Crittindon et al v. Gusman et al

Filing 168

RULING: The 102 Motion for Summary Judgment, 104 Motion for Summary Judgment, 110 Motion for Summary Judgment and 111 Motion for Partial Summary Judgment are DENIED. Signed by Chief Judge Shelly D. Dick on 04/13/20220. (ELW)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

JESSIE CRITTINDON, et al.

CIVIL ACTION

VERSUS

17-512-SDD-EWD

MARLIN GUSMAN, et al.

RULING
This matter is before the Court on the following Motions:


The Motion for Partial Summary Judgment1 filed by Plaintiffs Jessie Crittindon
(“Crittindon”), Leon Burse (“Burse”), Eddie Copelin (“Copelin”), Phillip Dominick III
(“Dominick”), and Donald Guidry (“Guidry”)(collectively, “Plaintiffs”). There are
three Oppositions to the Motion: one by Defendants Marlin Gusman (“Sheriff
Gusman”) and Corey Amacker (“Amacker”) of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office
(“OPSO”)(collectively, “the OPSO Defendants”);2 one by Defendants Wydette
Williams (“Sheriff Williams”), Johnny Hedgemon (“Hedgemon”), and Edward
Knight (“Knight”) of the East Carroll Parish Sheriff’s Office (“ECPSO”)(collectively,
“the ECPSO Defendants”);3 and another by Defendants James LeBlanc
(“Secretary LeBlanc”), Angela Griffin (“Griffin”), and Perry Stagg (“Stagg”) of the
Louisiana

Department of Public Safety and Corrections

(“DPS&C” or

“DOC”)(collectively, “the DPS&C Defendants”);4

1

Rec. Doc. No. 111.
Rec. Doc. No. 146.
3
Rec. Doc. No. 131.
4
Rec. Doc. No. 141.
2

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

The Motion for Summary Judgment5 filed by the DPS&C Defendants. Plaintiffs filed
an Opposition,6 to which the DPS&C Defendants filed a Reply.7 Plaintiffs also filed
a Sur-Reply;8



The Motion for Summary Judgment9 filed by the OPSO Defendants, to which
Plaintiffs filed an Opposition;10



The Motion for Summary Judgment11 filed by the ECPSO Defendants, to which
Plaintiffs filed an Opposition.12

For the reasons that follow, the Court finds that the motions shall be DENIED.
I.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
Plaintiffs are former prisoners who allege that they were “incarcerated for months

beyond the date when each was legally entitled to release.”13 Their individual cases
played out in similar fashion: Plaintiffs were all arrested and initially placed in the custody
of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office (OPSO) before being transferred to the River Bend
Detention Center (“River Bend”) in Lake Providence, Louisiana, where they were held by
the East Carroll Parish Sheriff’s Office (ECPSO) as Orleans pretrial detainees.14 Later,
each Plaintiff was transported back to Orleans Parish to enter a plea in Orleans Parish
Criminal District Court. Once the plea was entered and a sentence handed down, each
Plaintiff was transported back to River Bend, where, they allege, they remained in custody

5

Rec. Doc. No. 110.
Rec. Doc. No. 142.
7
Rec. Doc. No. 149.
8
Rec. Doc. No. 155.
9
Rec. Doc. No. 104.
10
Rec. Doc. No. 144.
11
Rec. Doc. No. 102.
12
Rec. Doc. No. 143.
13
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 2.
14
Id. at pp. 3-5.
6

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even though they were entitled to immediate release, having been sentenced to time
served (in the case of Plaintiffs Crittindon, Burse, Copelin, and Dominick).15 Plaintiff
Guidry was not entitled to immediate release upon sentencing, but he alleges that he was
entitled to release on September 4, 2016, and was not actually released from River Bend
until January 24, 2017.16 All five Plaintiffs were no longer pretrial detainees but DOCsentenced inmates when, they allege, they were held in custody beyond their lawful
sentences.
In their Complaints,17 Plaintiffs bring four claims against Defendants, in both their
individual and official capacities: (1) violation of their federal due process rights under the
Fourteenth Amendment pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983; (2) violation of their state due
process rights under Article 1, Section 2 of the Louisiana Constitution; and (3) and (4),
state law claims for false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In
their Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, however, Plaintiffs seek summary judgment
on a narrow subset of the claims at issue:
Plaintiffs seek partial summary judgment from this Court on three
issues of liability: (1) whether, as a matter of law, Defendants violated
the due process rights guaranteed to Plaintiffs by the federal and
state constitutions; (2) whether, as a matter of law, Defendants
falsely imprisoned Plaintiffs; and (3) whether the liability of OPSO,
ECPSO, and the DPS&C Defendants is solidary. . .18
Notably, Plaintiffs’ Motion seeks summary judgment against the OPSO
Defendants and the ECSPO Defendants in their official capacities only; as to the DPS&C

15

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, pp. 3-5.
Id. at p. 5.
17
Rec. Doc. No. 1; Rec. Doc. No. 4; Case No. 17-cv-602, Rec. Doc. No. 1. This case began as two separate
cases -- 17-cv-512 (with Plaintiffs Crittindon and Burse) and 17-cv-602 (with Plaintiffs Copelin, Dominick
III, and Guidry) -- which were consolidated on October 18, 2017. See Rec. Doc. No. 23.
18
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 2.
16

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Defendants,19 Plaintiffs seek summary judgment against them in their individual
capacities.20
Plaintiffs argue that the OPSO Defendants had “a practice of ‘releasing’ newlysentenced DOC prisoners from Orleans Parish” directly to River Bend, “without proper
completion and provision of the paperwork and documentation required by state law and
necessary to ensure their release from custody.”21 Similarly, they argue that the ECPSO
Defendants are liable because, “[d]espite promulgating a written policy that requires
documentation of ‘the legal basis for commitment’ for the intake of prisoners,” the ECPSO
Defendants allegedly had an “official practice of accepting persons into [River Bend]
without obtaining this information.”22 The OPSO and ECPSO Defendants counter that
Plaintiffs cannot prevail on their official capacity § 1983 claims because they have “failed
to establish that there was a specific policy or a pattern of similar overdetention incidents
which arose out of specifically similar circumstances, sufficient to put” them on notice that
their practice was constitutionally deficient.23 Further, both OPSO and ECPSO
Defendants contend that Plaintiffs have failed to establish that they “acted with the
requisite deliberate indifference necessary to find the parties liable in their official
capacity.”24
As for the individual capacity claims against the DPS&C Defendants, Plaintiffs
argue that they are entitled to summary judgment based on these Defendants’ “direct

19

The parties and the Court use “DPS&C” and “DOC” interchangeably to refer to the Louisiana Department
of Public Safety and Corrections.
20
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 2.
21
Id. at p. 22.
22
Id. at p. 33.
23
Rec. Doc. No. 146, p. 2 (OPSO Defendants); Rec. Doc. No. 131, p. 9 (ECPSO Defendants).
24
Id.

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participation in the acts which caused the deprivations of Plaintiffs’ due process rights,”
as well as summary judgment on
three separate theories of supervisory liability: (1) failure to adopt
policies that could have prevented the Plaintiffs’ injuries; (2) failure
to train and supervise department employees, resulting in the
Plaintiffs’ injuries; and (3) direct participation in DPS&C intolerably
slow response to the discovery of scores of DOC-sentenced
prisoners held at River Bend without having been pre-classified,
resulting in the Plaintiffs being held even longer than if DPS&C had
taken swift action.25
The DPS&C Defendants counter that summary judgment is improper because they are
entitled to qualified immunity. Specifically, they argue that there is no evidence that they
acted with deliberate indifference; instead, they claim, they “promptly processed”
Plaintiffs’ release paperwork “after receiving the necessary documentation”26 from the
other Defendants. Because DPS&C “is dependent upon the Sheriff to provide necessary
paperwork to calculate an offender’s time,” Defendants argue that they cannot be liable
for the overdetention of Plaintiffs based on the Sheriffs’ failure to provide that paperwork.
Additionally, the DPS&C Defendants argue that Plaintiffs cannot show a failure to adopt
effective policies, explaining that “there is no indication of a pattern or practice of DOC
staff wholly failing to reach to local official to obtain paperwork. Indeed, DOC staff
remained in communication with Orleans Parish throughout December 2016 and into
January 2017.”27

25

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 42.
Rec. Doc. No. 141, p. 12.
27
Id. at p. 17.
26

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According to Plaintiffs, all Defendants are also liable for false imprisonment under
Louisiana law based on their constitutionally deficient practices. Plaintiffs ask this Court
to find that all Defendants are solidarily liable for the harm to Plaintiffs, explaining that:
The OPSO, ECPSO, and DPS&C Defendants each played a role in
preventing each Plaintiff from going free on his respective lawful
release date. None of the Plaintiffs’ releases could be ‘partially
executed.’ The obligation owed to Plaintiffs, therefore, is a joint,
indivisible obligation and OPSO, ECPSO, and the DPS&C
Defendants are solidarily liable.28
The Defendants disagree, noting that in 1996, the Louisiana Civil Code “was amended to
eliminate solidary liability of joint tortfeasors, except for intentional or willful acts.”29
For their part, the ECPSO Defendants move for summary judgment on the claims
against them for the following reasons: (1) because “Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by Heck
v. Humphrey and should be dismissed on that basis”;30 (2) because “plaintiffs fail to state
a claim against either Sheriff Williams, in his individual capacity, or the East Carroll
Defendants collectively in their official capacities”;31 (3) because the ECPSO Defendants
“are entitled to qualified immunity in their individual capacities”;32 and (4) because the
“plaintiffs fail to state a cause of action for intentional infliction of emotional distress under
Louisiana law.”33
Similarly, the OPSO Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment posits that they
are entitled to summary judgment on the claims against them for the following reasons:
(1) because “Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by Heck v. Humphrey and should be dismissed

28

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 13.
Rec. Doc. No. 146, p. 14.
30
Rec. Doc. No. 102-1, p. 4.
31
Id. at p. 10.
32
Id. at p. 12.
33
Id. at p. 14.
29

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on that basis”;34 (2) because “Plaintiff [sic] has failed to state facts which support an official
capacity claim against the Sheriff”;35 and (3) because the “Sherriff and Amacker are
entitled to qualified immunity in their individual capacities.”36
Lastly, the DPS&C Defendants move for summary judgment, arguing that “(1) the
Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by the principles set forth in the United States Supreme Court
case Heck v. Humphrey and its progeny, (2) the defendants are entitled to qualified
immunity, (3) the DPS&C Defendants are not the ‘jailers’ for purposes of the state law
false imprisonment analysis, and (4) the DPS&C Defendants did not intentionally inflict
emotional distress upon the Plaintiffs.”37
Having reviewed the parties’ memoranda and the applicable law, the Court finds
that all of the motions before the Court shall be DENIED. The Court will address the
parties’ arguments in turn below.
II.

