Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_01-cv-01668/USCOURTS-caed-2_01-cv-01668-8/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 440
Nature of Suit: Other Civil Rights
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Civil Rights Act

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

VERDELLA SHAW, individually

and as a representative of the

ESTATE OF MAURICE SHAW,

No. 2:01-cv-1668-MCE-PAN

Plaintiff,

v. ORDER

SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, a

municipality; et al.,

Defendants.

----oo0oo----

This case proceeded to a jury trial on January 4, 2006. On

January 19, 2006, the jury reached a verdict in favor of

Plaintiff and against Defendants San Joaquin County, Baxter Dunn,

and Robert Hart, M.D. Compensatory damages in the amount of

$758,200 were awarded. Given the jury’s finding that Defendants

Dunn and Hart acted with deliberate indifference towards

Plaintiff’s decedent, Maurice Shaw, the jury reconvened on

February 21, 2006 to consider whether punitive damages should be

awarded against either Dunn or Hart. Following completion of the

punitive damages portion of the trial, the jury awarded Plaintiff

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an additional $100,000 as against Defendant Hart, only. All

Defendants now move for Judgment as a Matter of Law under Federal

Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b).

Rule 50(b), by its terms, allows a party, after trial, to

“renew” a motion for judgment as a matter of law “made at the

close of all the evidence.” A party cannot raise arguments in

its post-trial Rule 50(b) motion that it did not raise beforehand

in a Rule 50(a) motion offered during trial itself. See Freund

v. Nycomed Amersham, 347 F.3d 752, 761 (9th Cir. 2003). A Rule

50(a) motion tests the sufficiency of the evidence offered in

support of a party’s claims. Keenan v. Computer Assocs. Int’l,

13 F.3d 1266, 1268-69 (8th Cir. 1994). Judgment as a matter of

law is proper if that evidence, construed in the light most

favorable to the moving party, allows only one reasonable

conclusion. See Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242,

250-51, 255 (1986). A motion for judgment as a matter of law

should be granted only if the facts and inferences point so

strongly and overwhelmingly in favor of one party that a decision

in that party’s favor is mandated. See Seven-Up Co. v. Coca-Cola

Co., 86 F.3d 1379, 1387 (5th Cir. 1996).

As a preliminary matter, it must be noted that Plaintiff

disputes whether Defendants have even met the procedural

prerequisites for maintaining their Rule 50(b) motion. According

to Plaintiff, the Rule 50(a) motion made by defense counsel on

the record (at the close of all evidence in the compensatory

damages portion of the case) was not sufficiently specific to

preserve any subsequent right to renew a post-trial request for

judgment as a matter of law. Plaintiff points to the Reporter’s

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Partial Transcript for January 13, 2006 (Exhibit “B” to her

Opposition), which demonstrates that defense counsel simply made

a Rule 50(a) motion as to each count set forth in the Complaint. 

While he offered to provide further specifics in support of that

request, the Court did not permit further argument before

proceeding to deny the motion. It found that there was a legally

sufficient basis by which a reasonable jury could find in

Plaintiff’s favor on each of the claims asserted.

Defendants adequately preserved their right to a renewed

request for judgment as a matter of law at least with regard to

the compensatory damages portion of this case. With respect to

whether the initial Rule 50(a) motion provides adequate notice of

the specific contentions being made, rigid application of the

notice requirement has been deemed inappropriate. Courts have

instead looked to the context in which the pre-verdict motion was

made and the actual understanding of the parties involved in

determining whether the preliminary motion was adequate. See

Anderson v. United Tel. Co., 933 F.2d 1500, 1503-04 (10th Cir.

1991). Consequently the Court rejects Plaintiff’s argument that

the instant motion is procedurally barred.

Turning now to the merits, the instant Motion for Judgment

as a Matter of Law is substantially similar to Defendants’

concurrently pending Motion for New Trial. Both motions raise,

as a primary basis for granting relief, the argument that no

evidence was presented sufficient to impose liability on either

Defendant County of San Joaquin or the individual Defendants,

Baxter Dunn and Robert Hart, M.D. The Court summarily rejects

that argument, just as it rejected the analogous contention made

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in the Motion for New Trial. The evidence adduced at trial was

sufficient to impose liability on all the Defendants and that

evidence clearly did not point overwhelmingly to a verdict

contrary to that reached by the jury herein. 

The second argument posited by Defendants Dunn and Hart is

that both are entitled to qualified immunity, and that by virtue

of such immunity Plaintiff cannot state an actionable claim

against either Dunn or Hart. While Defendants argued in their

Motion for New Trial that a jury instruction should have been

provided to permit determination by the jury as to whether or not

qualified immunity should be extended, qualified immunity is

ordinarily a question of law for the court to decide. See Hunter

v. Bryant, 502 U.S. 224, 227 (1991). Where factual

determinations must be made as a prerequisite to assessing the

viability of a qualified immunity defense, however, the court may

be unable to decide the immunity question prior to the jury’s

determination as to the facts. See Idaho v. Horiuchi, 253 F.3d

359, 376 (9th Cir. 2001). Whether or not the judge or the jury

should ultimately determine qualified immunity once disputed

foundational facts have been decided by the jury is an issue as

yet unresolved by the Ninth Circuit. See Ninth Circuit Manual of

Model Civil Jury Instructions (2001), Comment to Instruction

11.3, citing Sloman v. Tadlock, 21 F.3d 1462, 1467-68 (9th Cir.

1994).

