Opinion ID: 1233666
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Nurse Harmon

Text: Whether a prison's medical staff deliberately disregarded the needs of an inmate is a factually-intensive inquiry. Meuir v. Greene County Jail Employees, 487 F.3d 1115, 1118 (8th Cir.2007). The plaintiff-inmate must clear a substantial evidentiary threshold to show that the prison's medical staff deliberately disregarded the inmate's needs by administering an inadequate treatment. Id. Negligent misdiagnosis does not create a cognizable claim under § 1983. [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. Medical malpractice does not become a constitutional violation merely because the victim is a prisoner. In order to state a cognizable claim, a prisoner must allege acts or omissions sufficiently harmful to evidence deliberate indifference to serious medical needs. Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106, 97 S.Ct. 285. See also Popoalii v. Corr. Med. Servs., 512 F.3d 488, 499 (8th Cir.2008) (Medical malpractice alone ... is not actionable under the Eighth Amendment.). `Deliberate indifference' entails a level of culpability equal to the criminal law definition of recklessness, that is, a prison 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.' Bender v. Regier, 385 F.3d 1133, 1137 (8th Cir. 2004), quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837, 114 S.Ct. 1970. Harmon cannot be liable for negligently mistaking drug intoxication as alcohol intoxication. Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106, 97 S.Ct. 285; see also Sealock v. Colorado, 218 F.3d 1205, 1211 (10th Cir.2000) (holding that a prison nurse is not liable for deliberate indifference when, [a]t worst, she misdiagnosed appellant and failed to pass on information ... about appellant's chest pain.). Although medical negligence does not violate the eighth amendment ... medical treatment may so deviate from the applicable standard of care as to evidence a physician's deliberate indifference. Moore v. Duffy, 255 F.3d 543, 545 (8th Cir.2001). Harmon's affidavit states that he took McFarland's blood pressure and pulse on several occasions, and that [n]one of these readings indicated a medical need to me. The videotape of the cell, which recorded McFarland sleeping for five hours, does not show Harmon checking McFarland's blood pressure or pulse. This creates a disputed material fact about the care Harmon provided. More importantly, having (incorrectly) evaluated McFarland as being intoxicated from alcohol, Harmon did not consult the blood alcohol test resultsavailable at the timeto determine whether McFarland required hospitalization for alcohol poisoning. Had he done so, Harmon would have realized that McFarland was not under the influence of alcohol, signaling that something else was wrong. Cf. Popoalii, 512 F.3d at 500 (affirming prison medical staff's qualified immunity when inmate demonstrated none of the normal signs or risk factors of a serious medical condition). This fact raises an inference of recklessness, if not incompetence, precluding qualified immunity. See, e.g., Dominguez v. Corr. Med. Servs., 555 F.3d 543, 550 (6th Cir.2009) (prison nurse denied qualified immunity when she was aware of risks associated with excessive heat, dehydration, and heat stroke, but ignored and/or acted with deliberate indifference when faced with those risks).