LAW AND ANALYSIS
A. Summary Judgment Standard
“The court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no

genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter
of law.”38 “When assessing whether a dispute to any material fact exists, we consider all
of the evidence in the record but refrain from making credibility determinations or weighing
the evidence.”39 A party moving for summary judgment “must ‘demonstrate the absence

34

Rec. Doc. No. 104-1, p. 4.
Id. at p. 6.
36
Id. at p. 9.
37
Rec. Doc. No. 110-1, p. 2.
38
FED. R. CIV. P. 56(a).
39
Delta & Pine Land Co. v. Nationwide Agribusiness Ins. Co., 530 F.3d 395, 398-99 (5th Cir. 2008).
35

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of a genuine issue of material fact,’ but need not negate the elements of the nonmovant’s
case.”40 If the moving party satisfies its burden, “the non-moving party must show that
summary judgment is inappropriate by setting ‘forth specific facts showing the existence
of a genuine issue concerning every essential component of its case.’”41 However, the
non-moving party’s burden “is not satisfied with some metaphysical doubt as to the
material facts, by conclusory allegations, by unsubstantiated assertions, or by only a
scintilla of evidence.”42
Notably, “[a] genuine issue of material fact exists, ‘if the evidence is such that a
reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.’”43 All reasonable factual
inferences are drawn in favor of the nonmoving party.44 However, “[t]he Court has no
duty to search the record for material fact issues. Rather, the party opposing the summary
judgment is required to identify specific evidence in the record and to articulate precisely
how this evidence supports his claim.”45 “Conclusory allegations unsupported by specific
facts … will not prevent the award of summary judgment; ‘the plaintiff [can]not rest on his
allegations … to get to a jury without any “significant probative evidence tending to
support the complaint.”’”46

40

Guerin v. Pointe Coupee Parish Nursing Home, 246 F.Supp.2d 488, 494 (M.D. La. 2003)(quoting Little
v. Liquid Air Corp., 37 F.3d 1069, 1075 (5th Cir. 1994)(en banc)(quoting Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S.
317, 323-25)).
41
Rivera v. Houston Independent School Dist., 349 F.3d 244, 247 (5th Cir. 2003)(quoting Morris v. Covan
World Wide Moving, Inc., 144 F.3d 377, 380 (5th Cir. 1998)).
42
Willis v. Roche Biomedical Laboratories, Inc., 61 F.3d 313, 315 (5th Cir. 1995)(quoting Little v. Liquid Air
Corp., 37 F.3d 1069, 1075 (5th Cir. 1994).
43
Pylant v. Hartford Life and Accident Insurance Company, 497 F.3d 536, 538 (5th Cir. 2007)(quoting
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986)).
44
Galindo v. Precision American Corp., 754 F.2d 1212, 1216 (5th Cir. 1985).
45
RSR Corp. v. Int’l Ins. Co., 612 F.3d 851, 857 (5th Cir. 2010).
46
Nat’l Ass’n of Gov’t Employees v. City Pub. Serv. Bd. of San Antonio, Tex., 40 F.3d 698, 713 (5th Cir.
1994)(quoting Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249).

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B. Official Capacity Claims Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
A suit against a government official in his official capacity is the equivalent of filing
suit against the government agency of which the official is an agent.132 Accordingly, the
claims against the defendants in their official capacities are, in effect, claims against the
municipal entity they represent. A plaintiff asserting a Section 1983 claim against a
municipal official in his official capacity or a Section 1983 claim against a municipality
“must show that the municipality has a policy or custom that caused his injury.”134 To
establish an “official policy,” a plaintiff must allege either of the following:
1. A policy statement, ordinance, regulation, or decision that is
officially adopted and promulgated by the municipality's lawmaking
officers or by an official to whom the lawmakers have delegated the
policymaking authority; or
2. A persistent, widespread practice of city officials or employees,
which, although not authorized by officially adopted and promulgated
policy, is so common and well settled as to constitute a custom that
fairly represents municipal policy. Actual or constructive knowledge
of such custom must be attributable to the governing body of the
municipality or to an official to whom that body had delegated policymaking authority.47
For municipal liability, the policymaker must have final policymaking authority.48
“[W]hether a particular official has final policymaking authority is a question of state law.”49
Moreover, “each and any policy which allegedly caused constitutional violations must be
specifically identified by a plaintiff” for the necessary determination to be made on the
policy's relative constitutionality.50

47

Bennett v. City of Slidell, 735 F.2d 861, 862 (5th Cir.1984).
City of St. Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 127 (1988).
49
Jett v. Dallas Indep. Sch. Dist., 491 U.S. 701, 737 (1989) (internal quotations omitted) (emphasis in
original).
50
Piotrowski v. City of Houston, 237 F.3d 567, 579 (5th Cir. 2001).
48

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Although “a single decision may create municipal liability if that decision were
made by a final policymaker responsible for that activity,”51 absent an official policy,
actions of officers or employees of a municipality do not render the municipality liable
under Section 1983.52 A municipality cannot be held liable under Section 1983 for the
tortious behavior of its employees under a theory of respondeat superior.53 “Congress did
not intend municipalities to be held liable unless action pursuant to official municipal policy
of some nature caused a constitutional tort.”54 However, a plaintiff may establish a policy
or custom based on isolated decisions made in the context of a particular situation if the
decision was made by an authorized policymaker in whom final authority rested regarding
the action ordered.55
C. Analysis
i.

OPSO Defendants

The OPSO Defendants contend that the official capacity § 1983 claim against them
fails because Plaintiffs have not successfully demonstrated that OPSO’s alleged practice
of releasing pretrial detainees to the River Bend Detention Center without the proper
paperwork was widespread or persistent enough to give rise to municipal liability. The
OPSO Defendants argue that their alleged practice or custom cannot give rise to official
capacity liability without an “allegation of prior similar constitutional violations which would
have put Sheriff Gusman on notice that his policy . . . was inadequate.”56 Indeed, the Fifth

51

Bennett v. Pippin, 74 F.3d 578, 586 (5th Cir.1996) (internal quotations and citations omitted).
Id.
53
Monell v. Dep't of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691 (1978).
54
Id.
55
Cozzo v. Tangipahoa Parish Council–President Gov't, 279 F.3d 273, 289 (5th Cir. 2002)(citing City of
Saint Louis v. Praprotnik, 485 U.S. 112, 124–25 (1988); Pippin, 74 F.3d at 586.
56
Rec. Doc. No. 146, p. 7.
52

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Circuit has held that “[i]solated violations are not the persistent, often repeated, constant
violations, that constitute custom and policy as required for municipal section 1983
liability,”57 and that a “customary municipal policy cannot ordinarily be inferred from single
constitutional violations.”58
To be sure, there is evidence that the practice was relatively widespread; for
example, Plaintiffs cite a spreadsheet, generated by DOC in December 2016, listing
offenders sentenced in Orleans and housed at River Bend who were in “DOC [custody]
without paperwork.”59 There are 57 prisoners on the list. However, a finding of municipal
liability based on a pattern or practice requires that “[a]ctual or constructive knowledge of
such custom must be attributable to the governing body of the municipality or to an official
to whom that body had delegated policy-making authority.”60 The record evidence
suggests that Orleans Parish Sheriff Gusman was aware of issues with inmate transfer
paperwork, though the timing and specificity of his knowledge of the specific problems
with inmate transfers to River Bend is a question of fact. In his deposition, Sheriff Gusman
testified under oath that “the information that I was getting did not indicate that we were
having a problem”61 with providing the requisite paperwork before transferring prisoners.
However, the evidence also reflects that OPSO promulgated a new policy in July 2016
(OPSO No. 501.13, “Department of Corrections Pre-Classification”) that set forth the
process that OPSO deputies were to follow when preparing pre-classification information

57

Piotrowski v. City of Houston, 237 F.3d 567, 581 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting Bennett, 728 F.2d at 768 n.3).
Id.
59
Rec. Doc. No. 111-37, p. 3-5.
60
Bennett, 735 F.2d at 862.
61
Rec. Doc. No. 146-2, p. 59.
58

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for inmates transferred to state prisons.62 Asked in his deposition if the policy was
promulgated due a problem with the collection of pre-classification documents, Sheriff
Gusman testified, “I don’t think it was a problem that was brought to my attention but just
a – I would call it more of a concern that we wanted to make sure we got the fingerprints
done, that we had the order from the court, certified order, those kind of things . . .”63
Gusman stated that “every once in a while someone would tell me as I walked through
the jail that ‘Hey, I haven’t been fingerprinted yet,’ and I would get them fingerprinted . .
.”64 Asked whether the new OPSO policy for pre-classification, if followed, would put
OPSO in compliance with the Basic Jail Guidelines, Gusman answered, “Yes. And that
was certainly our intention.”65 Although Sherriff Gusman denied being aware of an issue
with providing paperwork for transfers to River Bend, he admitted that at some point, he
“certainly became aware of a problem, and as soon as I became aware of the problem, I
said, ‘Look, we’ve got to take care of this immediately’. . . we dispatched one of our staff
to go up there and – to East Carroll Parish and to resolve this as quickly as we could.”66
Ultimately, Gusman’s testimony presents a somewhat mixed picture of his
awareness of the alleged practice of transferring inmates to River Bend without proper
paperwork. The evidence in this case demonstrates that the “arrangement” of OPSO
sending pretrial detainees to River Bend began in September 2015 with a verbal
agreement between OPSO and ECPSO. The question of whether, by the time the
spreadsheet showing 57 OPSO prisoners “without paperwork” at River Bend was

62

Rec. Doc. No. 111-23.
Rec. Doc. No. 146-2, p. 48.
64
Id. at p. 47.
65
Id. at p. 51.
66
Id. at p. 62-63.
63

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generated in December 2016, Gusman, Amacker, and OPSO officials had the requisite
knowledge of the alleged practice for the Court to conclude that this practice was a
persistent, widespread, well-settled municipal policy is a disputed question of fact to be
determined at trial. Therefore, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is denied
with respect to their official capacity claim against the OPSO Defendants. The OPSO
Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment67on the official capacity claims against them
is likewise denied, for the same reasons, as discussed more fully infra.
ii.

