Opinion ID: 2973317
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Factual Background & Procedural Posture

Text: On July 26, 2000, police arrested 17 year-old Luke Griffin and held him in custody. On October 15, Griffin told an officer that he was considering hurting himself. Consequently, Griffin was transferred to a holding area and placed on suicidal precautions. Linden v. Washtenaw County, No. 02-71648, slip op. at 2 (E.D. Mich. July 12, 2004). The next day, Defendant Kelly Norman, a social worker with Community Mental Health (“CMH”), interviewed Griffin and indicated that he should remain on suicide precautions since he reported thoughts of strangling himself. Id. at 3. On October 24, 2000, Griffin was released from jail. Griffin was arrested again on November 9, 2000, and immediately noted as a suicide risk in the booking documents. Mid-afternoon that day, Griffin met with SecureCare1 nurse Defendant Laurie Kelly and informed her that he consumed forty ounces of beer per day, used marijuana, LSD, ecstasy, and cocaine, ingested three or four Prozac pills the night before, and attempted suicide during his previous incarceration. Kelly responded by putting Griffin on alcohol withdrawal and suicide precautions and made a mental health referral.2 Griffin was then removed from the general 1 Defendant SecureCare, Inc., provides medical staffing to the Washtenaw County Jail clinic. 2 The treatment included a Librium taper, which alleviates substance-abuse withdrawal symptoms. 2 holding area and placed in a cell with windows allowing correction officers to monitor him every half-hour. Id. at 3-4. After an altercation with a cell mate on November 10, Griffin was moved to an isolated holding cell. The next day, Defendant corrections officer Brian Wild removed a torn blanket and a piece of string from around Griffin’s neck. Id. at 4. Kelly examined Griffin for injuries, and later that day Norman spoke with him. During this interview, Griffin began banging his head against the wall, which forced Defendant Lt. Gary Greenfield to intervene and place him in a restraint chair. He remained in the chair for two hours under constant supervision, with Wild making notations every fifteen minutes. Afterward, Griffin returned to his cell, still on suicide precautions. Id. Norman telephoned a psychiatric social worker at the University of Michigan, John Kettley,3 to discuss whether Kettley believed Griffin should be hospitalized – a decision only Kettley had the authority to make. Id. at 4-5. He felt hospitalization unnecessary. On November 13, Norman reported that Griffin seemed calmer and denied having suicidal thoughts, though she believed he remained “fragile and at risk.” Id. at 5 (citation omitted). Defendant Dr. Mohammed Irfan, a CMH psychiatrist, evaluated Griffin on the evening of November 14 and told Norman that he could be removed from suicide precautions. His decision, along with an accompanying recommendation from Norman, led Griffin to be transferred to the medical block unit for a “transitional period from suicide precautions.” Id. at 6 (quotations & citation omitted). The next day, Defendant nurse Margaret Lochrie saw Griffin and removed him from the Librium taper after he complained of visual hallucinations and exhibited an unsteady gait. She also 3 Kettley previously was dismissed from this action. Id. at 2. 3 noted that Griffin denied having thoughts of harming himself. Id. at 7. A subsequent evaluation by CMH psychologist Defendant Laura MacKimmie concurred with Lochrie’s findings, and MacKimmie recommended Griffin be returned to the cell block. That evening, Griffin approached Defendant corrections officer Edward Postal and told him of an impending fight with his cell mate. Postal called Defendant classification officer Leonard Mellberg, who told Postal to place Griffin in an isolated maximum security cell. Id. at 7. That night Defendant corrections officer Dwight Settles discovered Griffin dead in his maximum security cell with a sheet tied around his neck. In response to Luke Griffin’s suicide, Plaintiff Howard T. Linden, representative of Griffin’s estate, brought suit against the Defendants in the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming they acted with deliberate indifference to his medical needs. Id. at 1-2. Defendants Norman, MacKimmie, SecureCare, Inc., Kelly, Lochrie, and the Washtenaw County Defendants4 filed motions for summary judgment, which the district court granted. Plaintiff appeals the summary judgments for all defendants except CMH.