In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

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No. 04-3626

DELORES BRADICH, Administrator of

the Estate of Melvin Bradich,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

CITY OF CHICAGO, et al.,

Defendants-Appellees.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for

the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

No. 00 C 7998—Charles R. Norgle, Judge.

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ARGUED JUNE 7, 2005—DECIDED JULY 1, 2005

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Before EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judge. When police arrested

Melvin Bradich on October 23, 1999, he was drunk—fitting,

as the reason for his arrest was a warrant for driving while

intoxicated. He was no stranger to the lockup; this was his

twenty-fourth arrest. Police booked him and put him in a

cell at the stationhouse, pending his arraignment and

transfer to the county jail. At this point matters departed

from routine, because within 90 minutes Bradich had

hanged himself. Officers could not revive him, nor could an

emergency medical team dispatched by the fire department.
2 No. 04-3626

Delores Bradich, his mother and the administrator of his

estate, contends that the arresting officers, the lockup

keepers, and the City of Chicago all violated his constitutional rights by failing to protect him from the risk of

suicide and react properly once they discovered the hanging. The district court granted summary judgment in

defendants’ favor, ruling that the Estate has not established

that any of them had exhibited deliberate indifference to

Bradich’s mental-health needs before the hanging or his

parlous condition afterward. 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2478

(N.D. Ill. Feb. 17, 2004).

Many of the Estate’s claims can be dispatched swiftly.

The arresting officers did not violate any of Bradich’s rights

by taking him into custody on an outstanding warrant and

handing him over at the lockup for detention. The lockup

keepers did not display deliberate indifference to a substantial risk of suicide by putting Bradich in a regular cell, and

allowing him to keep his civilian clothes, rather than

placing him on suicide watch or sending him to a hospital

until he sobered up. (On the constitutional deliberate indifference standard for pretrial detainees’ medical needs,

see Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535 n.16 (1979); Matos v.

O’Sullivan, 335 F.3d 553, 556-57 (7th Cir. 2003).) Bradich

had been arrested many times before yet never attempted

to injure himself, and he did not have a mental-health

history implying any disposition toward suicide. That the

lockup had experienced two (unsuccessful) suicide attempts

by other prisoners during the preceding month does not

imply that Bradich posed any elevated risk of suicide.

The Estate contends that intoxication substantially increases the suicide risk but offers no medical or psychiatric

evidence to support that proposition. Bradich may have

taken barbiturates as well as alcohol (he had some tablets

in his pocket when arrested, though no drugs other than

alcohol were detected in his blood after his death), but

again the Estate does not offer data or expert testimony
No. 04-3626 3

suggesting that the combination predisposes to suicide, let

alone that the lockup keepers knew of this enhanced risk.

We canvassed some of the data in Jutzi-Johnson v.

United States, 263 F.3d 753 (7th Cir. 2001), and need not

repeat what was said there. This is a weaker case (with

respect to the events that preceded the hanging) than was

Jutzi-Johnson, where we held even a negligence standard

had not been met.

As for Chicago: municipalities are not vicariously liable

under 42 U.S.C. §1983 for their employees’ errors. See

Monell v. New York City Department of Social Services, 436

U.S. 658 (1978). They are liable only for their own policies.

The record in this case shows that some of these policies

were not followed—for example, the City’s rules called for

close monitoring of the cells (intoxicated prisoners must be

checked in person or by closed-circuit video every 15

minutes), and the lockup keepers did not follow this rule.

The record suggests that they were playing cards and

watching television instead of watching the monitors that

displayed what the prisoners were doing. None of Chicago’s

policies is constitutionally inadequate; indeed, the Estate

does not take issue with any of them. Its argument, rather,

is that Chicago did not ensure that all of its employees

followed all of its policies all of the time. That theory of

liability is incompatible with Monell.

The Estate does not argue that the City systematically

fails to enforce its written policies and instead maintains

informal policies that violate the Constitution. The record

does not contain data implying that the suicide rate in

Chicago’s lockups is abnormally high. The Estate concentrates on the facts of this case, and the employment history

of the lockup keepers on duty, rather than anything from

which an informal policy of general applicability could be

inferred. That one lockup keeper was not retrained according to the City’s policies is a shortcoming in the enforce-
4 No. 04-3626

ment of sound policies, not an independent violation of the

Constitution. See Collins v. Harker Heights, 503 U.S. 115,

122-24 (1992).