ECPSO Defendants

Plaintiffs move for summary judgment against the ECPSO Defendants in their
official capacities based on their alleged practice “of imprisoning persons without verifying
or establishing the legal authority to detain them.”68 Per Plaintiffs, this practice was the
“official policy of the ECPSO,”69 and ECSPO undertook this practice in violation of their
own written Policy No. 17-14, which requires documentation including “the date of arrest
and admission, duration of confinement, and a copy of the court order or other legal basis
for commitment”70 for individuals booked into the River Bend Detention Center.
The ECPSO Defendants’ Opposition is not particularly responsive to the policy and
practice claim against them. In fact, they do not deny that they had the above-described
practice of accepting transfers from OPSO without the requisite paperwork. Instead, they
repeatedly emphasize that their duty was “only to operate as a housing unit”71 and that
they “were not the party responsible for the packets [of paperwork] at issue in this

67

Rec. Doc. No. 104.
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 33.
69
Id.
70
See Rec. Doc. 105-26.
71
Rec. Doc. No. 131, p. 7.
68

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matter.”72 Their conceded practice of accepting prisoners without paperwork does not
give rise to liability, they argue, because it was “not unreasonable for the ECPSO to have
relied upon the substantial codal and statutory authority, common understanding, shared
expectations, customary practices, Basic Jail Guidelines, and written agreements in
forming their belief that they were not the entity responsible for compiling the packets at
issue and sending them to DPS&C.”73
But Plaintiffs do not argue that ECPSO should have been compiling paperwork;
rather, they seek summary judgment against ECPSO based on its practice of accepting
prisoners without documentation of their legal authority to detain them. As to that claim,
ECPSO argues only that “there are no allegations that the sheriff had any notice that any
policy (or lack thereof) adopted by his office would or could lead to unlawful detention.”74
Again, as discussed with respect to the OPSO Defendants above, the Fifth Circuit has
held that “[i]solated violations are not the persistent, often repeated, constant violations,
that constitute custom and policy as required for municipal section 1983 liability,”75 and
that a “customary municipal policy cannot ordinarily be inferred from single constitutional
violations.”76
Plaintiffs cite ample testimony establishing that this practice was persistent,
repeated, even “constant.” For example, they note the testimony of Sheila Bell, an
ECPSO employee handling intake, who testified at her deposition as follows:

72

Rec. Doc. No. 131 p. 9.
Id. at p. 8.
74
Rec. Doc. No. 131, p. 9.
75
Piotrowski v. City of Houston, 237 F.3d 567, 581 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting Bennett, 728 F.2d at 768 n.3).
76
Id.
73

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A. Right. And a lot of times we don't get no paperwork from some of
these people, for some of these parishes. Sometimes they come
here empty handed –
Q. Okay.
A. – so we don't always get this.
Q. Okay.
A. Lots of times, we don't get this information.
Q. Okay. So it's the responsibility of the lieutenant to get as much
information in booking as he can; is that correct?
A. Yes. But, like I said, again, a lot of times when these offenders
come in, they – the parishes don't give the transportation guys
anything.
Q. Okay.
A. They are just "here, take your man," that's it.77
And:
Q. Okay. So it's possible that a prisoner would be booked into
Riverbend, go through the bullpen, get their picture taken with you
and have their file passed on to records without it having these
pieces of information such as are listed in this checklist?
A. Of course.78
Other ECPSO staff testified along the same lines. For example, Captain Robert A.
Russell, who identified himself at his deposition as the Chief of Security at River Bend,
was asked whether every person in ECPSO custody at River Bend should have the
documents described in ECPSO’s internal policy before booking, he answered:
A. Ideally, yes. But like anything, when you are dealing with people.
They omit some things, so you can’t – I can’t say that all that
information is in every file.79
Likewise, Warden Hedgemon, the warden at River Bend, was asked in his deposition
how he knows “that Orleans has the right to be detaining the person that they’re
transferring into your custody.”80 He responded:

77

Rec. Doc. No. 111-25, p. 53, lines 2-20 (emphasis added).
Id. at p. 54, lines 15-21.
79
Rec. Doc. No. 111-22, p. 60, lines 14-17.
80
Rec. Doc. No. 111-26, p. 76.
78

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A. I don’t know. The only thing I know is they send them here . . .
Q. And you take Orleans’ word for it?
A. I take many parishes’ words, yes, ma’am.81
Warden Edward Knight, also of River Bend, testified that the prisoner files are “turned
over” to an employee named Mary Brown. Asked if it is Brown’s responsibility to review
those files to see if the required documentation is present, Knight answered, “She should,”
and, “Apparently, according to this, she doesn’t.”82
The testimony from the ECPSO employees who work at and oversee River Bend
Detention Center clearly establishes a widespread practice of accepting prisoners into
the facility without documentation. Perhaps most egregiously, Warden Hedgemon stated
under oath that he “takes the word” of the parishes transferring the inmates that there is
a legal basis for their detention. The ECPSO Defendants argue that despite the evidence
of this practice, there is no official capacity liability because Plaintiffs have not shown that
they acted with deliberate indifference. But the deliberate indifference standard may also
attach to the failure to promulgate a policy.83 Plaintiffs do not argue that ECPSO failed to
promulgate a policy; in fact, they show that ECPSO had a policy governing the necessary
documentation for incoming pretrial detainees. What Plaintiffs argue is that the ECPSO
Defendants are liable under Monell for employing a widespread and persistent municipal
practice that was the moving force behind the violation of Plaintiffs’ rights.
The “moving force” element gives the Court pause. There is no genuine dispute,
based on the record evidence, that ECPSO had a practice of accepting prisoners without
documentation of their legal right to detain them. What is less clear, based on that same

81

Rec. Doc. No. 111-26, p. 76.
Rec. Doc. No. 111-28, p. 117.
83
See Porter v. Epps, 659 F.3d 440, 446 (5th Cir. 2011).
82

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evidence, is whether ECPSO’s failure to collect that paperwork was the moving force
behind the overdetention of Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs present evidence that, via the billing
process by which ECPSO was paid by DOC for housing DOC inmates, ECPSO was
aware of the instances where a prisoner was present at River Bend but not “showing up”
in the DOC system. Per Plaintiffs, overdetention was the “predictable result” of ECPSO
detaining prisoners even when they knew “that DOC-sentenced prisoners had not been
processed by DPS&C such that their time would be calculated and their releases
issued.”84 Of course, ECPSO could and arguably should have alerted DOC when they
learned a prisoner in their custody had not been processed by DOC. But Plaintiffs also
repeatedly argue that the parish of conviction (not the parish of detention) is responsible
for providing notice to the DOC. Plaintiffs explain: the DOC “pre-classification department
receives notification of a newly-sentenced DOC prisoner by the receipt (by paper copy,
e-mail, or fax) of a ‘packet’ from the Sheriff’s Office of the parish of conviction.”85
Elsewhere, Plaintiffs again note that “the parish of conviction is responsible for providing
certain paperwork and documentation to the DPS&C so that the person’s time calculation
can be completed and his release issued. Multiple state statutory provisions govern this
obligation of the OPSO Defendants.”86
So, even if ECPSO had followed its own policy and collected the requisite
documentation for prisoners that it accepted into its River Bend facility, it is not clear from
the record that their possession of those documents would have avoided the
overdetention of Plaintiffs. And Plaintiffs’ argument for official capacity liability centers

84

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 41.
Id. at p. 47.
86
Id. at p. 24.
85

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around just that – their failure to obtain the documents. It does not elude the Court that
the parties in this case at times seek to avoid liability by pointing the finger at one another,
arguing that, although their actions may have been flawed, they were not ultimately
responsible for the alleged Constitutional violations. Nevertheless, as irresponsible as
ECPSO’s practices may have been, material fact issues surrounding the communication
between DOC, Orleans, and East Carroll Parish prevent the Court from concluding that
those practices were the moving force behind Plaintiffs’ overdetention. More importantly,
the Court finds that the issue of which agency’s, or combination of agencies’, conduct
was the moving force behind the alleged violations calls for significant credibility
determinations and weighing of evidence, making this issue inappropriate for resolution
on summary judgment. Therefore, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is
denied with respect to the official capacity claims against ECPSO. Likewise, the ECPSO
Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment on the official capacity claims against them
is denied, for the same reasons, as discussed more fully below.
D. Individual Capacity Claims Under 42 U.S.C. § 1983
i.

Whether Plaintiffs’ Claims are Barred by Heck v. Humphrey87

In their respective Motions and Oppositions, all Defendants argue that Plaintiffs’
claims are barred by the doctrine announced by the Supreme Court in Heck v. Humphrey.
Under Heck, a § 1983 claim for damages cannot directly attack the constitutionality of a
conviction, imprisonment, or other harm caused by unlawful actions unless that conviction
or sentence has been “reversed on direct appeal, expunged by executive order, declared

87

512 U.S. 477.

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invalid by a state tribunal authorized to make such a determination, or called into question
by a federal court's issuance of a writ of habeas corpus.”88 Defendants argue that
because Plaintiffs have not provided evidence showing that any of the above is the case,
Heck stands as a bar to their suit.
Plaintiffs, on the other hand, claim, and the Court agrees, that Heck does not apply.
Plaintiffs emphasize that they “do not dispute how long they should have been imprisoned
or challenge that their calculated release dates were invalid.”89 Their claim that
“Defendants failed in their duties to effect the Plaintiffs’ release when the legallymandated period of detention had expired”90 does not, they argue, imply the invalidity of
their convictions or sentences. The Court agrees.
There is ample precedent within the Fifth Circuit for a finding that Heck does not
bar the claims in the instant case. Indeed, this Court rejected the same argument when
raised by the defendants in Thomas v. Gryder,91 a 2019 case where the plaintiff claimed
that “he was illegally imprisoned for 589 days past the end of his actual sentence.”92
There, the Court explained:
The “favorable termination” requirement of Heck prohibits a criminal
defendant's collateral attack on the defendant's conviction or
sentence.93 Here, however, Plaintiff does not seek to collaterally
attack either his conviction or his sentence. Instead, all parties agree
that on January 23, 2013, Plaintiff pleaded guilty in Orleans Criminal
District Court and was sentenced as follows: (1) Count 1: sexual
malfeasance in prison – five years; (2) Count 2: sexual battery – two
88
See Hudson v. Hughes, 98 F.3d 868, 872 (5th Cir.1996) (quoting Heck, 512 U.S. at 487) (internal
quotations omitted).
89
Rec. Doc. No. 144, p. 5.
90
Id.
91
2019 WL 5790351 (M.D. La. Nov. 6, 2019).
92
Id. at *1.
93
Id. at *5 (citing Heck, 512 U.S. at 484-485 (“This Court has long expressed similar concerns for finality
and consistency and has generally declined to expand opportunities for collateral attack.”)).

