Opinion ID: 2821159
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Episodic Acts vs. Conditions of Confinement

Text: The parties dispute whether Plaintiffs challenge a condition of Henson’s confinement or an episodic act or omission by one or more state officials. This distinction was developed by our en banc court in Hare v. City of Corinth, Mississippi, 74 F.3d at 644-45. See also Nerren v. Livingston Police Dept., 86 F.3d 469, 473 n.25 (5th Cir. 1996) (describing Hare as “a single opinion that clearly and concisely articulates and unifies our court’s case law in this area”). In this circuit, post-Hare, “[c]onstitutional challenges by pretrial detainees may be brought under two alternative theories: as an attack on a ‘condition of confinement’ or as an ‘episodic act or omission.’” Shepherd v. Dallas Cnty., 591 F.3d 445, 452 (5th Cir. 2009) (citing Hare, 74 F.3d at 644-45). A challenge to a condition of confinement is a challenge to “general conditions, practices, rules, or restrictions of pretrial confinement.” Hare, 74 6 Case: 14-10126 Document: 00513132667 Page: 7 Date Filed: 07/28/2015 No. 14-10126 F.3d at 644. These conditions, practices, rules, and restrictions can be explicit, such as “the number of bunks per cell, mail privileges, disciplinary segregation, etc.” Shepherd, 591 F.3d at 452. Or, “[i]n some cases, a condition may reflect an unstated or de facto policy, as evidenced by a pattern of acts or omissions ‘sufficiently extended or pervasive, or otherwise typical of extended or pervasive misconduct by [jail] officials, to prove an intended condition or practice.’” Id. (alteration in original) (quoting Hare, 74 F.3d at 645). When a plaintiff is challenging a condition of confinement, this court applies the test established by the Supreme Court in Bell v. Wolfish, and asks whether the condition is “reasonably related to a legitimate governmental objective.” See Hare, 74 F.3d at 646; Bell, 441 U.S. at 539. “[I]f a restriction or condition is not reasonably related to a legitimate goal—if it is arbitrary or purposeless— a court permissibly may infer that the purpose of the governmental action is punishment that may not constitutionally be inflicted upon detainees qua detainees.” Bell, 441 U.S. at 539. Because “[a] State’s imposition of a rule or restriction during pretrial confinement manifests an avowed intent to subject a pretrial detainee to that rule or restriction,” the plaintiff need not demonstrate that the state actor or municipal entity acted with intent to punish. Hare, 74 F.3d at 644. “[A] true jail condition case starts with the assumption that the State intended to cause the pretrial detainee’s alleged constitutional deprivation.” Id. at 644-45. For example, in Shepherd v. Dallas County, a former pretrial detainee sued Dallas County after he suffered a stroke in the Dallas County Jail allegedly as a result of not receiving proper medication and medical attention. 591 F.3d at 449. In his complaint, the plaintiff alleged that: “The jail’s evaluation, monitoring, and treatment of inmates with chronic illness was, at the time of [the plaintiff’s] stroke, grossly inadequate due to poor or nonexistent procedures and understaffing of guards and medical personnel, and 7 Case: 14-10126 Document: 00513132667 Page: 8 Date Filed: 07/28/2015 No. 14-10126 these deficiencies caused his injury.” Id. at 453. This court affirmed the jury’s verdict in favor of the plaintiff, holding that the plaintiff properly presented a successful conditions-of-confinement claim. Id. The court emphasized that the plaintiff’s claim did “not implicate the acts or omissions of individuals but the jail’s system of providing medical care to inmates with chronic illness.” Id. The court stressed that the plaintiff “relied on evidence showing that the inadequate treatment he received in a series of interactions with the jail’s medical system inevitably led to his suffering a stroke.” Id. The court noted, however, that because “no single individual’s error actually caused [the plaintiff’s] hypertensive decline into a stroke,” the district court was correct in granting summary judgment to the defendant on the plaintiff’s episodic-actsor-omissions claim. Id. at 453 n.2. An episodic-acts-or-omissions claim, by contrast, “faults specific jail officials for their acts or omissions.” Id. at 452; see also Scott v. Moore, 114 F.3d 51, 53 (5th Cir. 1997) (en banc) (“[W]here the complained-of harm is a particular act or omission of one or more officials, the action is characterized properly as an ‘episodic act or omission’ case . . . .”). In such a case, an actor is “interposed between the detainee and the municipality, such that the detainee complains first of a particular act of, or omission by, the actor and then points derivatively to a policy, custom, or rule (or lack thereof) of the municipality that permitted or caused the act or omission.” Scott, 114 F.3d at 53. The relevant question becomes “whether that official breached his constitutional duty to tend to the basic human needs of persons in his charge,” and intentionality is no longer presumed. Hare, 74 F.3d at 645. A jail official violates a pretrial detainee’s constitutional right to be secure in his basic human needs only when the official had “subjective knowledge of a substantial risk of serious harm” to the detainee and responded to that risk with deliberate indifference. Id. at 650. In other words, the state official must know of and 8 Case: 14-10126 Document: 00513132667 Page: 9 Date Filed: 07/28/2015 No. 14-10126 disregard an excessive risk to inmate health or safety. Krajca, 440 F. App’x at 343. “‘[T]he 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.’” Id. (quoting Calhoun v. Hargrove, 312 F.3d 730, 734 (5th Cir. 2002)). In Scott v. Moore, the court characterized the plaintiff’s lawsuit, arising out of a jailer’s sexual assault of a pretrial detainee, as an episodic-acts-oromissions case. 114 F.3d at 53-54. The court rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the assault was directly caused by constitutionally inadequate staffing, and thus implicated a condition of confinement rather than an episodic act. Id. at 53. The court explained that “the actual harm of which [the plaintiff] complains is the sexual assaults committed by [the jailer] during the one eighthour shift-an episodic event perpetrated by an actor interposed between [the plaintiff] and the city, but allegedly caused or permitted by the aforesaid general conditions.” Id. The court emphasized that “[the plaintiff] did not suffer from the mere existence of the alleged inadequate staffing, but only from [the jailer’s] specific sexual assaults committed on but one occasion.” Id.; see also Flores v. Cnty. of Hardeman, Tex., 124 F.3d 736, 738 (5th Cir. 1997) (applying Hare and Scott and classifying claim arising out of inmate’s suicide as an episodic-acts-or-omissions claim, despite allegations regarding jail’s training and staffing policies); Olabisiomotosho v. City of Hous., 185 F.3d 521, 526 (5th Cir. 1999) (characterizing plaintiff’s complaint as “turn[ing] on [two detention officers’] alleged failure to take better care of [the plaintiff,] and [a third officer’s] failure to medically screen her” for asthma and explaining that this complaint “fits the definition of the episodic omission”). Significantly, there is no rule barring a plaintiff from pleading both alternative theories, and a court may properly evaluate each separately. See 9 Case: 14-10126 Document: 00513132667 Page: 10 Date Filed: 07/28/2015 No. 14-10126 Shepherd, 591 F.3d at 452 n.1. Because the Plaintiffs’ allegations against the two remaining Defendants differ, we will discuss each separately.