In this case, the propriety of qualified immunity could not

be established until after the jury characterized Defendants’

conduct vis-a-vis Maurice Shaw’s care. The jury specifically

found 1) that all Defendants were deliberately indifferent to Mr.

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Shaw’s rights by failing to provide him with needed medical care;

2) that all Defendants were also deliberately indifferent by

failing to protect Mr. Shaw; and 3) that deliberate indifference

on the part of all Defendants was further demonstrated by their

failure to properly train, supervise and/or discipline employees

at the San Joaquin County Jail at the time of Mr. Shaw’s

incarceration. (See Verdict, Question Nos. 3-5). Those findings

established the individual Defendants’ liability under 42 U.S.C.

§ 1983, since deliberate indifference on the part of individual

governmental defendants is a necessary prerequisite to such

liability. Estate of Novack v. County of Wood, 226 F.3d 525, 529

(7th Cir. 2000).

Determination of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment

constitutional issues applicable in a Section 1983 analysis like

this one may nonetheless not be dispositive as to whether

qualified immunity is applicable. In Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S.

194 (2001), the Supreme Court made it clear that qualified

immunity must be determined separately from the constitutional

issues presented. Even if county officials like Defendants Dunn

and Hart were deliberately indifferent for constitutional

purposes, whether or not they may have had a reasonable, albeit

mistaken, belief as to the propriety of their actions is the

cornerstone for adjudication of whether immunity should be

applied. Id. at 202, 205; see also Estate of Ford v. RamirezPalmer, 301 F.3d 1043, 1048-49 (9th Cir. 2002).

Before even reaching the question of whether the individual

Defendants’ conduct was reasonable, however, in order to

establish qualified immunity a clearly established

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constitutionally protected right must have been violated in the

first place. A right is “clearly established” when its contours

are “sufficiently clear that a reasonable official would

understand that what he is doing violates that right.” Brady v.

Gebbie, 859 F.2d 1545, 1556 (9th Cir. 1988), citing Anderson v.

Creighton, 483 U.S. 635, 640 (1987).

Under the Eighth Amendment’s bar against cruel and unusual

punishment, prisoners have long been deemed to possess a

constitutional right to medical care, and that right is violated

when prison doctors or officials are deliberately indifferent to

a prisoner’s serious medical needs. Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S.

97, 103-04 (1976); Carnell v. Grimm, 74 F.3d 977, 979 (9th Cir.

1996) (persons in custody have the established right to not have

officials remain deliberately indifferent to such needs). The

duty to provide medical care extends to inmates’ psychiatric

needs. Cabrales v. County of Los Angeles, 864 F.2d 1454, 1461

(9th Cir. 1988), vac’d, 490 U.S. 1087 (1989), opinion reinstated

886 F.2d 235 (9th Cir. 1989), cert. denied, 494 U.S. 1091 (1990). 

 In this case, the gravity of Maurice Shaw’s serious medical

and/or emotional needs cannot be disputed. In light of those

needs, a reasonable prison psychiatrist in Dr. Hart’s position or

prison administrator in Mr. Dunn’s position should have been well

aware of Shaw’s need for acute psychiatric care. Indeed, the

jury’s findings as to deliberate indifference underscore that

knowledge both as it affects Defendant’s duty to provide care for

and to protect Shaw while in custody. Even Defendants, in

arguing for the application of qualified immunity, focus not on

the clearly established nature of the constitutional violations

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at issue in this case, instead arguing that even in the face of

those rights immunity may still be available if reasonable

officials in Hart and Dunn’s positions may not have realized that

their acts or omissions actually violated Shaw’s constitutional

rights under the circumstances of this case.

Given the jury’s findings, the Court rejects Defendants’

contention that reasonable correctional officials could have

acted as Defendants Dunn and Hart did in this case. The jury’s

findings were made in the context of evidence suggesting that Mr.

Dunn and Dr. Hart were specifically made aware of serious

shortcomings at the San Joaquin County jail affecting the safety

and welfare of inmates with psychiatric issues like Mr. Shaw, and

the Court consequently finds that no reasonable official in the

position of either Defendant Dunn and Hart could have believed

that their actions in managing and/or overseeing inmate care

passed legal muster.

The final argument advanced in this motion concerns

Defendant Hart’s argument that the imposition of punitive damages

against him was improper as a matter of law. This contention

does raise the issue of whether Hart preserved his right to make

the present Rule 50(b) motion by making the foundational Rule

50(a) request before the trial’s actual conclusion. The only

Rule 50(a) motion identified by Defendants concerns the request

made, on January 17, 2006, at the close of all evidence in the

initial compensatory damages portion of the trial. (See

Defendant’s Opening Points and Authorities, 6:25-28). That

request, however, would not have preserved a Rule 50(b) request

pertaining to the second, punitive damages portion of the trial

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conducted on February 21, 2006. Defendants have produced no

evidence that a Rule 50(a) motion was offered during that stage

of the proceedings, as they must to now “renew” a motion with

respect to the propriety of punitive damages under Rule 50(b). 

Hence Defendant Hart is precluded from now raising at Rule 50(b)

with respect to the punitive damages assessed against him.

The result would be no different, however, upon

consideration of the Rule 50(b) request on its merits. The jury

had ample evidence from which it could have reasonably determined

that assessment of punitive damages against Defendant Hart was

warranted.

For all the reasons outlined above, Defendants’ Motion for

Judgment as a Matter of Law is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

DATED: May 18, 2006

_____________________________

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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