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years; and (3) Count 3: second degree kidnapping – five years.94 The
parties further agree that Plaintiff's correct release date was June 5,
2015.95 Nothing in the instant action would invalidate either Plaintiff's
conviction or sentence96 . . . Accordingly, the Court finds that
Plaintiff's claims are not Heck barred.97
The district court for the Eastern District of Louisiana reached the same conclusion
in Traweek v. Gusman,98 where the plaintiff alleged that he was held in Orleans Parish
Prison for twenty days beyond the date he was eligible for release under his time-served
sentence. The Eastern District sharply rejected the defendants’ argument that Traweek’s
claims were Heck-barred:
By seeking to impose the Heck procedural bar to Mr. Traweek's
claims, the defendants emphasize form over substance, begin from
a faulty assumption, and ignore a critical component of Heck that is
absent here. If Mr. Traweek succeeds on the merits, neither his
underlying conviction for aggravated battery nor his seven-month
sentence will be impliedly invalidated. Here, Mr. Traweek challenges
neither his conviction nor his sentence. He accepts both. Therefore,
the reasoning underlying Heck's favorable termination prerequisite is
simply not implicated: it would be illogical to require Mr. Traweek to
first seek to invalidate his conviction or sentence in order to proceed
in this lawsuit. The constitutional violation he advances here is that
he was imprisoned 20 days past his release date; he does not take
issue with his criminal judgment of conviction or the sentence
rendered, but, rather, challenges the constitutionality of the
administration of his release after he had served his sentence. Mr.

94

2019 WL 5790351 at *5 (citing R. Doc. 62-1, p. 1).
Id. (citing supra, n. 22).
96
Id. (citing e.g., Chappelle v. Varano, 4:11-cv-00304, 2013 WL 5876173, at * 13 (M.D. Pa. Oct. 30, 2013)
(plaintiff's § 1983 action for damages where parole board recalculated plaintiff's maximum sentence to be
July 14, 2009 and defendants released plaintiff on either July 30 or 31, 2009 was not barred by Heck
because “the Plaintiff does not dispute the validity of his conviction or his corresponding sentence at all.
The conflict centers on the amount of time he was held in excess of his valid conviction and sentence. The
disputed period of confinement is both temporally and legally separate from the Plaintiff's actual conviction
and sentence. A finding for Plaintiff under § 1983 based on the period he was held beyond his original
sentence would not imply the invalidity of the conviction or sentence, and therefore does not trigger the
application of the favorable termination rule.”) (internal citation omitted); Griffin v. Allegheny County Prison,
Civil Action No. 17-1580, 2018 WL 6413156, at *4 (W.D. Pa. Nov. 5, 2018) (same)).
97
Gryder, 2019 WL 5790351 at *3-4.
98
Traweek v. Gusman, No. CV 19-1384, 2019 WL 5430590 (E.D. La. Oct. 23, 2019)(internal citations
omitted).
95

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Traweek alleges that his jailers failed to timely release him once the
legal basis to incarcerate him had expired by court order.99
In this case, Plaintiffs’ Statement of Uncontested Material Facts makes clear that
they admit to their underlying convictions and do not dispute the sentences they
received.100 At issue is the time they allegedly served beyond their sentence.This Court
finds, as in the cases cited above, that such claims do not run afoul of Heck’s prohibition
on collateral attacks of a plaintiff’s conviction and sentence. Heck is neither a bar to the
suit nor a defense to the Plaintiffs’ Motion for Summary Judgment. Therefore, the Motions
for Summary Judgment by the OPSO Defendants, ECPSO Defendants, and DPS&C
Defendants101 shall be DENIED as to their arguments that Plaintiffs’ claims are barred by
Heck.
ii.

Individual Capacity Claims Against DPS&C Defendants

Plaintiffs argue that Defendants LeBlanc and Stagg are liable as supervisors in
their individual capacities for their “failure to implement policies to ensure timely release
of prisoners committed to DPS&C.”102 Specifically, they seek to hold LeBlanc and Stagg
liable for not making changes to the Basic Jail Guidelines, which govern the parish prisons
holding inmates on behalf of DOC, to ensure that sheriffs’ offices provide documentation
to DOC. For example, Plaintiffs argue, LeBlanc and Stagg “could have issued regulations
establishing a specific timeline for Defendants Williams and Gusman, and all other
Sheriffs holding DOC-sentenced prisoners, to send the pre-classification packets to

99

Traweek, 2019 WL 5430590 at *5.
See Rec. Doc. No. 111-2.
101
Rec. Doc. Nos. 104, 102, and 110, respectively.
102
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 59.
100

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DPS&C.”103 Plaintiffs maintain that the Defendants’ failure to implement a deadline for
pre-classification packets amounts to deliberate indifference in light of what Defendants
already knew based on a 2012 study which found, among other deficiencies, that “DPS&C
was failing to timely release over two thousand DOC-sentenced prisoners per year, by an
average of 71 days’ overdetention per prisoner.”104 Additionally, Plaintiffs assert that
Defendants Stagg and Griffin “could have employed simple measures which would have
brought to their attention that a DOC-sentenced prisoner was in a parish jail without
having been pre-classified.”105
The DPS&C Defendants assert that they are entitled to qualified immunity.
Specifically, they argue that there has been no showing that they acted with deliberate
indifference; in fact, they argue, “the record reflects that throughout the month of
December, the DOC remained in communication with Orleans Parish, who represented
on separate occasions that paperwork for DOC offenders housed in Riverbend would be
forthcoming.”106 Even if they did act with deliberate indifference, they argue, they are
entitled to qualified immunity because “it is not clearly established that the reliance on
other entities (such as a Sheriff) to provide the necessary paperwork is objectively
unreasonable.”107 As will be discussed below, the Court is not persuaded that the right is
so narrowly defined.
In Saucier v. Katz, the Supreme Court set forth a two-part framework for analyzing

103

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 57.
Id. at p. 59.
105
Id. at p. 60.
106
Rec. Doc. No. 141, p. 10.
107
Id. at p. 22.
104

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whether a defendant was entitled to qualified immunity.108 Part one asks the following
question: “Taken in the light most favorable to the party asserting the injury, do the facts
alleged show the officer’s conduct violated a constitutional right?”109 Part two asks
whether the allegedly violated right is “clearly established” such that “it would be clear to
a reasonable officer that his conduct was unlawful in the situation he confronted.”92 A
court need not address these two questions sequentially; it can proceed with either inquiry
first. 110 “If the defendant’s actions violated a clearly established constitutional right, the
court then asks whether qualified immunity is still appropriate because the defendant’s
actions were ‘objectively reasonable’ in light of ‘law which was clearly established at the
time of the disputed action.’”111 Officials “who reasonably but mistakenly commit a
constitutional violation are entitled to immunity.”112
The Fifth Circuit in Porter v. Epps instructs that there is a clearly established right
to timely release from prison.113 There can be no serious dispute on this point. The
DPS&C Defendants contend, however, that “Porter does not clearly establish that prison
employees, ultimately responsible for completing the time computation of parish
offenders, act objectively unreasonable by not calculating an offender’s release in the
absence of the necessary paperwork.”114 DPS&C re-frames the question arguing that
although there is a clearly established obligation to release inmates timely, that neglect

108

Saucier v. Katz, 533 U.S. 194 (2001).
Id. at 201.
110
See Pearson, 555 U.S. at 236 (“On reconsidering the procedure required in Saucier, we conclude that,
while the sequence set forth there is often appropriate, it should no longer be regarded as mandatory.”);
see also Cutler v. Stephen F. Austin State Univ., 767 F.3d 462, 469 (5th Cir. 2014).
111
Brown v. Callahan, 623 F.3d 249, 253 (5th Cir. 2010) (citing Williams v. Bramer, 180 F.3d 699, 703 (5th
Cir. 1999)).
112
Williams, 180 F.3d at 703 .
113
Porter v. Epps, 659 F.3d 440, 445 (5th Cir. 2011).
114
Rec. Doc. No. 141, p. 23.
109

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by another agency in the completion of paperwork somehow excuses this obligation. The
right to timely release is utterly meaningless without an attendant obligation on the jailer
to effectuate that timely release.115 Defendants complain that “DOC cannot process
paperwork it does not have.”116 But Plaintiffs do not suggest it was unreasonable, or
deliberately indifferent, for Defendants to wait until they had the necessary paperwork to
calculate their sentences. What they argue is that Defendants were unreasonable and
deliberately indifferent insofar as they failed to put in place policies that would ensure their
receipt of the necessary paperwork in a timely fashion which would protect and give
meaning to the plaintiff’s clearly established right to timely release. The Court agrees.
Liability for failure to promulgate policy requires a showing of deliberate
indifference on the part of Defendants.117 As to Plaintiffs’ first policy claim, which argues
that Defendants LeBlanc and Stagg are liable for not implementing a timeline or deadline
for Sheriffs to provide pre-classification paperwork to DOC, the Court concludes that the
DPS&C Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity because Plaintiffs have
demonstrated that Defendants acted with deliberate indifference and that their actions
were objectively unreasonable in light of the clearly established right to timely release.
In large part, Plaintiffs center their argument for deliberate indifference around
Defendants’ awareness of a 2012 study118 that revealed significant deficiencies in DOC’s
processes resulting in widespread overdetention. The record evidence establishes that

115

Porter, 659 F.3d at 445. (“There is a clearly established right to timely release from prison” and “a jailer
has a duty to ensure that inmates are timely released...”).
116
Rec. Doc. 111-1 p. 22.
117
Id. at p. 446 (“Liability for failure to promulgate policy and failure to train or supervise both require that
the defendant have acted with deliberate indifference.”).
118
The “Lean Six Sigma 2012 PreClassification” study (hereinafter “LSS” or “LSS study”).

