United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 00-3595

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Joyce Hott, as Trustee of the Estate of *

Decedent Philip E. Hott, for herself *

individually, and for all heirs, *

*

Appellant, * Appeal from the United States

* District Court for the

v. * District of Minnesota.

*

Hennepin County, Minnesota; David *

Fahland; Gerhard Rieder; Does, I-X, *

*

Appellees. *

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Submitted: June 14, 2001

Filed: August 14, 2001

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Before WOLLMAN, Chief Judge, HEANEY, and MURPHY, Circuit Judges.

___________

WOLLMAN, Chief Judge.

Joyce Hott, plaintiff, appeals from the district court’s adverse grant of summary

judgment in her suit for damages stemming from the suicide of her son during his pretrial detention at the Hennepin County Adult Detention Center (ADC). We affirm in

part and reverse and remand in part.
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I.

The body of Philip Edward Hott (Hott) was discovered by a deputy in his cell

at the ADC shortly after 5:30 a.m. on January 21, 1996. Hott had constructed a noose

from torn bed sheets and hanged himself from the guard rail on the unoccupied top

bunk. A second broken bed-sheet noose was found in the toilet in his cell. At the time

of the suicide, Hott was eighteen years old and had been detained in the ADC for

approximately forty-five days while awaiting trial on charges stemming from a theft.

During the ADC’s routine intake procedures on December 6, 1995, a deputy

screened Hott for medical and psychiatric problems. The screening form indicates that

Hott denied having suicidal inclinations or indicators, but complained of back and neck

pain from a recent car accident. The injuries were treated with Advil and Tylenol

throughout his detention. Because of his slight build--he stood five feet eleven inches

and weighed one hundred twenty pounds--Hott indicated on intake that he had been

bullied by other inmates in the past, and he was thus classified as vulnerable. Because

of this classification, Hott was housed without a cellmate in the special needs portion

of the ADC. 

An ADC nurse conducted a detailed health assessment on December 28, 1995.

The assessment, which relied entirely on Hott’s self-reporting and the nurse’s

immediate observations, once again did not indicate that Hott had an increased risk for

suicide. In fact, two years earlier, medical personnel at a county hospital had

documented that Hott had attempted suicide and was at an increased risk for

subsequent attempts, and that he suffered from hypomania and bipolar personality

disorder. Hott did not advise the ADC about the existence of the medical records or

authorize ADC personnel to obtain any of his medical records, and the ADC did not

attempt to determine whether any county facility was in possession of any of Hott’s

medical records. 
1The hand-written notation is subject to differing interpretations. As did the

district court, we read it for the purposes of ruling on the summary judgment motion as

saying “05:48.”

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Hott did little to attract attention to himself during his stay at the ADC.

According to the affidavit of a former inmate, Hott occasionally discussed suicide with

other inmates and from time to time circled his hands around his neck at such length

and with sufficient force so as to leave red marks, this not only in his cell but also in

the presence of the guards. In the week preceding his death, additional criminal

charges were filed against Hott. On January 20, Hott played cards and talked with

other prisoners during the day. Around 10:30 p.m., he obtained special permission to

telephone his girlfriend, Christine Dick, and check on the health of their infant son, who

was suffering from an ear infection. Around 11:15 p.m., other inmates observed Hott

moving around in his cell, possibly doing push-ups. 

Deputy Gerhard Rieder was responsible for the special needs section of the ADC

that night, and his log reflects that he complied with the ADC policy of conducting

checks on the inmates at approximately half-hour intervals. The last check is logged

at 5:48 a.m. and states that “all appears ok.”1 Viewed in the light most favorable to the

plaintiff, the evidence reveals that at 5:37 a.m. Rieder turned on the lights, discovered

Hott’s body, sounded an alarm, and summoned assistance.

