Wade et al v. Porter County Jail

Filing 145

OPINION AND ORDER DENYING 139 MOTION for Reconsideration re 130 Order on Motion for Summary Judgment by Defendants David Lain, John Widrup. Signed by Judge Joseph S Van Bokkelen on 5/19/16. (cer)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF INDIANA
HAMMOND DIVISION

CHARLES WADE, III,
Plaintiff,
v.

Case No. 2:11-CV-454-JVB

Sheriff DAVID LAIN, Individually and in His
Official Capacity as Porter County Sheriff;
Warden JOHN J. WIDUP, Individually and in
His Official Capacity as Warden of the Porter
County Jail; Sergeant DAVID CAVANAUGH,
in his Individual and Official Capacity; Medical
Director KIM HOUSE, Individually in Her
Capacity as Medical Director of the Porter
County Jail; JOHN DOE Correctional Officers
and Supervisor, in Their Individual and Official
Capacities; JOHN or JANE DOE Medical Staff
of the Porter County Jail, in Their Individual
Capacities,
Defendant.

OPINION AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Defendant Sheriff Lain’s motion for
reconsideration. For the following reasons, the motion is DENIED.

I. Motion to Reconsider
A. Background
Plaintiff Charles Wade, III, was held at the Porter County Jail as a pretrial detainee
from 2010 to 2013. He subsequently brought suit against Defendant Kim House, who was an
employee of a private medical contractor, and also against numerous Porter County
employees (the “Porter County Defendants”). He sued these defendants on various grounds,

of which three survived to the summary judgment stage: negligence, intentional infliction of
emotional distress (IIED), and inadequate medical care in violation of his Fourteenth
Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Plaintiff’s § 1983 claims included a claim against
Sheriff Lain in his official capacity. “[A]n official capacity suit is another way of pleading an
action against an entity of which the officer is an agent.” Sow v. Fortville Police Dep’t, 636
F.3d 293, 300 (7th Cir. 2011). Such a claim requires showing a pattern or practice of
constitutional violations. Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs. of City of New York, 436 U.S. 658,
690–91 (1978).
After discovery, Defendant House and the Porter County Defendants each moved for
summary judgment, arguing that the undisputed evidence showed that none of them engaged
in conduct toward Plaintiff that reached the threshold for negligence, IIED, or a violation of
the Fourteenth Amendment. The Porter County Defendants further argued that the Indiana
Tort Claims Act granted them immunity from Plaintiff’s state-law tort claims. The Porter
County Defendants additionally argued that a reasonable jury could not find a policy of
inadequate medical care by the Porter County Sheriff’s Department (the “Department”) that
would support municipal liability.
This Court granted Defendant House’s motion in its entirety, and also granted
summary judgment for the Porter County Defendants in their personal capacities and on all
state-law claims. The Court however denied summary judgment on Plaintiff’s Monell claim
against Sheriff Lain in his official capacity, to the extent the claim related to a failure to
properly screen prisoners for tuberculosis at the Porter County Jail. Sheriff Lain now moves
the Court to reconsider the denial of summary judgment on that remaining count.

B. Legal Standard
Motions to reconsider a summary judgment ruling are brought under Federal Rule of
Civil Procedure 54(b), which permits revision of non-final orders. Galvan v. Norberg, 678
F.3d 581, 587 n.3 (7th Cir. 2012). The Seventh Circuit has summarized the role of motions to
reconsider as follows:
A motion for reconsideration performs a valuable function where the Court
has patently misunderstood a party, or has made a decision outside the
adversarial issues presented to the Court by the parties, or has made an error
not of reasoning but of apprehension. A further basis for a motion to
reconsider would be a controlling or significant change in the law or facts
since the submission of the issue to the Court.
Bank of Waunakee v. Rochester Cheese Sales, Inc., 906 F.2d 1185, 1191 (7th Cir.1990)
(citations omitted). Accordingly, motions to reconsider “serve a limited function: to correct
manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence.” Caisse Nationale de
Credit Agricole v. CBI Indus., Inc., 90 F.3d 1264, 1269 (7th Cir. 1996). A motion to
reconsider “is not an appropriate forum for rehashing previously rejected arguments or
arguing matters that could have been heard during the pendency of the previous motion.”
Caisse Nationale, 90 F.3d at 1269–70.
In his motion to reconsider, Sheriff Lain does not present any new law or fact that
would compel the Court to reconsider its decision, and does not show that the Court has
patently misunderstood his arguments. Accordingly, the motion will be denied.