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the DPS&C Defendants were aware of the LSS study. While the LSS study results did
not specifically identify the problem of over detention at River Bend per se,119 there is
ample evidence that the DPS&C Defendants knew there were significant issues with
respect to over detention. Plaintiffs summarized the results of the LSS Study in their
Motion for Partial Summary Judgment:
According to the study, DPS&C encountered 2252 immediate
releases annually, with prisoners being held beyond their release
date for an average of 71 days. As of January 2012, there was a
backlog of 1,446 prisoners who did not have their time computed; it
took on average 110 days for DPS&C to conduct time calculation for
prisoners after sentencing; and there was an 83.44% occurrence of
an “immediate release” upon processing a prisoner’s time
calculation. Thus, according to the LSS study, “once time was
calculated 83 percent of the cases were due for immediate release
either because the release date had passed or it was within ten
days.”120
Further, Angela Griffin, the administrative director of pre-classification for DOC, testified
at her deposition that DOC was aware of the issue with overdetention and immediate
releases, and that the problem continued even after changes were put in place following
the LSS Study:
Q: And so am I correct in understanding that the Department of
Corrections knew at the time of this study that one of the
consequences of the delays in time computation was that prisoners
were at risk for release beyond their due dates?
A. Correct.
Q. And am I correct based on the slides that we reviewed in this
presentation that even with the various pilot programs and changes
in processes that were part of this study, immediate releases
continued?
A. Yes. We still have immediate releases.121

119

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 55.
Id. at p. 53 (citing Rec. Doc. No. 111-29).
121
Rec. Doc. No. 111-8, p. 111-112.
120

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Specifically, Plaintiffs seek to hold Defendants accountable for their failure “to
include a deadline for the submission of pre-classification packets in the Basic Jail
Guidelines, so that Sheriffs could be penalized with the loss of DPS&C income if preclassification packets were not consistently sent by a particular deadline.”122 Defendants
point out that such a measure would not necessarily have affected any improvement,
given that Sheriffs were already failing to comply with the provisions of the Basic Jail
Guidelines, and there is no reason to believe that a change in the Guidelines would have
changed their behavior. But, both Secretary LeBlanc and Defendant Stagg testified in
their depositions that they were familiar with a proposal by the legislative auditor that such
a deadline be implemented, and both men expressed approval for the idea.123 In fact,
when Secretary LeBlanc was asked at his deposition if it has “ever been considered to
include a timeframe for the submission of these materials to DOC,” he responded: “Not
that I'm aware of, but there's no reason why we couldn't. I mean, I'm not sure why
we don't, to be honest with you.”124 Secretary LeBlanc added: “I’m not sure that we
could enforce it to begin with, but we could certainly, at least, make an attempt.”125 The
DPS&C’s argument is that since there is no assurance that responsive measures would
work, hence the failure to adopt responsive measures is not deliberate indifference. By
this logic, a plea of perceived futility owing to the apathy of another would defeat a finding
of deliberate indifference. This Court is aware of now jurisprudence which supports this

122

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 59.
See Rec. Doc. No. 111-21, p. 54 (Stagg testified that a deadline “was intended to be a procedure that
we put in place”); Rec. Doc. No. 111-19, p. 77 (LeBlanc).
124
Rec. Doc. No. 111-19, p. 70, lines 18-23 (emphasis added).
125
Id. at p. 70-71, lines 25, 1-2.
123

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notion. The term “indifference” refers to a lack of interest, concern, or sympathy.126 It
refers to the state of mind of the actor, not, as the DPS&C suggests, the apathetic the
state of mind another. It is no excuse not to discipline the child because the parent fears
the child will not heed.
Secretary LeBlanc’s somewhat coy statements underplay DOC’s role. Louisiana
law is clear that, no matter where State inmates are physically housed, they are legally in
the custody of the DOC. The plaintiffs in this case were sentenced by State District Judges
for violations of State penal codes. The plaintiffs were State prisoners. Louisiana Revised
Statute §15:1824(A) states that “any individual subject to confinement in a state adult
penal or correctional institution shall be committed to the Department of Public Safety and
Corrections and not to any particular institution within the jurisdiction of the department.”
Under the law, DOC has the authority to “enter into a contract with a law enforcement
district, municipal, or parish governing authority to house additional prisoners.”127 The
proverbial buck stops with the DOC. While the established process and workflow was
such that DOC relied upon the parishes of conviction to send pre-classification packets,
DOC cannot simply passively wait around for the packets to be sent. DOC compensates
local Sheriffs for holding DOC-sentenced inmates; surely that money could be made to
talk, whether in the form of fines for later pre-classification packets, refusal to house
inmates in non-compliant parishes, or some other measure. At the end of the day, DOC
was the jailer of Plaintiffs, and the Fifth Circuit has found that “‘[w]hile not a surety for the
legal correctness of a prisoner's commitment, [a jailer] is most certainly under an

126

The “absence of compulsion to or toward one thing or another”. “Indifference,” Meriam-Webter.com
(available at https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/indifference).
127
LA. REV. STAT. § 15:824(D).

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obligation, often statutory, to carry out the functions of his office. Those functions include
not only the duty to protect a prisoner, but also the duty to effect his timely release.’”128
To be sure, deliberate indifference is a high bar; the Fifth Circuit has held that
“[a]ctions and decisions by officials that are merely inept, erroneous, ineffective, or
negligent do not amount to deliberate indifference and thus do not divest the official of
qualified immunity.”129 But the DPS&C Defendants fail to show that their failure to
implement a deadline for the production of pre-classification packets by the Sheriffs was
anything but deliberately indifferent. Their own testimony establishes that there is “no
reason” why they couldn’t implement such a policy, and the Secretary of the Department
testified that he is “not sure why [they] don’t.”130 In light of the clearly established right to
timely release and Defendants’ demonstrated awareness of overdetention issues in their
system, Defendants’ failure to implement a deadline, even after such a policy was
suggested to them, clearly demonstrates that they were aware of the consequences of
their failure to act and disregarded them. The measures that DPS&C Defendants state
they have taken in response to the LSS Study, including providing “training to the Sheriff’s
Association relating to pre-classification paperwork, which included training on what
paperwork to send to DPS&C,”131 are woefully inadequate in light of the clearly
established right to timely release and the scope of overdetention revealed by the Study.
Asked whether Sheriffs generally attempt to comply with changes to the Basic Jail
Guidelines, LeBlanc stated, “Some of them do; some of them don't. But usually we work

128

Porter, 659 F.3d at 445 (citing Whirl v. Kern, 407 F.2d 781, 792 (5th Cir. 1969)).
Whitley v. Hanna, 726 F.3d 631, 643 (5th Cir. 2013).
130
Rec. Doc. No. 111-19, p. 70, lines 18-23.
131
Rec. Doc. No. 141, p. 21.
129

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with them, and we get them in compliance. And that happens on a fairly regular basis. I
mean, we do it, I think it's once every 6 months, once a year, depending on what the
issues are.”132 One or two meetings per year is not a proportional response to the
recurring and widespread Constitutional violations uncovered by the LSS Study.
Stagg testified that the issue with receiving pre-classification paperwork was
limited to Orleans Parish and “we didn't really have a problem with collecting this data
from 63 other jurisdictions.”133 He emphasized: “we didn't have that problem [failure to
prepare and transmit pre-classification paperwork] except with this one jurisdiction. And I
don't know we had that problem before with this jurisdiction until this particular case came
up, these particular individuals.”134 Stagg frames the issue in an overly narrow fashion.
DOC was alerted to systemic overdetention in 2012. The failure of Orleans to prepare
and transmit pre-classification packets is merely a subset of the larger problem of
unconstitutional overdetention. Given proof of the DOC’s actual knowledge of widespread
over-detention in 2012, it was deliberately indifferent to the clearly established right of
timely release, for the DOC to fail to inquire further, identify this subset cause of the
constitutional violations, and failure to take steps to remedy the violations of this clearly
established right. The fact that this exact problem with pre-classification packets was
allegedly limited to Orleans Parish, as Stagg suggests, does not absolve the DPS&C
Defendants of their duty to ensure a timely release for prisoners convicted and sentenced
there. A clearly established constitutional right to timely release gives rise to a clearly
established duty on the part of the jailer to affect that release. The Fifth Circuit has held

132

Rec. Doc. No. 111-19, p. 71, lines 3-10.
Id. at p. 47, lines 10-11.
134
Id. at p. 50, lines 11-15.
133

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that, in cases “where there is no discretion and relatively little time pressure, the jailer will
be held to a high level of reasonableness as to his own actions.”135 Moreover, the court
explained, “If [the jailer] negligently establishes a record keeping system in which errors
of this kind are likely, he will be held liable.”136 It is clear from the evidence adduced by
Plaintiffs that “errors of this kind” are inherently likely in the existing DOC system. The
Court concludes that Defendants LeBlanc and Stagg are not entitled to qualified immunity
on the individual capacity claims against them for failing discern the failures which caused
known violations of the clearly established right and for their failure to implement a policy
to rectify the failure, such as requiring a specific timeline for the submission of preclassification documents to DOC.
In their second claim, Plaintiffs argue that DPS&C Defendants Stagg and Griffin
are individually liable because they “failed to institute policies which would have given the
pre-classification department notice of DOC-sentenced prisoners who had not been preclassified.”137 Specifically, Plaintiffs argue that Defendants acted with deliberate
indifference for not “instructing pre-classification staff and transfer staff to communicate
with each other about incomplete CAJUN138 entries; requiring pre-classification staff and
transfer staff to check the CAJUN system for newly-sentenced DOC prisoners without
release dates; and closely monitoring parishes which provided untimely pre-classification
packets on a regular basis.”139 Based on the evidence in the record and the applicable
law, the Court concludes that, for the same reasons described above with respect to the

135

Bryan v. Jones, 530 F.2d 1210, 1215 (5th Cir. 1976).
Id.
137
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 60.
138
CAJUN (Corrections and Justice Unified Network) is the tracking software used by DOC.
139
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 60.
136

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“deadline” claim, Plaintiff’s have come forward with evidence that Defendants Stagg and
Griffin were deliberately indifferent in failing to implement policies that would increase the
likelihood of DOC becoming aware of prisoners who had not been pre-classified, and
thereby protecting the right to be timely released.
In his deposition testimony, Stagg distanced himself from the nuts and bolts of the
pre-classification process, stating, “I never recognized a place where we could focus any
single point of attention to try to improve the process, because the people know what
they're doing, the ones that are trained. They know what they're doing. They do a good
job at it. It’s just a matter of having the information to do the job with.”140 Stagg described
Defendant Angela Griffin as the “director of preclass.”141 Griffin was deposed in
connection with this case, along with Angela Smith, a former DOC employee in the preclassification department. Their testimony and the associated evidence in the record
reveal severe deficiencies in the pre-classification process.
The testimony that Plaintiffs highlight in an attempt to show deliberate indifference
from Griffin and Smith’s depositions establishes that there are serious flaws in the internal
DOC process. For example, Smith testified that the transfer department was separate
from the pre-classification department and that there was no system in place for the
transfer department of a newly-sentenced DOC inmate;142 that the pre-classification
department does not regularly check DOC’s CAJUN program to identify new DOC
inmates;143 and that the pre-classification department “didn’t track” whether it had

