Allegations that a jail medical provider ignored a detainee’s positive suicide-risk screening and failed to communicate that risk to jail staff plausibly stated deliberate indifference and failure-to-train claims arising from the detainee’s death.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied motions to dismiss the relevant civil rights claims.
The plaintiff, representing the detainee’s estate, sued Genesee County, a deputy, a correctional health care company and a medical provider under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The complaint alleged that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to serious mental-health needs and a known suicide risk while the detainee was held at the county jail.
The complaint alleged that the medical provider signed an intake form showing a history of suicide attempts and a recent wish to die related to the incarceration. Those disclosures allegedly constituted a positive suicide screen under the health care company’s policies and should have triggered mental-health services and suicide observation.
Despite that information, the plaintiff alleged, the provider did not initiate a safety watch, communicate the suicide risk to jail staff or further investigate the detainee’s condition. Accepting those allegations as true, the court could reasonably infer that the provider knew of a substantial suicide risk and consciously disregarded a serious medical need.
The failure-to-train claim against the health care company also was sufficiently pleaded. The complaint alleged that the company contracted to provide jail medical care under applicable standards but failed to ensure that positive suicide screening information resulted in observation, communication and treatment.
The plaintiff alleged a factual chain connecting the positive suicide-risk disclosures, the failure to act on and communicate them, the absence of appropriate precautions and treatment and the detainee’s death. At the pleading stage, those allegations were sufficient to establish plausible causation and permit discovery.
Motions to dismiss denied.
The 26-page opinion is Rudder v. Genesee County, Lawyers Weekly No. 02-111287.