The medical examiner concluded that Hott had likely been dead for a period of

hours before his body was discovered. Accordingly, Hott was lying dead in a seated

position at the foot of his bed during a period when Rieder repeatedly noted in the

ADC’s logs that he had performed health and well-being checks and seen nothing

amiss. Notwithstanding Rieder’s notations in the logs, several ADC inmates maintain

that the checks were not regularly conducted. 
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Plaintiff, as trustee of Hott’s estate, brought an action against Hennepin County,

Rieder, and Rieder’s supervisor David Fahland (collectively, the defendants). She

asserted claims of negligence under Minnesota state law and for violations of Hott’s

Fourteenth and Eighth Amendment rights. The district court granted summary

judgment in favor of the defendants on all of the claims.

II.

On appeal, the plaintiff raises three arguments. First, she argues that Hennepin

County violated Hott’s constitutional rights when it failed to ascertain that Hott posed

an increased risk of suicide. Second, she contends that Rieder’s failure to conduct

required cell checks intervals amounted to deliberate indifference in violation of Hott’s

rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Third, she argues that the defendants are

liable under Minnesota tort law for negligent failure to protect the safety of its inmates.

We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standard

as the district court: whether the record, viewed in a light most favorable to the

non-moving party, demonstrates that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that

the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Rabushka v. Crane Co.,

122 F.3d 559, 562 (8th Cir. 1997). In this case, the plaintiff, as the non-moving party,

is entitled to the benefit of all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the record.

See Vette Co. v. Aetna Casualty & Surety Co., 612 F.2d 1076, 1077 (8th Cir. 1980).

A. Section 1983 Claims

A claim under § 1983 must allege that conduct of a defendant acting under color

of state law deprived a plaintiff of a right, privilege, or immunity secured by the

constitution or the laws of the United States. Morton v. Becker, 793 F.2d 185, 187

(8thCir. 1986). The plaintiff’s complaint asserted constitutional claims for deprivation

of Hott’s rights under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments based both on the ADC’s
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failure to ascertain that Hott posed an increased suicide risk and on Rieder’s failure to

perform checks at staggered thirty-minute intervals as required by ADC policy. 

Hott’s status as a pre-trial detainee placed him outside the protections of the

Eighth Amendment proscription against cruel and unusual punishment, which applies

only to convicted prisoners. Bell v. Stigers, 937 F.2d 1340, 1342 n.4 (8th Cir. 1991).

The Fourteenth Amendment guarantees pre-trial detainees at least as many protections

as does the Eighth Amendment, however, and extends to them as well protection from

deprivations that are intended to punish. Id. (citing Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 545

(1979)). 

1. The ADC’s Failure to Identify Hott as a Suicide Risk

We have generally treated allegations that officials failed to prevent jail suicides

as claims for failure to provide adequate medical treatment. See, e.g., Williams v.

Kelso, 201 F.3d 1060, 1065 (8th Cir. 2000) (affirming summary judgment because

plaintiff failed to show that prison officials deliberately disregarded serious medical

needs of which they were aware); Liebe v. Norton, 157 F.3d 574, 577 (8th Cir. 1998)

(“[O]nce one is classified as a suicide risk, the right to be protected from that risk

would seem to fall under the ambit of the right to have medical needs addressed.”);

Stigers, 937 F.2d at 1343 (inmate suicides analyzed as the jailer’s failure to provide

appropriate medical care). In such cases, the burden is on the plaintiff to show that (1)

he suffered from a serious medical need and (2) the prison officials actually knew of

his need, but deliberately failed to meet it. Williams, 201 F.3d at 1064. The

inadequate medical care analysis focuses on the particular risk of suicide posed by the

specific prisoner, rather than on the generalized threat of suicide among the population

of prisoners as a whole. See, e.g., id. at 1064-66.

The plaintiff contends that the ADC violated Hott’s Eighth Amendment rights

when it failed to identify him as being at an increased suicide risk. She argues that
2The plaintiff further argues that a nearly-illegible scrawl on Hott’s intake form

reads “get records,” indicating that his medical records were to be obtained from the

county facility. We have reviewed the form, and we agree with the district court’s view

that the scrawl is not susceptible to this reading or to any other that advances the

plaintiff’s cause.