140

Rec. Doc. No. 111-21, p. 76.
Id. at p. 18, line 10.
142
Rec. Doc. No. 111-32, p. 121, lines 3-18.
143
Id. at p. 78, lines 2-18.
141

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“become a habit for a local parish to send in their packets a long time after sentencing.”144
Angela Smith, a former specialist in the pre-classification department at DOC,
testified in her deposition that the parish of conviction was responsible for sending preclassification documents to DOC but that there was no deadline to do so and thus, the
pre-classification paperwork could never be “late,” per se.145 She testified that if “it
became a habit” for a particular parish to be slow in sending pre-classification information
I guess it would be brought up, but if it was one case -- you know, if
we have 15 packets that were going through, and there's one case
in there that the offender has been sentenced for 6 months, and
we're just now getting his paperwork, I don't think -- I would not have
notified anyone unless we received a large, you know, so many
packets. If it became an extreme situation, I would think at that point
we would bring it to somebody's attention.146
In other words, until the obvious possibility of overdetention became an “extreme
situation” involving multiple prisoners, DPS&C employees would not raise the issue of
late pre-classification packets. Likewise, when asked what DOC’s process was for
determining whether any newly-sentenced DOC inmates who needed to be processed,
Smith answered: “our only process was waiting for that preclass, because we had no
way of knowing, without receiving that paperwork, that an offender had been sentenced
to the Department of Corrections.”147 Plaintiffs’ counsel asked Smith:
Q. And I guess my question, then, is: If a local parish somehow lost
or didn't send in the preclassification paperwork for a newly
sentenced DOC inmate, this inmate could sit at that local parish
serving their Department of Corrections sentence indefinitely, unless
the inmate or their family made a phone call to the Department of
Corrections alerting you that there was a delay in time calculation?
A. Yes.
144

Rec. Doc. No. 111-32, p. 75, lines 7-11.
Id. at p. 73.
146
Id. at p. 75.
147
Id. at p. 77, lines 12-16.
145

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Q. And so if preclassification paperwork is not received by the
Department of Corrections, there's no check mechanism to make
sure that no inmate sentenced to the Department of Corrections are
in existence that you are not performing preclassification and time
calculation for?
A. Right. If we're not aware of the offender being sentenced to the
Department of Corrections, we don't know he's out there until we
receive that paperwork.148
None of those facts testified to by Griffin and Smith and are disputed. The state of
affairs at the DOC, where DOC’s staff were passive and essentially flying blind unless
contacted by a concerned family member, evinces a reckless disregard for the likelihood
of overdetention in the DOC system. “The Fifth Circuit has recognized that a jailer is
‘under relatively little time pressure’ and ‘has the means, freedom, and the duty to make
necessary inquiries.’”149 The DPS&C Defendants’ failure to make the inquiries or
implement the policies that would reduce overdetention was objectively unreasonable.
For the same reasons discussed above with respect to the failure to implement a
deadline for Sheriffs to transmit pre-classification packets, the Court finds that
Defendants’ failure to put in place simple processes that would have revealed inmates
who were serving time without being pre-classified amounted to deliberate indifference.
Plaintiffs have demonstrated that Stagg and Griffin were deliberately indifferent to the
clearly established right of timely release by their failure to implement reforms to the preclassification process.
Lastly, Plaintiffs move for summary judgment on their individual liability claim
against the DPS&C Defendants for their direct participation in the acts giving rise to the

148

Rec. Doc. No. 111-32, p. 80-81.
Gryder, No. 17-1595-EWD, 2019 WL 5790351 at *7 (M.D. La. Nov. 6, 2019)(quoting Douthit v. Jones,
619 F.2d 527, 535 (5th Cir. 1980).

149

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alleged Constitutional violations, namely, the overdetention of Plaintiffs. Plaintiffs fail to
establish that the actions of the DPS&C Defendants after the so-called “River Bend
fiasco” was discovered were the moving force behind the alleged Constitutional violations.
The evidence in the record demonstrates that after they became aware of the issue,
Defendants communicated with the relevant parties to obtain the necessary paperwork,
calculate a release date, and release the Plaintiffs. The evidence in the record reflects
that each of the Plaintiffs was released the day of or the day after the DPS&C Defendants
received the pre-classification paperwork necessary to calculate Plaintiffs’ release date:


DPS&C received the letter of credit for Plaintiff Crittindon on January 12,
2017,150 and it is not disputed that he was released on January 13, 2017.



DPS&C received paperwork pertaining to Plaintiff Burse on January 9,
2017, after Angela Griffin asked Corey Amacker to send it over email.151
Burse was released on January 10, 2017.



DPS&C received Plaintiff Copelin’s documentation was received by Angela
Griffin on January 13, 2017152 and he was released the same day.



DPS&C received Plaintiff Guidry’s paperwork on January 24, 2017153 and
he was released the same day.

Plaintiffs have not shown that Defendants’ individual actions after the specific
overdetentions were brought to their attention was the moving force behind the alleged
violations, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment is denied as to the individual

150

Rec. Doc. No. 110-12, pp. 19-20.
Rec. Doc. No. 110-8, pp. 18-19.
152
Rec. Doc. No. 110-9, pp. 1-2.
153
Rec. Doc. No. 110-10, p. 5.
151

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capacity claims against the DPS&C Defendants for their direct participation in the events
giving rise to this case.
iii.

Individual Capacity Claims Against ECPSO Defendants

The ECPSO Defendants contend that the individual capacity claims against them
should be dismissed because the overdetention of Plaintiffs “was through no fault of these
defendants, who only learned of the issue much later.”154 Bafflingly, the ECPSO
Defendants note that Sheriff Williams learned of the overdetention “when he was
contacted by the news media,” while Wardens Hedgemon and Knight “learned of it when
[they] saw it on the television,”155 as if this information constitutes proof that they are not
liable. The ostrich defense is no defense.
The remainder of the ECPSO Defendants’ argument consists of pointing the finger
at DPS&C, which, they argue, “is the only actor with the ability to calculate release dates
for DPS&C sentenced inmates and the authority to grant them release.”156 As persuasive
as that argument may be, it is not responsive to the actual claim against the ECPSO
Defendants, which is that they are liable for routinely accepting prisoners into the River
Bend facility without legal documentation of their right to detain them. The ECPSO
Defendants offer that “[t]here was some question as to whether the ECPSO Defendants
were entering the plaintiffs’ sentencing information incorrectly into the AFIS system and
whether this may have contributed to the plaintiffs’ over-detention.”157 In advancing this
argument ECPSO demonstrates a material issue fact suggestive of ECPSO’s liability.

154

Rec. Doc. No. 102-1, p. 7.
Id. at p. 7 n.6.
156
Id. at p. 8.
157
Id. at p. 9.
155

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The ECPSO Defendants have not demonstrated that they are entitled to summary
dismissal of the individual capacity claims against them.
On cross-motion, the ECPSO Defendants also invoke the doctrine of qualified
immunity, arguing that their actions were reasonable because “they had every reason to
believe that they had no duty to forward any paperwork to DPS&C.”158 Again, the ECPSO
Defendants miss the mark by arguing against a straw man claim; Plaintiffs do not claim
that ECPSO is liable for failing to forward paperwork. The claim is that ECPSO jailed
people without having proper legal documentation confirmed its legal right to do so.
In any event, the ECPSO Defendants are not entitled to qualified immunity
because Plaintiffs evince evidence that they were aware that they were detaining inmates
at River Bend who had not been pre-classified by DOC – in fact, they were detaining
inmates that DOC did not even know existed. The deposition testimony of Laura Sevier,
the ECPSO employee who prepares invoices so that ECPSO can receive payment for
housing prisoners at River Bend, established that Sevier, who reported to Defendants
Hedgemon and Knight and whose invoices were signed off on by Sheriff Williams, was
regularly identifying “discrepancies” in the prisoner list maintained by ECPSO versus the
DOC prisoner list. Specifically, Sevier’s invoices revealed that inmates who appeared on
ECPSO’s list of the prisoners physically present at River Bend contained individuals who
did not appear on DOC’s list. Calling this a “discrepancy” seems an egregious
understatement. The clear import of this is that the ECPSO was jailing persons whom
were not identified by the DOC as being subject to state custody. Despite that

158

Rec. Doc. No. 102-1, p. 14.

