Reversal: Officers entitled to qualified immunity after inmate death

The 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a grant of judgment in favor of a deceased inmate’s estate, finding two officers who placed the inmate in a cell while he was intoxicated were entitled to qualified immunity.

In December 2013, Daniel Martin was arrested for driving while intoxicated and taken to the Clay County jail. When he arrived at the jail, Martin was booked by Officers Landon Herbert and Zachary Overton and subsequently placed inside a jail cell occupied by another inmate. Only the top bunk was available, as the other inmate required a bottom bunk for medical reasons.

Martin, whose blood-alcohol content was 0.16 percent per his booking paperwork, allegedly told Herbert that he was too drunk to get up to the upper bunk. As shown on surveillance video, shortly after being placed in the cell, Martin climbed onto the upper bunk. About 30 minutes later, he fell while attempting to climb down, hitting his head on a table on the opposite wall, damaging his spinal cord and paralyzing him permanently. He died five months later.

After Martin’s estate sued, the Indiana Southern District Court denied the officers’ qualified immunity claim, when it could not decide whether “their action clearly violated established law.” But the 7^th Circuit reversed and remanded that decision on Monday with instructions to enter judgement for the officers on the estate’s Fourth Amendment claim in Lucinda Lovett and Michael Lovett, Co-Person Representatives of the Estate of Daniel J. Martin v. Landon Herbert and Zachary Overton, 17-1668.  

On appeal, the estate had argued the officers violated Martin’s Fourth Amendment right to “objectively reasonable” treatment by giving a severely intoxicated person access to an upper bunk. The officers, however, contended that only analogous precedent could have put them on notice that their conduct was unreasonable, but no such precedent existed.

Martin’s estate also argued there was a lack appellate jurisdiction because the district court found material factual disputes, but the 7th Circuit concluded it had jurisdiction over the case and could determine whether “providing a severely intoxicated person access to an upper bunk, in a cell where the lower bunk was occupied, violated clearly established law for qualified immunity purposes.”

In its decision, the 7^th Circuit noted that because Martin was able to communicate with the officers and move around, his severe intoxication “did not necessarily indicate imminent or ongoing danger, such that giving access to an upper bunk was patently unreasonable.” It also found the specific facts of the case showed numerous events took place between the time Martin was placed in his cell and the time of his fall from the upper bunk, none of which were “obviously foreseeable (such) that the Fourth Amendment’s requirement of reasonable conduct would have given the Officers’ notice that their actions violated that standard.”

The 7^th Circuit added that district court cases cited by the estate were found to have “no weight as precedents” and, therefore, could not clearly establish a constitutional right.

“Therefore, even drawing all factual inferences in its favor, the Estate has failed to show that the Officers’ conduct violated clearly established law,” Judge Thomas M. Durkin, sitting by designation from the Northern Illinois District Court, wrote for the panel. “For that reason, the Officers are entitled to qualified immunity.”