Opinion ID: 580326
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Request for Damages

Text: 13 The incident that gave rise to this lawsuit occurred in August 1985. Thus, in assessing the qualified immunity claims, our concern is whether statutes or caselaw existed in August 1985 to establish clearly that a state prisoner held in a psychiatric unit had a right under the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment against forced administration of an antipsychotic drug without procedural review of the prescription or personal observation by a medical professional of the immediate need for the drug. 14 We begin with the relevant Supreme Court caselaw in 1985. In Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97, 97 S.Ct. 285, 50 L.Ed.2d 251 (1976), the Supreme Court set forth the standard for analyzing prison medical treatment under the Eighth Amendment's proscription of cruel and unusual punishment. The Court held that deliberate indifference to a prisoner's serious illness or injury, as well as the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain violates the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 104-05, 97 S.Ct. at 291. The Court also made clear that medical malpractice, such as a physician's failure to order a diagnostic test, does not offend the Eighth Amendment. [A] complaint that a physician has been negligent in diagnosing or treating a medical condition does not state a valid claim of medical mistreatment under the Eighth Amendment. Id. at 106, 97 S.Ct. at 292. 15 With respect to a prisoner's rights to due process, in Vitek v. Jones, 445 U.S. 480, 100 S.Ct. 1254, 63 L.Ed.2d 552 (1980), the Court addressed the issue of whether a prisoner had a right to refuse transfer to a state mental hospital and to have procedural protections of that right. The Court concluded that a prisoner does indeed have such rights under the Due Process Clause. 16 A criminal conviction and sentence of imprisonment extinguish an individual's right to freedom from confinement for the term of his sentence, but they do not authorize the State to classify him as mentally ill and to subject him to involuntary psychiatric treatment without affording him additional due process protections. 17 Id. at 493-94, 100 S.Ct. at 1264. The Court further held that the required due process protections include notice, a hearing, the opportunity to present and cross-examine witnesses, and to have an independent decisionmaker. Id. at 494-96, 100 S.Ct. at 1264-65. But in Youngberg v. Romeo, 457 U.S. 307, 102 S.Ct. 2452, 73 L.Ed.2d 28 (1982), the Court held that, although a developmentally disabled person who is committed involuntarily to a state hospital retains constitutionally protected liberty interests, the procedural protections of those interests are satisfied by the professional judgment of a mental health professional. Specifically, the Court held that a mental health professional's decision to place such a person under restraint is presumptively valid; liability may be imposed only when the decision by the professional is such a substantial departure from accepted professional judgment, practice, or standards as to demonstrate that the person responsible actually did not base the decision on such a judgment. Id. at 323, 102 S.Ct. at 2462. Neither Vitek nor Youngberg addressed the precise issue of whether an inmate has a right to refuse antipsychotic drugs. By analogy, Vitek seemed to call for extensive procedural preconditions, but Youngberg appeared to grant presumptive validity to professional judgment. 18 The decisions of the United States Courts of Appeals also failed to establish clearly that the forcible administration of antipsychotic drugs to a mentally ill prisoner violated either the Eighth or Fourteenth Amendment. In Bee v. Greaves, 744 F.2d 1387 (10th Cir.1984), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 1214, 105 S.Ct. 1187, 84 L.Ed.2d 334 (1985), the Tenth Circuit held that a pretrial detainee has a constitutionally-derived liberty interest in avoiding unwanted medication with antipsychotic drugs, but that this interest must be balanced against state interests in maintaining security and prevent[ing] a violent and dangerous mentally ill prisoner from injuring himself and others. Id. at 1394. The Tenth Circuit further held that, while forcible medication with antipsychotic drugs may be required in an emergency, the decision that an emergency exists must be the product of professional judgment by appropriate medical authorities, applying acceptable medical standards. Id. at 1395-96. Similarly, in Rennie v. Klein, 720 F.2d 266, 269 (3d Cir.1983) (en banc) a three-judge plurality of the Third Circuit wrote that antipsychotic drugs may be constitutionally administered to an involuntarily committed mentally ill patient whenever, in the exercise of professional judgment, such an action is deemed necessary to protect the patient from endangering himself or others. See also id. at 274 (Seitz, C.J., concurring). And in Lojuk v. Quandt, 706 F.2d 1456 (7th Cir.1983), this court addressed the due process requirements of administering electro-convulsive therapy to patients who were voluntarily committed to a Veterans Administration psychiatric facility but had become incompetent to make treatment decisions. While this court declined to define precisely the scope of the liberty interest or the minimum procedures required by the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the court did hold that, under even the most lenient reading of the Due Process Clause, the decision to administer electro-convulsive therapy must comport with accepted professional practice. Id. at 1467-68. 19 While these decisions of the United States Courts of Appeals share a least common denominator--that the decision to medicate an inmate or psychiatric patient against his will must meet professional standards of judgment--the decisions of the United States District Courts did not even unanimously agree upon this procedural minimum. In Stensvad v. Reivitz, 601 F.Supp. 128 (W.D.Wis.1985), a district court upheld a Wisconsin statute under which involuntarily committed mental patients had no right to refuse medication and treatment. The plaintiff, who had been committed to a Wisconsin state mental health facility after a jury verdict of not guilty of first degree murder by reason of mental disease or defect, challenged the state law under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The district court ruled that, because the statute required the drug to be prescribed by a physician, and because that decision was appealable via a grievance procedure which protected an inmate's right to treatment that is appropriate for his or her condition, the statutory scheme taken as a whole was constitutional under the Supreme Court's Youngberg guidance. Stensvad, 601 F.Supp. at 131. 20 In Gilliam v. Martin, 589 F.Supp. 680 (W.D. Okla.1984), a district court upheld the forced administration of antipsychotic medication to an inmate who had a history of violent, abusive, and destructive behavior whenever he was not under the effects of the medication. The court ruled that any due process rights the inmate had to be free from forcible administration of the drug were adequately protected by the use of trial periods of withdrawal of the medication, which had resulted in repeated regression to a dangerous psychotic condition, and by the use of various tests and examinations over a period of more than nine years. Id. at 682. 21 In Davis v. Hubbard, 506 F.Supp. 915 (N.D.Ohio 1980), a district court struck down a state mental hospital's practice of freely administering antipsychotic drugs to patients against their will. At the hospital, antipsychotic drugs were prescribed by both licensed and unlicensed physicians for patients they had never seen. The prescriptions were at times to be given PRN, and attendants--without review by the prescribing physician--were allowed to request that a patient be medicated pursuant to such a prescription. Id. at 926-27. The court ruled that, in non-emergency situations, the hospital must provide the patient some kind of hearing before compelling the patient to take psychotropic drugs. Id. at 938-39. This hearing must be held before an impartial decisionmaker and the patient must be allowed to present his views. Id. The court ruled, however, that when the hospital has reasonable cause to believe that a patient is presently violent or self-destructive, and in such condition presents a present danger to himself, other patients or the institution's staff, the hospital could forcibly administer antipsychotic drugs. Id. at 935 (emphasis in original). 22 In Sconiers v. Jarvis, 458 F.Supp. 37 (D.Kan.1978), a district court upheld against a First Amendment challenge to the forced administration of antipsychotic drugs to an inmate who had an extensive history of hostile and destructive behavior and had been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Noting that prison officials have the responsibility to provide proper care for ill inmates as well as the responsibility to protect neighboring inmates, the court concluded that the forced administration by prison physicians of tranquilizing drugs to an inmate with a medical history such as plaintiff's is not a violation of federal rights. Id. at 40. 23 In Nelson v. Heyne, 355 F.Supp. 451 (N.D.Ind.1972), aff'd, 491 F.2d 352 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 976, 94 S.Ct. 3183, 41 L.Ed.2d 1146 (1974), a district court struck down a standing order by a physician at a reform school which allowed the custodial staff of the school to ask the staff nurse to administer forcibly antipsychotic drugs to residents who became overexcited. The standing order covered all the residents; the physician had not examined or diagnosed any individual resident nor prescribed the drug for a limited number of individuals. The court ruled that because this practice was not part of an on-going psychotherapeutic program, it violated the residents' Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. Id. at 455. 24 In Peek v. Ciccone, 288 F.Supp. 329 (W.D.Mo.1968), a district court upheld the one-time forced administration of an antipsychotic drug to an inmate who had a medical history of chronic schizophrenia. The medication was prescribed by a physician for regular administration, and the inmate had regularly taken the drug voluntarily. The physician testified that the drug treatment had improved the inmate's condition. The court concluded that a one-time forced administration of the drug was not punishment or harm and did not violate the inmate's constitutional rights. 25 These district court opinions fail to delineate clearly the right of an inmate or psychiatric patient to refuse antipsychotic drugs, beyond the right to have a physician's examination and to have the medication prescribed as treatment rather than given as punishment. In sum, at the time the defendants acted, it was not clearly established that their actions violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nor was it established that their actions amounted to the sort of deliberate indifference or unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain independently proscribed by the Eighth Amendment. Thus, we hold that Nurse Anderson and Dr. Parwatikar are shielded from Mr. Williams' claim for damages by the doctrine of qualified immunity; neither Nurse Anderson nor Dr. Parwatikar violated any constitutional right that was clearly established at the time of the incident. 26 Recently, the Supreme Court clarified the rights of inmates to refuse antipsychotic drugs. In Washington v. Harper, 494 U.S. 210, 110 S.Ct. 1028, 108 L.Ed.2d 178 (1990), the Court made clear that an inmate possesses a significant liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, id. at 221-22, 110 S.Ct. at 1036, and that certain procedural protections are necessary to ensure that the decision to medicate an inmate against his will is neither arbitrary nor erroneous. Id. at 228, 110 S.Ct. at 1040. In deciding whether the defendants are entitled to qualified immunity, we need not determine whether the procedures which Nurse Anderson and Dr. Parwatikar undertook prior to administering Haldol to Mr. Williams would violate rights that are clearly established after Washington.