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“discrepancy,” the record evidence demonstrates that neither Sevier nor anyone at
ECPSO flagged these individuals for DOC. ECPSO never inquired or verified whether
these individuals were rightly or lawfully subject to incarceration. Sevier testified that she
would simply “disallow”159 the inmates who did not appear on DOC’s CAJUN invoice so
that ECPSO’s invoice, causing them to appear as having spent “zero days”160 at River
Bend during that billing period, and proceed with obtaining reimbursement. Then,
“sometime during the next six months,” she would “go in to try to determine why he was
not on the CAJUN invoice.”161 In other words, ECPSO would routinely hold individuals at
River Bend, knowing that they had not been processed by DOC, for up to three months
before even beginning the process of investigating why they were not “showing up” in
DOC’s system. Even if the responsibility of calculating sentences ultimately lies with DOC,
as the ECPSO Defendants repeatedly insist, their actions, or failure to act, evidences a
reckless disregard for and deliberate indifference toward the constitutional rights of the
inmates in their facility. As Plaintiffs note, the Fifth Circuit has looked down upon the type
of argument asserted by the ECPSO Defendants. In Whirl v. Kern, the Fifth Circuit stated:
We do not find any cases nor are we referred to any by counsel which
provide that ‘good faith’ is a defense to an imprisonment that is not
only without valid process, but contrary to it. Nor do we believe as a
matter of federal policy that such a defense should be available to a
jailer in circumstances like those before us. The responsibility for a
failure of communication between the courts and the jailhouse
cannot justifiably be placed on the head of a man immured in a
lockup when the action of the court has become a matter of public
record. Ignorance and alibis by a jailer should not vitiate the rights of
a man entitled to his freedom. A jailer, unlike a policeman, acts at his
leisure. He is not subject to the stresses and split second decisions
of an arresting officer, and his acts in discharging a prisoner are
159

Rec. Doc. No. 111-29, p. 43.
Id.
161
Id. at pp. 45-50.
160

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purely ministerial. Moreover, unlike his prisoner, the jailer has the
means, the freedom, and the duty to make necessary inquiries.162
The record evidence demonstrates that the ECPSO Defendants were not only accepting
prisoners into their facility without documentation but failing to take any action when their
own processes revealed that they were detaining individuals of whom DOC was
completely unaware. The obvious consequence of such conduct is an increased risk of
overdetention. Arguably, detaining an individual not reflected by the DOC as a state
inmate is an ipso facto overdetention. Furthermore, the deposition testimony of Wardens
Hedgemon and Knight, discussed supra in the section on official capacity claims, reveals
that they were aware of prisoners coming to their facility without being properly
documented, and that their response was, in the words of Warden Hedgemon, to “take
many parishes’ words”163 that the men in their physical custody were not actually entitled
to immediate release.
Additionally, the record evidence demonstrates that the ECPSO Defendants were
accepting inmates in violation of their own internal policy, Policy No. 17-14, which was
issued by the ECPSO on September 15, 2012.164 The Policy requires that when a prisoner
is booked into River Bend, ECPSO must collection information regarding the inmates
“duration of confinement, and a copy of the court order or other legal basis for
commitment.”165 Sheriff Williams testified that Warden Hedgemon and his staff were
responsible for ensuring that the information required by the Policy was actually collected

162

Whirl v. Kern, 407 F.2d 781, 792 (5th Cir. 1968).
Id.
164
Rec. Doc. No. 111-24.
165
Id.
163

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at intake.166 Yet, when presented with a copy of the policy to review during his deposition,
Warden Hedgemon stated, “I’ve never seen it before.”167 Overall, the Court finds that the
ECPSO Defendants’ actions and omissions were objectively unreasonable in light of the
clearly established right to a timely release. Accordingly, the ECPSO Defendants’ Motion
for Summary Judgment is denied with respect to the individual capacity claims against
them.
iv.

Individual Capacity Claims Against the OPSO Defendants

The OPSO Defendants also argue that the individual capacity claims against them
fail because they are shielded by qualified immunity. The Court disagrees. The OPSO
Defendants first contend that they are entitled to qualified immunity in their individual
capacities because the constitutional rights in question were not clearly established.
Specifically, Defendants complain that Plaintiffs discuss their rights with an unfairly high
level of generality to create the impression of a clearly established right where, they argue,
none exists. Plaintiffs characterize the relevant right as the right to timely release from
prison,168 which the Fifth Circuit in Porter v. Epps unambiguously held to be clearly
established.169 Gusman and Amacker posit that the relevant right is actually the right of
Plaintiffs “to have their post-sentencing packets completed and transmitted to DPS&C by
the Sheriff.”170 Per the OPSO Defendants, that right has not been established under the
law. The OPSO’s attempt to reframe and narrowly define the issue is disingenuous. The

166

Rec. Doc. No. 111-16, p. 33.
Rec. Doc. No. 111-26, p. 67.
168
Rec. Doc. No. 144, p. 36.
169
659 F.3d at 445.
170
Rec. Doc. No. 104-1, p. 12.
167

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completion of the sentencing packets protects the clearly established constitutional right,
it does not define the right.
The Court agrees with Plaintiffs. Defendants cite no authority for the proposition
that this right is overly general in the context of this case. Moreover, the Court finds their
proposed language – the right “to have their post-sentencing packets completed and
transmitted to DPS&C by the Sheriff”171 – odd. Although it is true that the inquiry into
whether a right is clearly established is to be undertaken at a specific, not a general level,
the OPSO Defendants provide the Court with no authority for the proposition that a
constitutional right need be articulated with reference to specific DPS&C documents in
order to be sufficiently specific. The right “to have their post-sentencing packets
completed and transmitted to DPS&C by the Sheriff”172 is, practically speaking,
synonymous with the “right to timely release from prison.”
The Fifth Circuit has spoken to this issue repeatedly. In Porter v. Epps, it held that
there is a clearly established right to timely release from prison.173 The Porter court
reviewed previous Fifth Circuit cases on the issue, including the 1968 case Whirl v. Kern,
where it held that a jailer “is most certainly under an obligation, often statutory, to carry
out the functions of his office. Those functions include not only the duty to protect a
prisoner, but also the duty to effect his timely release.”174 Therefore, the Court concludes
for purposes of the qualified immunity analysis that the right to timely release from prison

171

Rec. Doc. No. 104-1, p. 12.
Id. at p. 12.
173
659 F.3d 440.
174
407 F.2d 781, 792 (5th Cir. 1969).
172

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is the relevant right and that it was clearly established at the time of the events giving rise
to this case.
Having found that Plaintiffs enjoyed a clearly established right, the Court turns to
the question of whether Sheriff Gusman and Deputy Amacker’s conduct was objectively
reasonable. “Even if an official's conduct violates a constitutional right, he is entitled to
qualified immunity if the conduct was objectively reasonable.”175 Plaintiffs bear the burden
of showing that the OPSO Defendants’ conduct was not objectively reasonable.176 Based
on the evidence in the record, the Court concludes that the OPSO Defendants are not
entitled to qualified immunity because their actions were objectively unreasonable.
Sheriff Gusman argues that his actions could not possibly have been
unreasonable, for the simple reason that “[t]here is no evidence that Sheriff Gusman took
any action in this matter.”177 The fact that Gusman took no action is exactly what Plaintiffs
claim is unreasonable. Specifically, Plaintiffs point to Gusman’s “authorization of the
OPSO practice of ‘releasing’178 DOC-sentenced prisoners to another local jail facility,
without providing pre-classification documents or transfer notification to DPS&C”179 and
“his failure to supervise subordinate OPSO staff, namely those employees of the OPSO
intake and processing and DOC pre-classification sections.”180
Plaintiffs contend that Gusman’s authorization of the practice of transferring
prisoners to River Bend without providing the proper documentation was unreasonable
175

Rankin v. Klevenhagen, 5 F.3d 103, 105 (5th Cir. 1993)(quoting Spann v. Rainey, 987 F.2d 1110, 1114
(5th Cir.1993)).
176
Burns-Toole v. Byrne, 11 F.3d 1270, 1274 (5th Cir. 1994).
177
Rec. Doc. No. 104-1, p. 12.
178
OPSO conveniently refers to the process as a “release” but in actuality OPSO is transferring state
inmates to ECPSO.
179
Rec. Doc. No. 144, p. 27.
180
Id. at p. 28.

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because in doing so, Gusman “understood that the provisions of the OPSO written policy
on pre-classification would be violated, including the performance of those tasks which
require the physical presence of the prisoner such as the collection of fingerprints and the
completion of the DOC interview form.”181 Moreover, Plaintiffs argue, Gusman undertook
this practice despite the “obvious result being the unconstitutional overdetention of
prisoners.”182
The record reflects that Sheriff Gusman made a verbal agreement to house pretrial
detainees at River Bend in 2015.183 Evidently, Gusman delegated the “logistics” of the
arrangement to his staff. At his deposition, Gusman reported talking to East Carroll Parish
Sheriff Wydette Williams “in very general terms”184 about the proposed housing
agreement and recalled focusing on “trying to come up with a rate”185 that would include
costs of transportation between Orleans and East Carroll Parish. After that, Sheriff
Gusman testified, he “basically turned it over to [his] staff to do the logistics.”186 Gusman
testified that he had “several discussions”187 with his staff about the logistics of housing
inmates at River Bend. Eventually, in November 2016, the arrangement was
memorialized in a written agreement between OPSO and ECPSO.188

181

Rec. Doc. No. 144, p. 31.
Id. at p. 28.
183
Rec. Doc. No. 144-3, p. 20.
184
Id. at p. 21.
185
Id.
186
Id.
187
Id. at p. 22.
188
Rec. Doc. No. 111-17, (“Cooperative Endeavor Agreement”).
182

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ECPSO employee Captain Robert Russell testified at his deposition that the
procedures surrounding the transfer of Orleans inmates to River Bend was “strictly fly by
night”189:
Q. Okay. Was there any standard operating procedure, memo,
anything that standardized what Orleans was doing and what the
expectation was about what East Carroll was doing?
A. No.
Q. Okay.
A. Only thing -- like I said, the only thing, they would send me names
and/or paperwork telling me I needed these people to be pre-classed
and they could -- there wasn't no particular amount they might send
me at one particular time. There was no when they was going to send
it or what date they was going to send it. It was strictly fly by night.190
Further, Deputy Amacker testified that OPSO was not sending any notification to DOC
when inmates were transferred to River Bend, nor was OPSO verifying whether ECPSO
was actually sending pre-classification packets to DOC.191 Amacker stated, “I wasn’t
responsible for verifying whether or not they were doing something properly to – with the
Department of Corrections. . .”192
The “fly by night” operation put in place by OPSO was patently unreasonable, not
just in light of Plaintiffs’ clearly established right to timely release, but in light of the fact
that the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure, the Louisiana Revised Statutes, and
multiple provisions of the Basic Jail Guidelines place the responsibility for providing DOC
with notice of transfer and pre-classification packets squarely on the sentencing and/or
sending parish. Plaintiffs correctly summarize the relevant provisions of law:
LA. CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 892(A) requires the Sheriff of the parish
of conviction to “prepare a statement indicating the amount of time a
189

Rec. Doc. No. 111-22, p. 127, lines 3-10.
Id.
191
Rec. Doc. No. 111-15, pp. 66-68.
192
Id. at pp. 75-76.
190

