Cecilia Perry v. Jermanda Adams

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 19-2478

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Cecilia Perry, Plaintiff Ad Litem for Christina Brooks, Next of Friend for D.B,

D.B, D.B and D.B

lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellee

v.

Jermanda Adams

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellant

City of St. Louis; St. Louis City Justice Center; City of Jennings; City of Jennings

Detention Center; Demetrius Staples; Kent Menning

lllllllllllllllllllllDefendants

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Appeal from United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Missouri - St. Louis

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Submitted: December 16, 2020

Filed: April 5, 2021

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Before SMITH, Chief Judge, LOKEN and MELLOY, Circuit Judges.

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MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

Defendant Jermanda Adams appeals the district court’s denial of a summary

judgment motion rejecting qualified immunity as against a claim alleging deliberate

indifference to a detainee’s suicide risk. Because Adams’s conduct did not violate

the detainee’s clearly established rights, she is entitled to qualified immunity.

Accordingly, we reverse.

In this tragic case, a pretrial detainee, DeJuan Brison, committed suicide by

hanging himself in a cell after being transferred from the St. Louis City Justice Center

to the City of Jennings Detention Center. Brison’s mother, on behalf of herself and

other family members, sued several entities and individuals associated with the cities.

Material to the present appeal, they sued Adams alleging she was a St. Louis City

Justice Center Officer who failed to notify detainee intake personnel with the City of

Jennings that Brison was suicidal when St. Louis transferred Brison into Jennings’s

custody. The district court denied summary judgment based on qualified immunity,

and Adams brings this interlocutory appeal to our court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

See Mitchell v. Forsyth, 472 U.S. 511, 530 (1985) (“[A] district court’s denial of a

claim of qualified immunity, to the extent that it turns on an issue of law, is an

appealable ‘final decision’ within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. § 1291 notwithstanding

the absence of a final judgment.”). We review the denial of qualified immunity de

novo. Quraishi v. St. Charles Cty., Mo., 986 F.3d 831, 835 (8th Cir. 2021).

The factual record on summary judgment is extensive, but we need not recount

all of the details to conduct our analysis. Taking the record in the light most

favorable to the plaintiffs, we can say the following about Adams’s knowledge and

actions surrounding Brison’s transfer. First, the St. Louis City Justice Center had in

place a “Crisis Watch Status” policy that required a rigorous level of supervision over

detainees determined to be at suicide risk: “Full Suicide Watch.” Second, the policy

had a less restrictive watch status for use with detainees determined by a “Qualified

Mental Health Professional” to be “acutely disturbed, but not suicidal or homicidal”:

“Close Observation.” Third, by internal policy, if the St. Louis City Justice Center

transferred a detainee to another facility or jurisdiction, officials were required to

notify the receiving authorities of any watch status and provide a copy of the

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detainee’s “Medical Screening Assessment Form.” Fourth, Brison had been on Full

Suicide Watch while in the custody of the St. Louis City Justice Center. Fifth, a

Qualified Mental Health Professional determined Brison was non-suicidal and moved

him from Full Suicide Watch to the less-restrictive Close Observation status while

Brison was still in St. Louis’s custody. Sixth, Adams was in a position giving rise to

a duty under the local policy to inform receiving officials at Jennings of Brison’s

mental health and watch status. And seventh, Adams did not provide such notice to

Jennings.

The pending claim against Adams is a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim asserting a

violation of the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States

Constitution. Plaintiffs allege specifically that Adams exhibited deliberate

indifference to Brison’s substantial risk of suicide by failing to warn intake personnel

at Jennings. A pretrial detainee’s deliberate indifference claim is governed by the

Fourteenth Amendment which extends to detainees at least the same protections that

convicted prisoners receive under the Eighth Amendment. See Kahle v. Leonard,

477 F.3d 544, 550 (8th Cir. 2007). To succeed on such a claim, the plaintiffs must

prove Adams held actual knowledge that Brison was at substantial risk of serious

harm but failed to take reasonable action in response to that known risk. See Farmer

v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 829 (1994) (defining “deliberate indifference” as

“requiring a showing that the official was subjectively aware of the risk”); A.H. v. St.

Louis Cnty., Mo., 891 F.3d 721, 726 (8th Cir. 2018).

