Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-09-06280/USCOURTS-ca10-09-06280-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 360
Nature of Suit: Other Personal Injury
Cause of Action: 

---

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined

unanimously to grant the parties’ request for a decision on the briefs without oral

argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(f); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and

collateral estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent

with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit

June 29, 2010

Elisabeth A. Shumaker

Clerk of Court

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

GREGORY THOMAS FARHAT,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

JIMMIE BRUNER,

Defendant-Appellant,

and

STEPHENS COUNTY BOARD OF

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS;

RAY YOUNG,

Defendants.

No. 09-6280

(D.C. No. 5:06-CV-00468-R)

(W.D. Okla.)

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

Before BRISCOE, Chief Judge, TYMKOVICH, and GORSUCH, Circuit

Judges.

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 1
1 We refer to the defendant as “Sheriff Bruner” because, even though she

retired at the end of 2008, she was sheriff at the time of the events pertinent to

this appeal. See John Walker, Bruner Set to Pass Baton of Responsibility to New

Sheriff, The Duncan Banner, Nov. 16, 2008, available at 2008 WLNR 21894258. 

-2-

Defendant Jimmie Bruner, the former sheriff of Stephens County,

Oklahoma, brings this interlocutory appeal from the district court’s denial of her

motion for summary judgment as to qualified immunity and punitive damages.1

Because Sheriff Bruner raises only disputed issues of fact, we lack jurisdiction

under the collateral order doctrine and dismiss her appeal. 

I. Background

The events that gave rise to this civil rights lawsuit are detailed in our

prior, related decision dismissing for lack of jurisdiction the interlocutory appeal

of Sheriff Bruner’s co-defendant, Stephens County detention officer Ray Young. 

See Farhat v. Young, 343 F. App’x 321 (10th Cir. 2009) (unpublished). In Farhat

v. Young, as is relevant here, we stated:

On August 26, 2004, plaintiff Gregory Thomas Farhat was

arrested for disturbing the peace by public intoxication, apparently

due to methamphetamine and marijuana use. He was booked that

afternoon into the Stephens County, Oklahoma, jail . . . . Mr. Farhat

was placed in an isolation cell . . . which lacked running water. Two

days later, at noon on August 28, he was found collapsed on the

concrete floor with his neck and lips swollen. He was taken by

ambulance to a hospital where he presented with sores on his face, a

swollen face and lips, pneumothoraces with subcutaneous

emphysema, suspected esophageal perforation, disorientation, sepsis

cultured as Streptococcus (infection to the bloodstream), pressure

sores on his buttocks, severe dehydration, rhabdomyolysis, renal

failure, cognitive deficit (organic or traumatic brain injury), and

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 2
-3-

multiple organ failure syndrome. He spent part of his hospitalization

in a coma and was released in late November 2004. His medical bills

exceeded $507,000.

Id. at 323.

Mr. Farhat filed suit, asserting a number of claims against Sheriff Bruner

and others, including a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging Sheriff Bruner, in

her individual capacity, established an unwritten policy or custom of denying

inmates and pretrial detainees medical care, and that she failed to train and

supervise her deputies “to ensure the health and safety of prisoners under [her]

control,” Aplt. App., Vol. I at 18; see also id., Vol. II at 415 (alleging that Sheriff

Bruner violated Mr. Farhat’s “clearly-established 14th Amendment guarantee that

medical care will be provided to pre-trial detainees”). Mr. Farhat sought actual,

compensatory, and punitive damages. 

Sheriff Bruner moved for summary judgment on all claims against her.

Only the district court’s denial of qualified immunity on Mr. Farhat’s § 1983

claim and the court’s refusal to dismiss Mr. Farhat’s request for punitive damages

are at issue in this appeal. 

II. Discussion

“Qualified immunity protects governmental officials from liability for civil

damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or

constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.” Weise v.

Casper, 593 F.3d 1163, 1166 (10th Cir. 2010) (quotations omitted). “The

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 3
-4-

qualified immunity inquiry has two prongs: whether a constitutional violation

occurred, and whether the violated right was clearly established at the time of the

violation.” Id. at 1166-67 (quotation omitted). 

To make out a claim for supervisor liability under § 1983, a plaintiff must

show that an “affirmative link exists between the constitutional deprivation and

either the supervisor’s personal participation, [her] exercise of control or

direction, or [her] failure to supervise.” Fogarty v. Gallegos, 523 F.3d 1147,

1162 (10th Cir. 2008) (quotations omitted). “[D]irect participation is not

necessary.” Buck v. City of Alburquerque, 549 F.3d 1269, 1279 (10th Cir. 2008). 

Any official who ‘causes’ a citizen to be deprived of [his]

constitutional rights can also be held liable. The requisite causal

connection is satisfied if the defendant set in motion a series of 

events that the defendant knew or reasonably should have known

would cause others to deprive the plaintiff of [his] constitutional

rights.

Id. at 1279-80; Meade v. Grubbs, 841 F.2d 1512, 1528 (10th Cir. 1988) (“[A]

sheriff is accountable in a § 1983 action whenever . . . [she] knew or should have

known of the misconduct, and yet failed to prevent future harm.” (quotation

omitted)). Stated differently, “[l]iability of a supervisor under § 1983 must be

predicated on the supervisor’s deliberate indifference, rather than mere

negligence. To be guilty of deliberate indifference, the defendant must know

[she] is creating a substantial risk of bodily harm.” Green v. Branson, 108 F.3d

1296, 1302 (10th Cir. 1997) (citation and quotations omitted).

