Opinion ID: 773932
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Charles Earnhart, Director of Unit 7

Text: 54 Earnhart was the unit director of Unit 7 during the relevant time period, responsible for the day-to-day operations of Unit 7, which included supervising the staff of the unit and reviewing and evaluating reports and scheduled work. Earnhart directly supervised the unit managers, meeting with these managers daily. 55 The plaintiffs' deliberate indifference claims against Earnhart involve a combination of direct and supervisor liability. First, the plaintiffs assert that Earnhart participated in formulating and implementing the policy that allowed the night shift in the female residents' unit to be without a female staff member, as well as the policy permitting unsupervised male staff to take female residents off-grounds. The analysis of this claim of deliberate indifference proceeds along the same lines as outlined above for Liggett (with the four-part test from Sample), but this supervisory-based claim is weaker than the one against Liggett that we rejected above. As to whether Earnhart was aware of a pattern of past injuries, the facts as alleged only support the conclusion that he knew of Beers-Capitol's allegation, and one incident does not a pattern make. As to the so great and so obvious a risk method of meeting Sample's test, the analysis begins and ends just as it did for Liggett. In fact, because Earnhart's supervisory responsibility at YDC was not as great as Liggett's, there is less evidence that Earnhart's policies created a risk that was so great and so obvious that he must have known of the excessive risk but was indifferent to it. For these reasons, the plaintiffs' claims of deliberate indifference against Earnhart based on supervisor liability cannot survive summary judgment. 56 The plaintiffs also submit that Earnhart directly exhibited deliberate indifference to the plaintiffs' injuries through two other actions: (1) by failing to discipline Robinson for delaying her reporting of Beers-Capitol's allegation of abuse; and (2) by mishandling Beers-Capitol's allegation, in that (a) Earnhart did not report it to Liggett (as required by law); and (b) Earnhart undertook a wholly inadequate investigation, namely, merely calling Beers-Capitol at home and asking her over the phone if the abuse occurred. 10 57 We note first that Beers-Capitol cannot use the above two actions to support her claim that Earnhart was aware of the risk of abuse to her because these actions took place after Beers-Capitol's abuse. In the absence of any other evidence that Earnhart was aware of an excessive risk to Beers-Capitol, Beers-Capitol cannot make out a direct deliberate indifference claim against Earnhart. See Lewis v. Richards, 107 F.3d 549, 553 (7th Cir. 1997). 58 However, Tate can claim that Earnhart's actions surrounding Beers-Capitol's abuse (which occurred before the abuse Tate suffered) are evidence that, by the time of Tate's abuse, Earnhart was aware of but ignored the excessive risk to the female residents posed by Whetzel. We nonetheless conclude that this evidence is insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Earnhart was deliberately indifferent. It is not apparent how Earnhart's failure to discipline Robinson for her brief delay in reporting Beers-Capitol's allegation demonstrates that Earnhart was deliberately indifferent to a risk to Tate. Furthermore, although Earnhart probably should have better handled the investigation into Beers-Capitol's allegation, this lapse is not nearly enough to clear the high bar set by Farmer: raising an inference that he knowingly and unreasonably disregarded an objectively intolerable risk of harm. Farmer, 511 U.S. at 846. We therefore will affirm the District Court's grant of summary judgment for Earnhart.