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because medical records reflecting Hott’s suicidal tendencies were in the possession

of a county facility, the ADC denied Hott access to necessary medical care by not

obtaining the records and classifying him accordingly.2 She contends that the ADC

had an obligation to investigate Hott’s mental condition because of his habit of making

strangling gestures. Further, she contends that the additional charges brought against

him just before his suicide, his request for a late-night phone call to Christine Dick, and

his “glum” demeanor on the night of his suicide should have put the prison on notice

that Hott was at an increased risk for suicide. 

The district court rejected this argument, and we have little to add to its analysis.

The plaintiff has offered no authority for the proposition that prisons have a

constitutional duty to obtain personal medical records from outside the prison. Nor do

we find persuasive plaintiff’s argument that a county jail has an Eighth Amendment

obligation to obtain medical records from any county hospital in which its inmates have

received past medical treatment. Assuming, for summary judgment purposes, that Hott

was placing his hands around his neck as an allusion to hanging himself rather than

because he was experiencing continuing neck pain from his auto accident, there is no

evidence that any ADC personnel interpreted his gestures as a suicide threat. Hott’s

request for a late-night phone call was reasonably explained as a desire to check on the

health of his infant son. Even if Hott was visibly “glum,” we agree with the district

court that something more than an inmate’s gloomy affect is required to trigger a duty

to inquire whether he is feeling suicidal. In short, there is no evidence to indicate that

the ADC or its employees had actual knowledge that Hott posed a serious risk of harm

to himself. In the absence of such evidence, the plaintiff cannot show that ADC
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personnel were subjectively deliberately indifferent to his need for medical care. See

Stigers, 937 F.2d at 1344-45.

2. Deputy Rieder’s Failure to Conduct Cell Checks

In addition to requiring that prisoners’ specific medical problems be treated, the

Eighth Amendment also imposes upon jailors an obligation to protect inmates from

more generalized harms such as assault by other inmates. See, e.g., Doe v. Washington

County, 150 F.3d 920, 922-23 (8th Cir. 1998) (county liable for failure to prevent

inmate attack); Jensen v. Clarke, 73 F.3d 808, 810 (8th Cir. 1996) (county could be

liable on basis of double-celling policies if they posed substantial risk of serious harm).

In order to make out a § 1983 claim based on that obligation, the plaintiff must prove

that the ADC or its officials were deliberately indifferent to a substantial risk of serious

harm. Washington County, 150 F.3d at 923. Unlike inadequate medical care claims,

for the purposes of failure to protect claims, “‘it does not matter . . . whether a prisoner

faces an excessive risk of attack for reasons personal to him or because all prisoners

in his situation face such a risk.’” Id. (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 843

(1994)).

The plaintiff contends that Rieder’s failure to conduct cell checks approximately

every half hour constituted deliberate indifference to Hott’s safety. To the extent that

this claim asserts that Rieder ought to have been aware that Hott faced a particularized

increased risk of suicide, it fails for the same reasons that the inadequate medical care

claims against the ADC fail, for there is no evidence that any ADC employee was

aware of the existence of such a risk. We must also consider, however, whether the

plaintiff has produced evidence sufficient to allow her to proceed on the theory that

Rieder’s conduct amounted to deliberate indifference to the safety of the inmates in the

special needs cell block in general, including the risk of suicide.
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In support of her complaint, the plaintiff submitted the statement of an expert on

jail policies. In response, the defendants submitted copies of the ADC’s training

materials, which indicate that prisoner suicide is a pervasive problem, that prisoners are

at a greater risk of suicide than is the general population, and that ADC employees are

advised of the risk of inmate suicide. The record also reflects that placing an inmate

into a cell alone increases the likelihood of suicide. The ADC concedes that its policy

requires that inmates in the special needs section of the prison be checked on more

frequently than are other inmates. “Health and well-being checks” are to be conducted

at approximately half-hour intervals. The time intervals between checks are to be

varied, and guards are to back-track frequently in order to prevent inmates from timing

their activities to avoid the checks. (The ADC also has a special area for inmates

known to be suicidal, who are checked every fifteen minutes.) The ADC’s policies and

training materials, then, reflect its concern over the possibility of inmate suicide. Given

these facts, we believe that a jury could reasonably draw an inference that Rieder was

aware that among the purposes of the health and well-being checks were the goals of

preventing, interrupting, or rescuing inmates from suicide attempts.

