Court Opinion

ID: 9634507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 13:15:18.008977+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:09:04.214928
License: Public Domain

BLOCK, Senior District Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in the majority opinion in all respects save one: I cannot agree that Deputy Foley is entitled to summary judgment.
The crux of the plaintiffs’ claim against Foley is that he was instructed by Mental Health Specialist Blush not to move Clouthier out of the Observation Room and failed to communicate that instruction to subsequent shifts, either orally or by noting it in the Red Book. With respect to that claim, we must take as true Blush’s testimony that she gave such an instruction. Although the majority does so, it concludes that “there is insufficient evidence to establish that Foley was subjectively aware that his failure to communicate Blush’s instruction[ ] to other deputies constituted a substantial risk of serious harm to Clouthier, and deliberately ignored that risk.” Thus, if a jury were to determine that Blush was not deliberately indifferent because she instructed Foley not to move Clouthier from the Observation Room, the majority has concluded as a *1255matter of law that it could not then consider whether Foley deliberately ignored a substantial risk of harm to Clouthier.
The majority’s conclusion with respect to Foley resolves issues that, in my view, should be decided by a jury. As for the “substantial risk” issue, although I appreciate that Foley’s training suggested to him that Blush’s decision to remove Clouthier from the Observation Log meant that he was no longer a suicide risk, there must have been some reason why Blush also instructed him not to move Clouthier out of the Observation Room (assuming that the jury finds that such an instruction was given); the most obvious candidate is that she still believed him to be suicidal. Thus, a jury could reasonably conclude that Blush’s instruction communicated to Foley that Clouthier still posed a substantial risk of serious harm to himself. See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 842, 114 S.Ct. 1970, 128 L.Ed.2d 811 (1994) (“Whether a prison official had the requisite knowledge of a substantial risk is a question of fact subject to demonstration in the usual ways, including inference from circumstantial evidence.”).
I am also satisfied that a jury could reasonably find that Foley’s failure to communicate Blush’s instruction crossed the line between negligence and deliberate indifference. According to Captain Pascoe, deputies were expected to use the Red Book to pass important information to future shifts. A factfinder could surely determine that Blush’s instruction was a key suicide prevention measure; indeed, the failure to implement it arguably paved the way for Clothier’s suicide. Thus, if a jury were to find that Blush told Foley that Clothier was not to be taken out of the Observation Room, I fail to understand why we should rule as a matter of law that Foley’s failure to pass that information on to subsequent shifts was mere negligence. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 847, 114 S.Ct. 1970 (official is deliberately indifferent if “he knows that inmates face a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take reasonable measures to abate it”).
Finally, if a jury were to determine that Foley was a trained deputy charged with the responsibility of implementing a key suicide prevention measure (i.e., passing on instructions given by a mental health professional that a detainee at risk of suicide was to remain in the Observation Room), qualified immunity would not attach because such an officer could not reasonably have thought it was lawful to do nothing in response to such an instruction. See Conn v. City of Reno, 572 F.3d 1047, 1062 (9th Cir.2009) (“When a detainee attempts or threatens suicide en route to jail, it is obvious that the transporting officers must report the incident to those who will next be responsible for her custody and safety. Thus, the constitutional right at issue here has been clearly established.”).