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 4
-5-

In this case the district court acknowledged, as a threshold matter, that

genuine issues of material fact remain for trial regarding whether Sheriff Bruner’s

subordinate, co-defendant Young, was aware of a substantial risk of serious harm

to Mr. Farhat and nevertheless refused to assist him. The court then detailed,

among other evidence, “numerous complaints that medical needs were not being

met by the staff of the jail, . . . complaints that requests for medical care had been

ignored, and . . . asserti[ons] that prescribed medical care was withheld by jail

staff.” Aplt. App., Vol. II at 860. Ultimately, the district court denied Sheriff

Bruner qualified immunity, holding

that there is sufficient evidence from which a jury could conclude

that Sheriff Bruner knew her policies regarding medical treatment

were insufficient to protect the rights of inmates and detainees and

that she nevertheless failed to alter or amend her policies and

training to protect the rights of such persons, and as a result,

[Mr. Farhat] did not receive timely medical care.

Id. at 861. 

Before we can turn to the merits of Sheriff Bruner’s interlocutory appeal,

we must consider our jurisdiction. Whether we have jurisdiction over this

interlocutory appeal turns on the collateral order doctrine, which provides that “a

district court’s denial of a claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns

on an issue of law, is an appealable ‘final decision’ within the meaning of

28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding the absence of a final judgment.” Mitchell v.

Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985). Under the doctrine, “summary judgment

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 5
-6-

determinations are appealable when they resolve a dispute concerning an abstract

issue of law–typically, the issue whether the federal right allegedly infringed was

clearly established[.]” Behrens v. Pelletier, 516 U.S. 299, 313 (1996) (quotation,

citation, and alteration omitted). “[A] defendant, entitled to invoke a qualified 

immunity defense, may not[, however,] appeal a district court’s summary

judgment order insofar as that order determines whether or not the pretrial record

sets forth a ‘genuine’ issue of fact for trial.” Johnson v. Jones, 515 U.S. 304,

319-20 (1995). In other words, “we are not at liberty to review a district court’s

factual conclusions, such as the existence of a genuine issue of material fact for a

jury to decide, or that a plaintiff’s evidence is sufficient to support a particular

factual inference.” Fogarty, 523 F.3d at 1154. Indeed, our review at this point

must “scrupulously avoid second-guessing the district court’s determinations

regarding whether [a plaintiff has] presented evidence sufficient to survive

summary judgment.” Clanton v. Cooper, 129 F.3d 1147, 1153 (10th Cir. 1997). 

On appeal, Sheriff Bruner contends that the district court erroneously

denied her qualified immunity because Mr. Farhat failed to affirmatively link any

action or failure to act, on the part of Sheriff Bruner, to a violation of

Mr. Farhat’s clearly established rights. The problem with this general assertion,

however, is that she fails to make a legal argument (or arguments) in support. 

For example, with regard to an alleged failure to act, she submits that “evidence

supplied . . . indicates that Jail staff repeatedly checked on Plaintiff after

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 6
-7-

booking . . . [and] that the jailers present were trained in CPR and first aid and

that at least one jailer present was an experienced emergency medical technician

and a certified paramedic.” Aplt. Br. at 12-13. She also contends “the jailers’

actions . . . were wholly reasonable.” Id. at 14. She even goes so far as to claim

that “[t]he undisputed evidence shows that jailers’ actions evinced concern for

[Mr. Farhat’s] well-being as well as timely responses to his symptoms,” and that

Mr. Farhat “wholly failed to demonstrate that jailers deprived him of medical care

out of deliberate indifference.” Id. at 14-15. 

All of these assertions concern disputed issues of fact and disregard our

prior decision in the appeal involving Sheriff Bruner’s subordinate and

co-defendant, Mr. Young. In that case, we held “that there is a disputed fact issue

concerning Mr. Young’s subjective knowledge and related conduct. That is the

sort of unreviewable determination that falls outside the scope of the collateral

order doctrine.” Farhat, 343 F. App’x at 325. Sheriff Bruner also contends that

she did not have actual or constructive notice sufficient to satisfy the

deliberate-indifference standard for supervisory liability under § 1983. But this is

a fact question clothed as a legal argument. In short, because all of Sheriff

Bruner’s arguments are grounded in disputed facts, we lack jurisdiction to

consider them under the collateral order doctrine.

Finally, Sheriff Bruner contends that the district court erred in denying

summary judgment regarding punitive damages. The court’s denial of summary

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 7
-8-

judgment on this issue does not fall within the collateral order doctrine, so we

lack jurisdiction to review it. See Osage Tribal Council ex rel. Osage Tribe of

Indians v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 187 F.3d 1174, 1180 (10th Cir. 1999).

CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we DISMISS Sheriff Bruner’s interlocutory

appeal for lack of jurisdiction.

Entered for the Court

Timothy M. Tymkovich

Circuit Judge

Appellate Case: 09-6280 Document: 01018449100 Date Filed: 06/29/2010 Page: 8