C. Analysis
(1) Glisson is distinguishable as involving a policy that affected only one prisoner
Sheriff Lain calls the Court’s attention to the recent ruling in Glisson v. Indiana
Dep’t of Corr., 813 F.3d 662 (7th Cir. 2016). In Glisson, the plaintiff’s claim rested on a
prison’s failure to provide the appropriate care, under a state-mandated policy, for a specific

prisoner’s serious but unusual condition. Id. at 666.Thus, the plaintiff had to show a
widespread practice of failing to treat that particular condition properly. Id. As a result, the
plaintiff’s claim failed, because she had no evidence that any other prisoner was affected by
the prison’s failure to adopt and follow that state-mandated policy. Id.
Glisson is readily distinguishable from this case. In Glisson the risk was unique to
the plaintiff. In contrast, here the Department’s alleged failure to conduct intake screenings
created a risk that a jury could find affected the entire inmate population. Plaintiff will need
to actually convince the jury, inter alia, that there was a widespread practice of failure to
screen. But as this court has determined, Plaintiff has provided evidence that could support
such a finding. Accordingly, there is no basis for reconsideration on this point.

2) The Harris “moving force” requirement is met, because the alleged constitutional
injury inheres directly in the failure to screen
Sheriff Lain cites City of Canton v. Harris for the proposition that the municipal
policy on which a Monell claim is predicated must be the moving force behind the violation
for which a plaintiff sues. 489 U.S. 378, 389 (1989). But on careful reading, Harris doesn’t
require that a policy or practice be the moving force behind a plaintiff’s physical injury.
Rather, Harris requires only that the policy be the moving force behind “the constitutional
violation.” Id. Here, the alleged constitutional violation—deliberate indifference to serious
bodily harm—inheres directly in the alleged failure to conduct tuberculosis screening. Thus,
the Harris moving force requirement is met. Accordingly, there is also no basis for
reconsideration on this point.

3) Actual knowledge is not required in a claim for municipal liability under Monell
Sheriff Lain cites Minix v. Canarecci for the proposition that deliberate indifference
cannot be established by showing only that a supervisor “should have been aware” of a
constitutional violation. 597 F.3d 824, 831 (7th Cir. 2010). Sheriff Lain argues that because
Plaintiff has not shown that Sheriff Lain personally knew of any deficiencies of the medical
care that Plaintiff specifically received, there is no basis on which a jury could find
supervisory liability on Plaintiff’s Fourteenth Amendment claim.
But Minix involved a claim against a jail administrator in his personal capacity. Id.
The suit required personal knowledge because it sought to establish personal liability. Here,
in contrast, all that remains before the Court is Plaintiff’s claim against Sheriff Lain in his
official capacity. In official-capacity suits, if a constitutional problem is sufficiently
“obvious,” constructive knowledge can be sufficient. Harris, 489 U.S. at 390. Thus, the
Minix requirement of actual knowledge does not apply. Accordingly, there is also no basis for
reconsideration on this point.

(4) Sheriff Lain’s remaining arguments are improper for a motion to reconsider
Sheriff Lain’s remaining arguments seek to rehash issues already addressed in the
summary judgment briefing. Specifically, the Sheriff argues that: (1) Plaintiff failed to show
deliberate indifference (DE 140 at 8), (2) Plaintiff failed to show a causal link between the
alleged deliberate indifference and the alleged injury (DE 140 at 8), and (3) Plaintiff failed to
present any evidence that he actually contracted tuberculosis at the Porter County Jail (DE
140 at 17). But each of these has already been addressed by the parties in the briefing, and by
this Court at length in its Order (DE 130). The Sheriff argues vigorously that the Court
decided wrongly, but does not try to show that the Court misunderstood the arguments before
it. Nor does the Sheriff try to show that the Court failed to address some crucial point of fact

or law. Rather, the Sheriff’s arguments in substance simply repeat the arguments raised in the
summary judgment briefing.
As reviewed above, such rehashing is inappropriate for a motion to reconsider.
Accordingly, reconsideration must be denied on these points as well.

E. Conclusion
For the reasons above, Sheriff Lain’s motion for reconsideration is DENIED.

SO ORDERED on May 19, 2016.

S/ Joseph S. Van Bokkelen
JOSEPH S. VAN BOKKELEN
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE