Monell Requires Causal Link Between Unconstitutional Act and Harm
THOMAS v. COOK COUNTY SHERIFF'S DEPARTMENT (December 1, 2009)
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Norman Smith was arrested by the Chicago police on April 23, 2004. He was delivered to the Cook County Jail on April 24, where he was scheduled to remain until his trial date. An intake medical examination showed elevated blood pressure but no other medical problems. Smith showed symptoms of something more serious, however, from that first day. He was dizzy and vomiting. His symptoms became more serious over the next several days. Despite repeated requests by Smith and by other detainees on his behalf for medical assistance, he received none. On April 30, his cellmate discovered Smith convulsing on the floor. The cellmate reported it immediately to the officer on duty. There was a significant delay before Smith received any treatment. He died that morning of pneumococcal meningitis. His mother, Marlita Thomas, brought a § 1983 case against a number of individual correctional officers, the Cook County Sheriff and Cook County. A jury awarded Thomas $4,450,000 against the County, the Sheriff and three correctional officers. The jury then allocated the damages amongst the defendants. The court denied the defendants' motions for judgment as a matter of law or for a new trial. The defendants appeal.
In their opinion, Judges Flaum, Wood and Williams affirmed in part and reversed and remanded in part. The Court first addressed the verdict against the individual officers. In order to prevail, the Court stated that a plaintiff must demonstrate that a medical condition is objectively serious, that the defendant has subjective knowledge of the health risk and the defendant disregarded the risk. The Court concluded that there was sufficient evidence in the record to allow a jury to conclude that the individual officers knew about Smith's health risk and ignored it. Thus, the verdict is affirmed. The Court next addressed the verdict against the County. The County can be liable only if the unconstitutional act is the result of an official policy or a widespread practice or custom or is caused by an official with policy-making authority. The Court refused to adopt a bright-line test on how widespread a policy need be, but noted that it must be more than a random event. The Court concluded that there was sufficient evidence of a widespread policy: a failure to review medical requests, a failure to collect medical requests, keeping request forms in a locked box, etc. Thus, the verdict against the County was affirmed. The Court next addressed the verdict against the Sheriff. The basis for imposing liability under Monell against the Sheriff was his policy of severely understaffing the jail. In order to sustain the verdict, there must be a causal link between the policy and the unconstitutional act. Here, the individual officers were found liable based on their deliberate indifference to Smith's medical needs. The Court found no relationship between the officers' conduct and the understaffing. The Court concluded that the understaffing theory was too remote to support the verdict. Thus, the Court reversed for entry of judgment in the Sheriff's favor. After rejecting several evidentiary arguments of the defendants, the Court addressed the verdict. On the verdict form, the jury entered $150,000 against the officers, $3 million against the County, and $1 million against the Sheriff. This allocation was improper, in that the defendants were jointly and severally liable for one indivisible injury. It raised the question of whether the total damages is the sum of all of the damage awards, or the highest single assessment. The Court presumed that the jury followed instructions to not award duplicate damages and concluded that adding the damage awards would be proper. Under that analysis, the award against the Sheriff ($1 million) remains as part of the verdict against the County and individual officers, notwithstanding the reversal of the verdict against the Sheriff. Finally, the Court rejected the defendants' argument that the award was excessive.
