Opinion ID: 2828807
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Practical Problems

Text: The majority points out correctly that prisoners must depend entirely on the government for their health care. If they turn to the federal courts for help, the combination of the constitutional standard under the Eighth Amendment, deliberate indifference to a serious health need, and the system of personal liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 can make it very difficult for a prisoner to hold anyone accountable for serious wrongs. See, e.g., Shields v. Illinois Dep’t of Corrections, 746 F.3d 782 (7th Cir. 2014). When a prisoner brings a pro se suit about medical care, the adversary process that is the foundation of our judicial system is at its least reliable. Few prisoners have access to lawyers or to expert witnesses needed to address medical issues. These conditions pose important challenges to federal courts doing their best to decide these cases fairly. Yet the majority’s solution—to research available medical information on its own and find a genuine issue of material fact 40 No. 14-3316 on that basis—raises problems much more serious than a possible error in the resolution of one prisoner’s case. The majority’s approach turns the court from a neutral decision-maker into an advocate for one side. The majority also offers no meaningful guidance as to how it expects other judges to carry out such factual research and what stand- ards should apply when they do so. Under the majority’s approach, the factual record will never be truly closed. This invites endless expansion of the record and repetition in litigation as parties contend and decide that more and more information should have been considered. In addition to the abandonment of neutrality, consider the problems from the district judge’s point of view. The ma- jority clearly implies, while denying it is doing so, that the district judge herself should have done the independent fac- tual research the majority has done on appeal, questioning an unchallenged expert affidavit by looking to websites of the drug manufacturer, the Mayo Clinic, the Physician’s Desk Reference, and Healthline. The practical questions are obvious: When are district judges supposed to carry out this independent factual re- search? How much is enough? What standards of reliability should apply to the results? How does the majority’s new category of evidence fit in with a district judge’s gate- keeping responsibilities under Rule 702 and Daubert? The majority offers no answers. The majority essentially orders the district judge on re- mand to find an expert witness on the medical issues, either for plaintiff or as a neutral expert under Rule 706. That might well be helpful, but as the majority concedes, district No. 14-3316 41 courts do not have budgets for that purpose. Even if a few experts might be willing to volunteer in unusual cases, the demand of prisoners for free medical or other expert witnesses will far exceed the supply, especially in the rural areas where so many prisons are located and smaller towns where the nearest district courts are located. The majority’s solution for this problem is to have the district court use Federal Rule of Evidence 706 to order defendants, and only the defendants, to pay for an expert witness for the plaintiff or the court. See ante at 19–20. That approach is not foreclosed by the language of Rule 706, and there is some case law supporting it. See Ledford v. Sullivan, 105 F.3d 354, 360–61 (7th Cir. 1997). Nevertheless, the majority’s reliance on this solution in this ordinary case further threatens the neutrality of the courts. It is worth recalling that damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 must be sought from state employees only in their individual capacities. Will v. Michigan Dep’t of State Police, 491 U.S. 58 (1989). Indemnification by their employer is a matter of state law and policy, and sometimes grace. See Ind. Code § 34-13-4-1; Estate of Moreland v. Dieter, 576 F.3d 691, 694–96 (7th Cir. 2009). Is it fair to impose on individual guards, prison administrators, staff, nurses, and doctors the cost of finding evidence to build a case against them? At the very least, such one-sided burdens should be imposed only in extraordinary cases.2 2 I share the concerns expressed by the district court in Martin v. Cohn, 1999 WL 325054, at  (N.D. Ind. April 5, 1999), about the fundamental fairness of imposing this financial burden on one side solely because the opposing party is indigent. The defendants will end up having to foot the bill for the expert even if they win the case. One partial but creative solution to this problem can be found in Goodvine v. Ankarlo, 42 No. 14-3316 Further, if the case goes to trial, how is the district judge supposed to present to a jury the information the majority has found? My colleagues and I agree it is not suitable for judicial notice because it is not indisputable, as required under Rule 201(b). Without an expert witness qualified to present the facts and opinions the majority finds persuasive, that information does not come into evidence. On appeal would the majority’s approach lead us to remand for a new trial with instructions to look harder for the right evidence? Or what should we do if the district judge did not find or rely on the information that our research turns up? As long as the factual record remains open for judicial supplements, parties will try to use the quest for the perfect record to keep any loss in litigation from being final. Then consider the problems parties and their lawyers will face. If we permit such independent factual research by district judges—even expect such research from them— parties will need to plan for it. Responding to the evidence actually offered by the other side is often the biggest challenge and expense in a lawsuit. Now parties need to anticipate the evidence the judge might turn up on her own and prepare to meet it. The time and expense devoted to such preventive measures will be substantial and should be unnecessary. And if the district judge does her own research and gives the parties an opportunity to respond to it, the majority’s approach here is an open invitation for parties to add to the record on appeal. The parties will also need to anticipate on appeal that our court will undertake its own factual 2013 WL 1192397, at  (W.D. Wis. March 22, 2013) (providing for longterm assessments of plaintiff’s prison trust account to pay for courtappointed expert if plaintiff did not prevail). No. 14-3316 43 research, opening up opportunities to save any losing case by offering new evidence on appeal.3 From the larger perspective of our judicial system, the independent factual research the majority endorses and even requires here is not something that federal courts can carry out reliably on a large scale. History is probably the academic field closest to the practice of law and judging. Yet historians regularly scoff at the phenomenon called “law-office history.” See Velasquez v. Frapwell, 160 F.3d 389, 393 (7th Cir. 1998) (Posner, J.) (“[J]udges do not have either the leisure or the training to conduct responsible historical research or competently umpire historical controversies. The term ‘law-office history’ is properly derisory and the derision embraces the efforts of judges and law professors, as well as of legal advo- cates, to play historian.    Judges don’t try to decide con- tested issues of science without the aid of expert testimony, and we fool ourselves if we think we can unaided resolve issues of historical truth.”), vacated in part, 165 F.3d 593 (7th Cir. 1999). Law-office or judicial-chambers medicine is surely an even less reliable venture. The internet is an extraordinary resource, but it cannot turn judges into competent substi- tutes for experts or scholars such as historians, engineers, 3 If parties on appeal try to supplement the record as the majority does here, they are rebuked and may even be sanctioned. E.g., Hart v. Sheahan, 396 F.3d 887, 894–95 (7th Cir. 2005) (stating general rule but finding no violation because appeal was from dismissal on pleadings); Holmberg v. Baxter Healthcare Corp., 901 F.2d 1387, 1392 n.4 (7th Cir. 1990) (striking portions of appellee’s brief). Under the majority’s approach, we could not take such steps in response to parties’ invitations to our court to repeat what the majority does here. 44 No. 14-3316 chemists, psychologists, or physicians. The majority’s instruction to the contrary will cause problems in our judicial system more serious than those it is trying to solve in this case.