esch v. County of Kent, No. 1:13-cv-478, 2016 WL 5387860, at *1 (W.D. Mich. Sept. 27, 2016). The district court first determined that Kent County, the County Sheriff, and Corizon maintained policies requiring that inmates receive any valid prescriptions within 24 hours of intake, and that these policies were flexible enough in practice to permit inmates to receive medication sooner in emergency situations. Id. at *2-4. The district court determined that in this case, Stiles did not receive his medication .until roughly fifteen hours after his intake because there was nothing in his chart to suggest that he was facing an acute medi[513]*513cal emergency, and therefore dismissed Plaintiffs Monell claims. Id. With respect to the various individual defendants, the district court concluded that while Stiles was definitely suffering from an objectively serious medical condition, and may have received deficient care, there was no evidence in the record that any defendant subjectively appreciated the risk to Stiles and chose to ignore it. Id. at *4-7. In brief, the district court found that each doctor and nurse did their part to advance Stiles’ request for Dilantin, and he was ultimately prescribed the drug. Id. Although the jail medical staff perhaps should have taken steps to assure that Stiles received his Dilantin prescription more quickly, the district court concluded that there was no evidence that Defendants were subjectively aware of the need to act any faster than they did. Id.

The district court entered a judgment terminating all active claims on September 27, 2016.

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Bluebook (online)
699 F. App'x 509, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patricia-esch-v-county-of-kent-mich-ca6-2017.