Opinion ID: 457050
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Grant of Motion for Directed Verdict

Text: 13 It is proper to direct a verdict in a case only when the evidence is such that, without weighing the credibility of the witnesses or otherwise considering the weight of the evidence, there is only one verdict reasonable men could reach, Harrington v. United States, 504 F.2d 1306, 1311 (1st Cir.1974); Brady v. Southern Railway Co., 320 U.S. 476, 479-80, 64 S.Ct. 232, 234-35, 88 L.Ed. 239 (1943); United States v. Articles of Drug Consisting of the Following: 5,906 Boxes, 745 F.2d 105, 112-113 (1st Cir.1984); Trinidad v. Pan American Airways, Inc., 575 F.2d 983, 984 (1st Cir.1978). The trial judge must review the testimony most strongly against the moving party. If there is doubt, the case should go to the jury. The same standard is to be applied by the reviewing appellate court. Harrington, 504 F.2d at 1312. 14 The district court in this case gave no explanation for its decision to grant a directed verdict in favor of the four officials of the Puerto Rico Correctional Administration. 3 Perhaps it thought that these defendants could not be found liable because their asserted lack of knowledge of the specific incident involving Rosario Cristobal meant they had no duty to him. The fact that the court described its action as a dismissal of the complaint suggests this is so. It also could be, however, that even if there were a duty, the court believed that the evidence as a matter of law fell short of establishing that these defendants exhibited deliberate indifference to Rosario Cristobal's needs. We ought not, however, be required to speculate and, in other circumstances, would be forced to remand for a statement of the court's reasoning. We shall confront the matter without the benefit of such an explanation, however, because in either case a new trial is necessary for these defendants. 15 Because there is no respondeat superior liability under Sec. 1983, Pinto v. Nettleship, 737 F.2d 130, 132 (1st Cir.1984); Layne v. Vinzant, 657 F.2d at 471; Kostka v. Hogg, 560 F.2d 37, 40 (1st Cir.1977), supervisory officials may be found liable only on the basis of their own acts or omissions. Supervisors need not have actual knowledge of the specific incident at issue, however, if they had the power and duty to alleviate the conditions which led to the violation, Pinto v. Nettleship, 737 F.2d at 132-33; Fernandez v. Chardon, 681 F.2d 42, 55 (1st Cir.1982). We agree with the description of supervisory liability given by the Fourth Circuit in Slakan v. Porter, 737 F.2d 368, 373 (4th Cir.1984): 16 The outer limits of liability in any given case are determined ultimately by pinpointing the persons in the decisionmaking chain whose deliberate indifference permitted the constitutional abuses to continue unchecked. 17 In Pinto v. Nettleship, 737 F.2d 130, we upheld a ruling of summary judgment in favor of the superintendent of the Bayamon Regional Jail in a damages action brought by the parents of a pretrial detainee. The decedent was killed by an unknown inmate on the second day of his detention. We noted in Pinto two points significant to our disposition of this case. First, we observed that personal liability in damages under section 1983 cannot be based on prison conditions beyond the control of a defendant. Id. at 133. And, second, we noted that where conditions such as overcrowding may be endemic to an entire system, it is difficult to say that overcrowding in a single institution demonstrates, without more, the personal culpability of a local administrator. Id. 18 In this case, the defendants whose liability we are considering are responsible for administration of the entire prison system, not just of a single institution. In addition, Puerto Rico law provides that the Correctional Administration shall have the duty and power 19 [t]o establish programs to offer adequate medical care and hospital services intended to prevent diseases and the diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation of the patient. 20 The services may be furnished, whenever the circumstances so require, outside Administration facilities under the necessary security measures. 21 Detailed records of medical examinations and the health condition of the patient shall be kept (emphasis added). P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 4, Sec. 1112(f) (1978). 22 We believe a jury could have found that each of the four defendants was charged with carrying out this mandate, and that each thus had the duty to ameliorate the medical conditions which led to Rosario Cristobal's death. See Fernandez v. Chardon, 681 F.2d at 55 (Defendant will be liable for failures to meet his statutory responsibilities that amount to constitutional violations, citing DiMarzo v. Cahill, 575 F.2d 15, 17-18 (1st Cir.1978)); cf. Pinto v. Nettleship, 737 F.2d 130 (no statutory duty established). Certainly, Irba M. Cruz de Batista, the director of the Correctional Administration, had such a duty. Jorge Rodriguez Fraticelli and Cirilo Castro Penaloza were the director and deputy director of the penal institution program, whose functions included establishing programs to offer adequate medical care and hospital services for inmates. Porfirio Diaz Delgado, the coordinator of medical services, had a day-to-day responsibility to ensure that adequate medical services be provided to all inmates. These officials' testimony about their job functions further suggested that they had the power to make needed changes. Even as to Diaz Delgado, who occupied the lowest rung on this official ladder, both he and his superior, Rodriguez Fraticelli, testified that he had the authority to work out a remedy when he saw deficiencies in medical treatment. 23 Moreover, we can not say as a matter of law that the circumstances surrounding Rosario Cristobal's death represented a sporadic incident[ ] over which these officials  'might properly claim to have no knowledge or control' , Layne v. Vinzant, 657 F.2d at 471 n. 3. (quoting DiMarzo, 575 F.2d at 17). The testimony at trial indicated that the conditions surrounding Rosario Cristobal's medical treatment were as much a matter of central administration policy as of local reaction to his particular case. For example, Dr. Mora Boneta's contract providing for only eight hours per week of doctor care for an average population of 235 inmates was executed with the central administration and not with the Arecibo District Jail. Diaz Delgado testified that he knew that Arecibo's only fulltime medical worker, the nurse, was absent and that he had started arranging for a substitute. He was unclear about the outcome of his efforts. Both Rodriguez Fraticelli and Diaz Delgado knew that the commonwealth's prisons had no special treatment plan for epileptics, and acknowledged that such a program was needed. Dr. Benitez testified that prisoners often arrived at his hospital, as in Rosario Cristobal's case, without proper medical records, and jurors could have attributed this to the defendants' failure to secure adequate compliance with the statutory mandate that detailed medical records be kept. In short, there was sufficient evidence to suggest that Rosario Cristobal's treatment was not an unexpected aberration from the normally adequate medical care provided in Puerto Rico's prisons, but an extreme example of the routinely poor conditions there. As such, these four defendants could be held liable for his death. 4 24 Although we have little trouble in determining that a reasonable jury could have found power and duty on the part of these defendants, we believe it is a much closer case on the issue of their deliberate indifference to Rosario Cristobal's medical needs. Rodriguez Fraticelli, Cruz de Batista and Diaz Delgado all testified that they were attempting to improve medical conditions in Puerto Rico's prisons, and Castro Penaloza's testimony suggested that his failure to act may have been based on the good faith belief that others were taking care of the problems. Yet, we can not say as a matter of law that no jury would have imposed liability on these officials, whose credibility is beyond our scrutiny. Each had been in office for some time before Rosario Cristobal's detention at Arecibo Jail, and yet conditions arguably were still inadequate. A jury could well decide that each bore some responsibility for contracting with a specialist in obstetrics and gynecology to provide only eight hours of medical care per week for 235 prisoners, and that this was sufficient in itself to establish the deliberate indifference of each of them to the special needs of an epileptic patient like Rosario Cristobal. We therefore conclude that the directed verdicts must be reversed, and the case remanded for a new trial on the issue of these four defendants' liability. 25 The partial judgment of the district court directing a verdict in favor of four defendants is vacated, and the cause remanded for further action. The order of the district court denying judgments notwithstanding the verdict for the other three defendants is affirmed.