Opinion ID: 3036756
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Reliance on trained medical professionals

Text: The County argues that, as a matter of law, a policy of reliance upon the trained professional doctors and nurses who worked in the MSB cannot amount to deliberate indifference because the alleged deficiencies identified by Appellant fall within the province of medical and nursing schools, and nothing in the record suggests that the County had reason to believe the professional medical training received by the MSB doctors and nurses was deficient. This argument is contrary to this court’s case law, which holds that, even where trained professionals are involved, a plaintiff is not foreclosed from raising a genuine issue of triable fact regarding municipal liability when evidence is presented which shows that the municipality’s failure to train its employees amounts to deliberate indifference. Indeed, the County’s argument would allow municipalities to insulate themselves from liability for failing to adopt needed policies by delegating to trained personnel the authority to decide all such matters on a case by case basis, and would absolve the governmental agencies of any responsibility for providing their licensed or certified teachers, nurses, police officers and other professionals with the necessary additional training required to perform their particular assignments or to implement the agency’s specific policies. [6] In Miranda v. Clark County, 319 F.3d 465 (9th Cir. 2003) (en banc), this court clarified that a municipality may be charged with the failure to train even where trained professionals are involved. The plaintiff, a former defendant whose capital murder conviction was overturned on collateral review on grounds of ineffective assistance of counsel, sued the county’s public defender’s office under § 1983 for implementing policies which led to his wrongful conviction. The complaint alleged that the county had a policy of assigning the least experienced attorneys to capital cases without providing any training, thus demonstrating callous indifference to the defendant’s constitutional rights. Id. at 471. The county 3358 LONG v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES argued that, as a matter of law, there was no callous disregard of constitutional rights because attorneys who have graduated from law school and passed the bar should be considered adequately trained to handle capital murder cases. Id. The district court dismissed the action for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. On appeal, this court reversed and remanded, holding that the plaintiff stated a claim for municipal liability based on deliberate indifference to his constitutional rights because he alleged “not merely an isolated assignment of an inexperienced lawyer, but a deliberate pattern and policy of refusing to train lawyers for capital cases known to the county administrators to exert unusual demands on attorneys.” Id. In Johnson v. Hawe, 388 F.3d 676 (9th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 125 S. Ct. 2294 (2005), this court rejected again the notion that a county can rely on the fact that its employees are trained professionals in order to avoid municipal liability. There, an arrestee filed suit under § 1983 alleging that he had been arrested, prosecuted and incarcerated in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In support of his claim of municipal liability he submitted the declaration of a law enforcement expert who opined that the police department’s “self-training” program, which assigned responsibility to the individual officer for keeping abreast of recent court decisions involving law enforcement, amounted to a failure to train police officers about enforcement of the State statute under which the plaintiff had been arrested. Id. at 686. Without addressing the plaintiff’s failure-to-train argument or the expert’s supporting evidence, the district court rejected the municipal liability claim because the plaintiff had set forth no evidence to support the existence of a policy or custom which had been followed in his arrest. This court reversed and remanded. Finding that there were a number of cases which addressed enforcement of the State statute by public officials, the court held that the expert’s declaration created “at least a genuine issue as to whether ‘self-training’ in this context amounted to deliberate indifference.” Id. LONG v. COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES 3359 [7] Thus, contrary to the district court’s conclusion, the County’s policy of hiring trained medical professionals does not insulate it from municipal liability as a matter of law.