Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02144/USCOURTS-ca8-04-02144-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 

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1

The Honorable E. Richard Webber, United States District Judge for the

Eastern District of Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-2144

___________

Marvin Lidell Lott, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Eastern District of Missouri.

Margaret Dicus; Judith Menz, * [UNPUBLISHED]

*

Appellees. *

___________

Submitted: October 7, 2004

Filed: October 14, 2004 

___________

Before WOLLMAN, McMILLIAN, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

___________

PER CURIAM.

Missouri inmate Marvin Lott appeals the district court’s1

 adverse grant of

summary judgment in his 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action. In this lawsuit, Lott sought

damages from Nurse Practitioners Margaret Dicus and Judith Menz for deliberate

indifference to his serious medical needs. He alleged that while he was in the

Mississippi County Jail in 2000, defendants ignored his reports that his symptoms--

severe headaches, draining and ringing ears, blurred vision, episodes of vision loss,

decreased hearing, head swelling, and pain-related vomiting--were from head trauma

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he had sustained during an earlier May 23, 2000 incident at the Scott County Jail, and

they refused to refer him for further testing or for a physician’s examination despite

diagnostic tests reflecting a need for such referrals.

In granting summary judgment to defendants, the district court concluded that

Lott’s lawsuit was barred by collateral estoppel, noting that the trial judge in a

previous lawsuit Lott filed against the Scott County Jail and personnel had

determined that Lott did not have a serious medical need as a result of injuries from

the May 2000 incident. 

We review de novo the conclusions of law, including the availability of

collateral estoppel, underlying a grant of summary judgment. See Liberty Mut. Ins.

Co. v. FAG Bearings Corp., 335 F.3d 752, 757 (8th Cir. 2003). We conclude that

even if the issue in the instant lawsuit was not identical to the issue in Lott’s previous

lawsuit, summary judgment was nonetheless properly granted. See King v. Fletcher,

319 F.3d 345, 347 (8th Cir. 2003) (summary judgment ruling may be affirmed on any

basis supported by record); see Canady v. Allstate Ins. Co., 282 F.3d 1005, 1016 &

n.7 (8th Cir. 2002) (elements of collateral estoppel under federal law). The record

before the district court showed that defendants did not ignore Lott’s symptoms, but

rather that they linked his symptoms to his uncontrolled hypertension and also

arranged for diagnostic tests to determine whether he had in fact sustained significant

head trauma. While Lott’s verified complaint allegations about repeatedly reporting

certain symptoms satisfy the affidavit requirements of Federal Rule of Civil

Procedure 56, see Hartsfield v. Colburn, 371 F.3d 454, 456 (8th Cir. 2004), the

essence of the instant lawsuit was Lott’s disagreement with the defendant nurse

practitioners’ diagnoses and treatment decisions, which is not a proper basis for a

section 1983 lawsuit. See Jolly v. Knudsen, 205 F.3d 1094, 1096 (8th Cir. 2000)

(prisoner must show more than even gross negligence, and mere disagreement with

treatment decisions does not rise to level of constitutional violation); cf. Dulany v.

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Carnahan, 132 F.3d 1234, 1239 (8th Cir. 1997) (prison doctors remain free to

exercise their independent medical judgment).

The judgment is affirmed. 

______________________________

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