Court Opinion

ID: 9875444
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 22:33:49.512016+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:47:00.976260
License: Public Domain

ED CARNES, Chief Judge,
concurring in the denial of the petition for initial hearing en banc:
Concurring in the denial of the motion for hearing en banc, I write separately to point out a different interpretation of the record than that of two of my colleagues, which bears on the timeliness issue.
Judge Wilson’s dissenting opinion states that what Ledford alleges is that “he has a ‘unique medical condition,’ and he alleges that the condition arose within the past two years.” Wilson Dissent at 1336 n.3. This, he adds, is not like the claim in Gissendaner that relied on conditions that had not changed in the past two years. Id. But in the complaint he filed in the district court, Ledford alleged that he has been taking gabapentin for over a decade and that the problem is the brain becomes less responsive to other drugs over a prolonged period of time. See Complaint at 2 (“His long-term exposure to this medication has changed the chemistry of his brain.... ”); id. at 9 (“When taken for an extended period of time, gabapentin will alter a person’s brain chemistry....”); id. at 10 *1328(“Those receptors shaped by long-term administration of gabapentin become less responsive to pentobarbital.”); id. at 12 (Dr. Bergese’s opinion based on gabapentin having been “administered to a person ... for a considerable period of time”); id. at 15 (Dr. Zivot’s opinion based on Ledford’s “prolonged exposure to gabapentin”); id. at 16 (“Accordingly, because of his decade of gabapentin treatments ... ”); id. (alleging that the objectively intolerable risk arises from “his decade-long use of gabapentin”). The complaint could not, and does not, allege that the decade-long use of gaba-pentin arose within the last two years. It arose over more than a decade, far outside the two year statute of limitations.
Judge Jill Pryor’s dissenting opinion states that Ledford’s dosage of gabapentin has been increasing for a number of years, and his long term exposure to it has altered his brain chemistry so that using pentobarbital is very likely to cause him to experience unbearable pain and suffering. But Ledford never alleged that the risk of gabapentin diminishing the effect of pento-barbital arose only in the last two years before he filed the complaint. We cannot fault district courts for failing to foresee theories not alleged before them.

 Judge Julie Carnes, having recused herself, did not participate.