Summary judgment was therefore inappropriate if that inference would be

sufficient to support a conclusion that Rieder was deliberately indifferent to a

substantial risk to the safety of the inmates in the special needs section of the ADC.

See Washington County, 150 F.3d at 923. Whether conduct constitutes deliberate

indifference is a subjective, rather than an objective, determination. Farmer, 511 U.S.

at 837 (“the official must both be aware of facts from which the inference could be

drawn that a substantial risk of serious harm exists, and he must also draw the

inference”). Thus, “it remains open to the officials to prove that they were unaware of

even of an obvious risk to inmate health or safety. That a trier of fact may infer

knowledge from the obvious, in other words, does not mean that it must do so.” Id. at

844. Moreover, once a substantial risk to inmate health or safety has been identified,

a prison official is not liable for resultant inmate harm under § 1983 unless he failed to

respond reasonably to the harm, because the Eighth Amendment only requires the
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official to ensure inmates’ reasonable safety. Id. at 844-45. “Whether one puts in it

terms of duty or deliberate indifference, prison officials who act reasonably cannot be

found liable under the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause.” Id. at 845.

That the harm of suicide is a serious one is a foregone conclusion; the question

then is whether the general risk of suicide among inmates who are not known to be

predisposed to suicide is substantial. In support of her argument that it is, the plaintiff

cites Judge Goldberg’s concurring opinion in a prison suicide case: 

Jailers and municipalities beware! Suicide is a real threat in the custodial

environment. Showing some concern for those in custody, by taking

limited steps to protect them, will not pass muster unless the strides taken

to deal with the risk are calculated to work: Employing only meager

measures that jailers and municipalities know or should know to be

ineffectual amounts to deliberate indifference.

Rhyne v. Henderson County, 973 F.2d 386, 396 (5th Cir. 1992) (Goldberg, J.,

concurring; internal quotations omitted). Further, the plaintiff points to her expert’s

opinion that inmates are at a “high risk” of suicide and to ADC training materials,

which state that “[i]nmate suicide is one of the most serious problems facing

correctional facilities.” 

We conclude that the evidence adduced by the plaintiff is insufficient to support

an inference that suicide amounts to such a substantial risk to general inmate safety that

Rieder’s failure to conduct checks according to ADC policy amounted to deliberate

indifference to Hott’s needs. See Jensen, 73 F.3d at 811 (no liability unless evidence

supports finding that prison officials were subjectively aware of a substantial risk to

inmate safety due to prison violence and double-celling). The only information that

quantifies the actual risk of suicide is defendant Fahland’s statement that within the

fifteen years leading up to Hott’s death, only one other inmate at the ADC had

committed suicide. An ADC nurse testified that there were approximately two suicide
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attempts per year. The record reflects that the ADC booked nearly 45,000 individuals

in 1996. However tragic Hott’s self-inflicted death, the record does not support a

finding that Rieder’s conduct violated Hott’s constitutional rights. Accordingly, we

affirm the grant of summary judgment on the § 1983 claim against Rieder.

B. The State Law Negligence Claim

In addition to the § 1983 claims, the plaintiff also asserted claims for negligence

under Minnesota state law based on Rieder’s alleged failure to conduct cell checks as

required by ADC policy. The district court characterized its decision to grant summary

judgment on the negligence claims as presenting “a much closer question” than did the

§ 1983 claims. The court began its analysis with a determination that the plaintiff had

raised a fact issue as to whether Deputy Rieder had breached a generalized duty to

conduct inmate well-being checks in order to reduce the risk of suicide:

Fact issues exist as to whether Rieder conducted any of the requierd

health and welfare checks in Hott’s cell block on the night of his death,

and if he did so, whether he conducted those checks properly.

