Court Opinion

ID: 9871284
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-26 20:23:46.489573+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:46:15.660590
License: Public Domain

ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the panel’s decision that the district court’s grant of summary judgment to both Corizon Health and Volusia County must be affirmed on the record in this case. I write separately, however, to note that, as to the County, in the eight prior instances where corrections officers either failed to properly maintain watch over inmates or failed to properly document the inmates’ activities, the corrections officers were disciplined by only their immediate supervisors and not by a policymaker for the County. Nor does the record in this case contain any evidence that any County policymaker was ever aware that corrections officers regularly and often with the encouragement of their immediate supervisors, falsified inmate watch records. Had such evidence of a County policymaker’s knowledge of this practice existed, the result here would have been different because sufficient evidence exists to create a material issue of fact as to whether the practice of falsifying inmate watch records was so widespread as to constitute a custom or policy of Volusia County.
What happened here should not happen again. Counsel for Volusia County conceded during oral argument that the facts adduced in this case have since been “looked at” by County policymakers and would serve as “pretty firm evidence” of notice in any future litigation. So I would expect that the County will immediately take all necessary remedial actions to correct the systemic failures identified in this tragic and preventable case.