What happened after the hanging, however, has more potential to produce liability. Officers Hilbring, Simmons, and

Walker were on duty in the stationhouse. Simmons and

Walker testified by deposition that they noticed Bradich

hanging about 6:15 p.m. and ran to his cell. According to

their depositions, Bradich appeared to be alive. They had

trouble opening the cell door because of the way Bradich had

tied the ligature. Simmons obtained a knife from the

kitchen, and the officers used this to free Bradich from the

ligature and open the cell door. Simmons and Walker were

joined by Captain Hilbring, the watch commander, who had

come down from the second floor in response to the commotion. Simmons shouted at, slapped, and shook Bradich in an

attempt to restart his breathing. (Of the three, only Hilbring

has training in cardio-pulmonary resuscitation, and Hilbring

did not use his knowledge; shouting, slapping, and shaking

are not CPR techniques.) Only after these efforts failed did

Walker call for medical personnel. The ambulance was

dispatched at 6:25 P.M., implying that the trio at the lockup

had waited ten minutes to summon assistance. By the time

paramedics reached his cell at 6:34 P.M., Bradich was dead.

These times could be inaccurate. But on summary judgment, when the non-moving party receives the benefit of all

reasonable inferences, see Hunt v. Cromartie, 526 U.S. 541

(1999), we must assume that the officers took ten minutes

to seek help—and that they wasted much of that interval.

Defendants describe themselves as frantically trying to

save Bradich during those ten minutes, and this is why the

district judge concluded that deliberate indifference had not

been established. Maybe it was negligent of officers who did

not know (or did not use) CPR techniques to make a rescue

attempt, the district judge thought, but the officers were
No. 04-3626 5

doing their best. The problem with this view is that it draws

inferences in the officers’ favor rather than the Estate’s.

Why did it take all three officers to provide unhelpful assistance? Two might have done what they could, while the

third phoned for help (which would take only a minute) and

then rejoined the others. Why did two officers who lacked

CPR training think that they should shout at a hanging

prisoner rather than call for help? Why did the officer with

CPR training not use his skills? The Estate’s preferred

answer is that the three officers are dissembling about their

activities during the critical ten minutes. As the Estate sees

things, delay in calling for outside assistance was a deliberate choice, not a side effect of devoted rescue attempts.

The Estate believes that the three officers spent most of

the ten minutes altering their log books and tidying the cell

to disguise their violations of required procedures. Medical

personnel found Bradich wearing a T-shirt that the lockup

keepers said had been the ligature; this was unusual, to say

the least. Perhaps, the Estate suggests, the officers disposed

of the actual ligature and other items to hide the fact that

they had allowed Bradich too much clothing and other

forbidden things in his cell. In this court, defendants say

that Bradich had at least three T-shirts, two of which he

used to make the ligature; but why was all this clothing in

his possession? Some changes were made in the log books

during the ten minutes; defendants concede that they noted

the suicide attempt in their logs, and if they took the time to

do that (itself a violation of regulations) maybe they erased

or rearranged other entries to cover the traces of improper

conduct following Bradich’s arrest. Protecting one’s employment interests while an inmate chokes to death would

exemplify deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.

See Tlamka v. Serrell, 244 F.3d 628 (8th Cir. 2001); Ellis v.

Washington County, 198 F.3d 225 (6th Cir. 1999). That

failing would lead to liability if an earlier call for help could

have saved Bradich’s life, a question on which the evidence
6 No. 04-3626

is skimpy. And if the Estate is right about what happened

during the ten minutes, the lockup keepers are not entitled

to qualified immunity: no reasonable officer could think that

the Constitution allowed him to cover up his own misconduct at the expense of a prisoner’s life.

Further proceedings may vindicate the lockup keepers’

position that the delay was much less than ten minutes

and that they provided well-meaning, if inept, care in the

interim, but matters are too uncertain to allow summary

judgment. The judgment of the district court with respect to

Hilbring, Simmons, and Walker is vacated, and the case is

remanded for trial. With respect to all other defendants the

judgment is affirmed.

A true Copy:

Teste: 

 ________________________________

Clerk of the United States Court of

Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 

USCA-02-C-0072—7-1-05