Because Adams is a public official asserting a defense of qualified immunity,

she is immune from suit under § 1983 unless her actions violated constitutional or

statutory rights that were clearly established at the time of the violation. See Howard

v. Kansas City Police Dep’t, 570 F.3d 984, 988 (8th Cir. 2009). For qualified-

immunity purposes, rights are not defined at a broad level of generality. See

Engleman v. Deputy Murray, 546 F.3d 944, 949 n.4 (8th Cir. 2008) (“The Supreme

Court has clearly stated that in establishing qualified immunity, the test must be

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applied at a level of specificity that approximates the actual circumstances of the

case.”). Rather, for a right to have been clearly established at the time of the alleged

violation, there must have existed “circuit precedent that involves sufficiently similar

facts to squarely govern [Adams’s] conduct in the specific circumstances at issue, or,

in the absence of binding precedent, . . . a robust consensus of cases of persuasive

authority constituting settled law.” Graham v. Barnette, 970 F.3d 1075, 1090 (8th

Cir. 2020) (cleaned up). At the end of day, qualified immunity protects “all but the

plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law,” Malley v. Briggs, 475

U.S. 335, 341 (1986), permitting liability only for the transgression of “bright lines,”

not for violations that fall into “gray areas,” Boudoin v. Harsson, 962 F.3d 1034,

1040 (8th Cir. 2020) (citation omitted).

The question of qualified immunity as against the current § 1983 claim,

therefore, does not ask simply whether Adams’s alleged actions or failures to act

might have violated an internal policy at the St. Louis City Justice Center or whether

as a matter of state law such actions might have constituted negligence. Cole v.

Bone, 993 F.2d 1328, 1334 (8th Cir.1993) (“the issue is whether the government

official violated the Constitution or federal law, not whether he violated the policies

of a state agency”). Similarly, it does not ask whether Adams possessed knowledge

that Brison was at “some risk” yet failed to act. Rather it asks whether on the facts

presented, Adams knew of a substantial risk of serious harm yet failed to act.

Framed at the level of specificity that the Supreme Court mandates for our

analysis, we understand the specific question we must answer to be as follows: “Does

a transferring officer violate a pretrial detainee’s Fourteenth Amendment rights by

failing to inform a receiving entity that the detainee is on a close-observation status

if a mental health professional has determined that the detainee is not suicidal and if

the applicable close-observation status is, in and of itself, indicative of the absence

of a suicide risk?” Framed in this way, and even assuming that Adams had

knowledge that Brison was on Close Observation, we find no clearly established

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right. Brison was analyzed by a mental health professional and was on a watch status

indicating he was not suicidal. Therefore, this is not a case like Boswell v. Sherburne

County, 849 F.2d 1117, 1122 (8th Cir. 1988), where a jailer with knowledge of a

detainee’s serious medical condition failed to contact medical professionals or advise

incoming jailers as to the detainee’s risk. Here, short of a suicide risk which a mental

health professional found to be absent, the plaintiffs do not identify what risk of

“serious harm” Brison faced and what actual knowledge Adams possessed regarding

any such risk. Of course, detention officers have a general duty to guard reasonably

against known risks of suicide. Coleman v. Parkman, 349 F.3d 534, 538 (8th Cir.

2003). As such, transferring officers generally should strive to convey important

information likely to aid in the protection of inmates’ health and welfare. But, clearly

established and specific constitutional requirements defined under this general rule

do not support the proposition that an officer is required to second-guess a mental

health professional’s judgment as to the substantiality of a suicide risk.

Plaintiffs rely primarily on an out-of-circuit case, Cavalieri v. Shepard, 321

F.3d 616, 621–22 (7th Cir. 2003), to argue that Adams is not entitled to qualified

immunity. There, the Seventh Circuit affirmed a denial of qualified immunity on

allegations that a transferring officer failed to inform the receiving authorities about

a suicide risk. Unlike the present case, Cavalieri involved no suggestion that a mental

health professional had found the detainee to be non-suicidal. And, material factual

distinctions aside, a single case from a neighboring circuit does not serve as “a robust

consensus of cases of persuasive authority constituting settled law” for qualified

immunity purposes. See Graham, 970 F.3d at 1090.

We reverse the judgment of the district court.

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