Opinion ID: 539921
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Confiscation of the Sling

Text: 25 The prison officials who admitted Wood to the Nevada State Prison (NSP) on March 11, 1983 intentionally interfered with Wood's medically prescribed treatment when they confiscated his sling. Judge Farris recites this fact and characterizes it as Wood's strongest claim, but then proceeds to a discussion of medical malpractice. In doing so, I respectfully suggest, he misperceives a principal issue in the case. Wood's claim is not that the admissions personnel provided inadequate medical treatment when they confiscated the sling; it is rather that in confiscating the sling, they interfered with previously prescribed medical treatment that was concededly adequate. Professional negligence has nothing to do with this claim. 26 Tolbert v. Eyman, 434 F.2d 625 (9th Cir.1970), cited with approval by the Supreme Court in Estelle, 429 U.S. at 105 n. 12, 97 S.Ct. at 291 n. 12, explains the nature of my colleague's error in plain terms. In Tolbert, the prisoner alleged that medication prescribed by the prison physicians (but provided from outside the prison at the prisoner's expense) was intercepted by prison authorities four times and returned to the sender for security reasons. The defendants there also attempted to characterize the claim as one of merely negligent treatment, but the Tolbert court noted that the mere malpractice argument completely misses the thrust of Tolbert's complaint, which names as defendant not the doctors, but the warden. The gravamen of his claim is not that he was erroneously diagnosed by the prison doctor, but that the warden refused to allow him authorized medicine that he needed to prevent serious harm to his health. 434 F.2d at 626. See also Shapley v. Nevada Bd. of Prison Comm'rs, 766 F.2d 404, 408 (9th Cir.1985); Campbell v. Beto, 460 F.2d 765 (5th Cir.1972) (allegation that prisoner was assigned to work detail more strenuous than his medical classification admitted, held sufficient to state a cause of action under section 1983); Martinez v. Mancusi, 443 F.2d 921 (2d Cir.1970) (allegation that guards removed prisoner from public hospital without discharge, forced him to walk and stand after leg surgery, and deprived him of medication, all in violation of the surgeons' orders, held sufficient to state a cause of action under section 1983), cert. denied, 401 U.S. 983, 91 S.Ct. 1202, 28 L.Ed.2d 335 (1971); Jones v. Evans, 544 F.Supp. 769 (N.D.Ga.1982) (confiscation of a medically prescribed back brace might constitute deliberate indifference even where defendants were generally attentive to plaintiff's needs). 27 In order to find deliberate indifference in the confiscation of the sling, one need not go as far as the Jones court did when it opined that a nonmedical employee's interference with prescribed care can almost never be characterized as other than deliberate and indifferent. 544 F.Supp. at 775. Suffice it to say that the burden of justification for interfering with medical treatment must logically be heavier than for failing to provide such treatment in the first instance, for fairly simple reasons. While the crowded conditions and limited resources in most prisons unfortunately result in a standard of care somewhat lower than that which prevails in society at large, it usually requires neither sophisticated facilities nor additional resources to allow a prisoner to continue with a course of treatment he is already receiving. Certainly, in the absence of the practical limitations that are customarily offered to excuse poor health care, nonmedical defendants who take affirmative steps to interfere with treatment that is not only possible, but is actually occurring, must assume a heavy burden of justification. 28 That burden was not met here. Wood informed the admitting official that his sling was medically necessary. Admissions personnel could not look at Wood's medical records because those records had not been transferred with Wood. The admitting official could have referred Wood to the prison hospital, where a medical examination or X-rays could easily have confirmed the presence of the pins and the concomitant need for the sling; presumably, the official could also have consulted with a prison medical assistant before deciding what to do. However, without the benefit of any medical records, without referring Wood to a prison physician for a determination of his medical needs--in fact, without medical consultation of any kind, the admitting official made a conscious decision to confiscate the sling whether or not it was medically necessary. This behavior was both deliberate and indifferent to Wood's serious medical needs. In addition, Wood claimed that he made several efforts to have the prison authorities return the sling, to no avail. Although the district court made no findings regarding Wood's postconfiscation efforts, the alleged conduct of the authorities in failing to return the sling, without making any inquiries of prison medical personnel, would, of course--for the same reasons--constitute deliberate indifference.