Opinion ID: 4536379
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Cook

Text: Patrick Cook was the MDEQ Water Treatment Specialist. He signed the permit that was the last necessary approval for the (rushed) use of Flint River water and the FWTP. Id. at 47, ¶ 132 (Page ID #17850). Like other officials, he at first did nothing in response to the Del Toral Report. Id. at 87–88, ¶¶ 259–62 (Page ID #17890–91). Then, in April 2015, he admitted in an email to Del Toral that “Flint is currently not practicing corrosion control at the [F]WTP,” id. at 86–87, ¶ 257 (Page ID #17889–90), after Busch had lied and told the EPA that the City was using corrosion control, id. at 83, ¶ 246 (Page ID #17886). In the same email, however, Cook Nos. 19-1425/1472/1477/1533 Waid et al. v. Snyder et al. Page 30 “misled the EPA regarding the necessity of using corrosion control in Flint after the switch.” Id. at 83, ¶ 247 (Page ID #17886). Cook contends that the email itself renders Plaintiffs’ reading of it implausible. Reply Br. (19-1477) at 6–7. When a document attached to the complaint contradicts the allegations, the document trumps the allegations. Williams v. CitiMortgage, Inc., 498 F. App’x 532, 536 (6th Cir. 2012). For a document to contradict the complaint, it must “utterly discredit” the allegations. Cagayat v. United Collection Bureau, Inc., 952 F.3d 749, 755 (6th Cir. 2020) (quoting Bailey v. City of Ann Arbor, 860 F.3d 382, 386–87 (6th Cir. 2017)). The email at issue here does not utterly discredit Plaintiffs’ allegations. Though Cook admits at the start of the email that the City is not using corrosion control, he then states that there was and is no need to do so because the Flint River water’s testing results were within the regulatory limit of 15 ppb for lead. R. 735-3 (Cook Email at 2) (Page ID #20343) (“The first round of samples after switch-over from DWSD . . . had 90th percentiles of 6 ppb for Lead . . . . The highest lead result out of the 20 [samples] received [from the second round of testing] thus far is 13 ppb.”). Touting allegedly distorted water quality test results and false compliance plausibly was misleading. Therefore, the district court was right to credit Plaintiffs’ allegations. Cook’s alleged role in creating and covering up the crisis plausibly demonstrates deliberate indifference.8