Moreoever, the ADC’s policies, the statements of plaintiff’s expert, and

other documents support a finding that it is standard practice in the

corrections industry to conduct health and welfare checks for the purpose

of addressing aggressive behaviors, detecting suicidal conduct, and

otherwise assessing the needs of inmate populations. 

The court concluded that, although the facts of the case did not support a conclusion

that the ADC was negligent in failing to identify Hott as a suicide risk, “a more general

duty to protect the entire inmate population from the risk of assault, suicide, or other

injury appears to exist. It is this general duty that Rieder may have breached by failing

to conduct the health and welfare checks required under ADC policy.”
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Nevertheless, the court granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants

because it determined that the plaintiff had failed to make a showing that any failure to

conduct checks on Rieder’s part was the proximate cause of Hott’s suicide.

The medical examiner who investigated Hott’s death stated unequivocally

that he died within a period of approximately five minutes of hanging

himself . . . . 

The Court agrees that a possibility exists that, had Rieder

conducted appropriate health and welfare checks, he would have

discovered Hott’s suicide attempt in time to prevent his death.

Nevertheless, given the medical examiner’s findings, the evidence does

not support a reasonable conclusion that it is more likely than not that this

would have occurred. Rather, Rieder’s possible role in furthering Hott’s

suicide attempt is too speculative to permit this claim to go forward.

With all due respect, we disagree with the court’s conclusion. Under Minnesota

law, the plaintiff’s evidentiary burden on the issue of proximate cause in an action for

negligence is to show that it is more likely than not that an act or omission was a

substantial factor in bringing about the result. See Rullman v. Fisher, 371 N.W.2d 588,

590 (Minn. Ct. App. 1985). In Minnesota, a jailer has a duty to prevent inmate suicide.

Sandborg v. Blue Earth County, 615 N.W.2d 61, 64 (Minn. 2000). Thus, in this case,

the plaintiff is entitled to proceed at trial if her evidence is sufficient to support a jury

finding that Rieder’s breach of that duty was a proximate cause of Hott’s death.

Although the record contains no evidence of the length of time Hott required to

prepare for and carry out his act of self-destruction, we do not believe that a jury would

be reduced to mere speculation as to whether Hott’s activities (1) took longer than

thirty minutes, (2) could have been hidden from Rieder’s view even if he had been

doing the checks, and (3) might not have been abandoned entirely if Hott had been

aware that checks were being conducted according to ADC policy. The plaintiff’s

expert, and the defendants themselves, submitted evidence to the effect that staggered-
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time checks are an effective means of both detecting and deterring inmate suicide

attempts. That being the case, the defendants will not now be heard to argue, as they

do, that as a matter of law the policy they adopted to prevent inmate suicides would

more likely than not have failed to prevent Hott’s suicide even if that policy been

properly followed during the early morning hours of January 21, 1996. A jury may

ultimately conclude that the evidentiary burden on causation has not been met, but the

record is not so entirely one-sided as to require that the claim be determined against the

plaintiff as a matter of law.

The record does not, however, contain any evidence to suggest that any

negligence on Rieder’s part was due to Hennepin County’s failure to train or supervise

him. If anything, the low incidence of inmate suicide at the ADC suggests quite the

opposite conclusion, for it implies that ADC’s policies and procedures are, on the

whole, quite successful in preventing inmate suicide. Accordingly, we affirm the

judgment of the district court with respect to the negligence claim against Hennepin

County, but reverse and remand the case to the district court with respect to the

negligence claim against Rieder. 

The judgment is affirmed as to defendants Hennepin County and David Fahland

and as to the § 1983 claim against Rieder. With respect to the state law negligence

claim against Rieder, the judgment is reversed and the case is remanded to the district

court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

A true copy.

Attest:

CLERK, U.S. COURT OF APPEALS, EIGHTH CIRCUIT.