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defendant has spent in custody prior to conviction.” This letter of
credit, as well as a copy of the indictment and a copy of the Uniform
Sentencing Commitment Order, is to “accompany any defendant
when said defendant is transferred to a penal institution. . .” LA.
CODE CRIM. PROC. art. 892(C).
Further, LA.R.S.§15:566(B)provides that the “sheriff of the parish in
which the prisoner has been convicted . . . shall deliver with the
prisoner all documents and statements required by Article 892 . . . of
the Louisiana Code of Criminal Procedure.” LA.R.S.§15:566(C). “If
said documents are not tendered with the prisoner, the Department
of Corrections shall refuse delivery of said prisoner.” Id. Lastly,
LA.R.S.§15:706 allows a sheriff to transfer prisoners to another
parish when the jail is unsafe, unfit for detention, or otherwise
presents a security risk. As an explicit condition of such transfers, the
statute requires the transferring sheriff to notify either the court (for
persons not under DPS&C sentence) or DPS&C (for persons under
DPS&C sentence) of the transfer.
Two provisions of the [Basic Jail Guidelines] require actions to be
taken by local jails relative to the admission, pre-classification, and
transfer of DPS&C-sentenced prisoners. First, Section II-A-008
provides a list of the specific documents that local jails must maintain
as part of “offender case record management” for the admission,
processing, and release of prisoners. “This offender record shall be
transferred with the offender at such time the offender is transferred
to another local or DPS&C facility.” Id. at 18. Additionally, this Section
details other information that “shall be collected and forwarded to the
DPS&C Pre-Class Coordinator,” including a jail credit letter, AFIS
print card, and court minutes or uniform commitment for each
conviction. Id. at 19. Second, Section II-A-009 requires that “[a]ll
transfers of DPS&C offenders to other than DPS&C facilities shall be
reported to the Office of Adult Services . . . Such notification shall be
the responsibility of the sending facility.”193
In July 2016, Sheriff Gusman enacted a written OPSO policy governing the
process of collecting and transmitting information to DOC for transfers.194 The policy
clearly states that a prisoner is to be transferred only “once his/her packet has been

193
194

Rec. Doc. No. 144, p. 17 (emphasis added)(some internal citations omitted).
Rec. Doc. No. 111-23 (“Department of Corrections Pre-Classification” No. 501.13”).

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completed and sent to DOC headquarters”195 and only after “a transfer list has been
approved by the Department of Corrections.”196 At his deposition, Sheriff Gusman testified
that “[i]t was supposed to be done according to the policy. . .we didn’t do it according to
the policy in each instance, it looks like. That’s what it looks like.”197 Asked if OPSO’s
failure to follow the policy “could result in a DOC-sentenced prisoner not having their time
calculated by DOC,” Gusman said:
A. I think the purpose of the policy, Basic Jail Guidelines, is to make
sure that DOC has the information so that they can properly
compute, and if the information doesn’t get there, then it’s a problem.
Q. And one of the problems is that DOC will not have the information
needed to calculate the prisoner’s time?
A. I think that’s what I said. 198
The OPSO Defendants repeatedly hang their case for qualified immunity on their
argument that the constitutional right in question is not clearly established, which the
Court finds to be untrue in the context of this case. Moreover, the deposition testimony of
the OPSO officers and the ECPSO officers with whom they coordinated reveals that,
despite the clear bulk of law indicating OPSO’s responsibilities with respect to preclassification and transfer notification, OPSO had a barely functional and extremely
disorganized system that resulted in prisoners being sent to River Bend and virtually
guaranteed that they would not have their sentences calculated. The Court finds that this
conduct was objectively unreasonable. Accordingly, the OPSO’s Motion for Summary
Judgment based on qualified immunity for the individual capacity claims against them
shall be denied.

195

Rec. Doc. No. 111-23 at p. 6.
Id. at p. 7.
197
Rec. Doc. No. 144-3, p. 64.
198
Id. at pp. 54-55.
196

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E. State Law Claims
i.

Solidary Liability

Plaintiffs urge this Court to find that all Defendants are solidarily liable with respect
to the claims in this action. The question of whether Defendants are solidarily liable is not
a claim, per se, but the Court will analyze it here, in part, because the result affects the
fate of the false imprisonment claim, discussed below. Under Louisiana law, “an obligation
is solidary for the obligors when each obligor is liable for the whole performance.”199 “Such
a solidary obligation is not to be presumed but can arise from either ‘a clear expression
of the parties’ intent or from the law.’”200 The Civil Code also establishes that “[a]n
obligation may be solidary though it derives from a different source for each obligor.”201
Here, Plaintiffs argue that
OPSO, ECPSO, and the DPS&C Defendants each played a role in
preventing each Plaintiff from going free on his respective lawful release
date. None of the Plaintiffs’ release could be ‘partially executed.’ The
obligation owed to Plaintiffs, therefore, is a joint, indivisible obligation and
OPSO, ECPSO, and the DPS&C Defendants are solidarily liable.202
Plaintiffs note that the Fifth Circuit in the 1986 case Hinshaw v. Doffer held that a
police officer and his supervisor were jointly and severally liable under § 1983. After the
supervisor appealed and was dismissed from the case, the court faced the question of
whether to hold the officer liable for the entire judgment despite the fact that the jury had
apportioned him only 65% of the fault. The court held that the officer was liable for the
entire judgment, explaining, “We believe that our holding comports with the goals of

199

LA. CIV. CODE art. 1794.
P H I, Inc. v. Apical Indus., Inc., 946 F.3d 772, 776 (5th Cir. 2020) (quoting LA. CIV. CODE art. 1796).
201
LA. CIV. CODE art. 1797.
202
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 13.
200

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section 1983, compensating plaintiffs who suffer a violation of constitutional rights and
preventing abuses by those acting under color of state law. Were we to hold [the officer]
responsible for only 65% of the damages suffered by [the plaintiff], then [the plaintiff]
would not receive full compensation for his injuries.”203
Hinshaw is distinguishable for its application of Texas law and, as the OPSO
Defendants point out, for the fact that the police officer and the supervisor that the court
held jointly and severally liable were “from the same law enforcement agency,”204 unlike
here, where the allegedly severally liable parties are different agencies and departments
entirely. In addition to being distinguishable, Hinshaw is also out of date. The OPSO
Defendants correctly note that in 1996, Louisiana Civil Code article 2324 was amended
to eliminate solidary liability for joint tortfeasors, except for intentional acts.205 Now, as
stated above, solidary liability is “not to be presumed but can arise from either ‘a clear
expression of the parties’ intent or from the law.’”206 Plaintiffs do not offer evidence or
argument to demonstrate how the alleged solidarity of the parties in this action arises.
Plaintiffs expound on how “solidary liability ensures deterrence because any single
Defendant may be held liable for the whole, therefore incentivizing Sheriffs and DPS&C
supervisors to work together to prevent overdetention, rather than hoping they can
escape responsibility by pointing fingers at each other in litigation.”207 The Court agrees
on both counts; solidary liability would be a useful tool for plaintiffs in cases like these,

203

Hinshaw v. Doffer, 785 F.2d 1260, 1269 (5th Cir. 1986)(internal citations omitted).
Rec. Doc. No. 146, p. 15.
205
Id. at p. 14 (citing Tufaro v. City of New Orleans, No. CIV. 03-1429, 2004 WL 1920937, at *3 (E.D. La.
Aug. 26, 2004)).
206
P H I, Inc., 946 F.3d at 776.
207
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 15.
204

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which often devolve into finger pointing by the parties; however, Plaintiffs have simply not
carried their summary judgment burden of demonstrating that a finding of solidary liability
is warranted under these facts and the current law.
ii.

False Imprisonment Under Louisiana Law

False imprisonment is the “unlawful and total restraint of the liberty of the
person.”208 The elements of a false imprisonment claim under Louisiana law are (1) the
detention of the Plaintiff, and (2) the unlawfulness of the detention.209 Based on the
evidence in the record, it is not disputed that the physical detention of Plaintiffs occurred
at River Bend under the supervision of the ECPSO Defendants.
Plaintiffs argue that “OPSO’s liability for this false imprisonment has several
sources, but the most obvious is vicarious liability for the acts of its employees.”210
Specifically, Plaintiffs contend, OPSO committed false imprisonment of Plaintiffs due to
its “failure . . . to send pre-classification and transfer information on newly-sentenced DOC
prisoners to DPS&C.”211 As to the ECPSO Defendants, Plaintiffs argue that they falsely
imprisoned Plaintiffs by holding “the Plaintiffs at River Bend for months without any legal
basis.”212 Likewise, Plaintiffs claim, the DPS&C Defendants are liable for false
imprisonment because “[e]ach of the five Plaintiffs became DOC-sentenced prisoners the
day after their sentencing” and thus, “[t]here is no genuine issue of material fact that
[DPS&C] was a jailer of the five Plaintiffs.”213 The law is clear that “a jailer has a duty to

208

Rice v. ReliaStar Life Ins. Co., 770 F.3d 1122, 1136 (5th Cir. 2014) (quoting Crossett v. Campbell, 122
La. 659, 664, 48 So. 141, 143 (La.1908)).
209
See Kennedy v. Sheriff of East Baton Rouge, 2005–1418, p. 32 (La.7/10/06); 935 So.2d 669, 690.
210
Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 31.
211
Id.
212
Id. at p. 41.
213
Id. at p. 44.

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ensure that inmates are timely released from prison.”214
As to the second element of false imprisonment – the unlawfulness of the detention
– the Court concludes that there is no genuine issue of material fact; Plaintiffs were held
at River Bend beyond their lawful sentences. In all three sets of Defendants’ responses
to Plaintiffs’ discovery requests, Defendants admitted (with minor quibbles over language)
to the following facts:


Plaintiff Crittindon resolved his criminal charges on August 2, 2016 and was
entitled to immediate release. He was released on January 13, 2017.



Plaintiff Burse resolved his criminal charges on August 8, 2016 and was
entitled to immediate release. He was released on January 11, 2017.



Plaintiff Copelin resolved his criminal charges on October 14, 2016 and was
entitled to immediate release. He was released on January 13, 2017.



Plaintiff Dominick resolved his criminal charges on September 1, 2016 and
was entitled to immediate release. He was released on December 7, 2016.



Plaintiff Guidry resolved his criminal charges on July 12, 2016 and was
entitled to release on September 4, 2016. He was released on January 24,
2017.215

There is no disputed fact issue regarding the unlawful nature of the detention after
the arrival of each Plaintiffs’ release date. However, the first element of false
imprisonment – the detention itself – is more difficult to parse given the landscape of the
parties in this case. Although the Plaintiffs were physically held by ECPSO at River Bend,

214
215

Rec. Doc. No. 111-1, p. 44 (quoting Epps, 659 F.3d at 445).
See Defendants’ Responses, Rec. Doc. Nos. 111-4, 111-5, and 111-6.

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they were serving DOC sentences after being arrested, detained, and convicted by
OPSO. Clearly, each set of Defendants played a part in the detention of Plaintiffs, but it
is impossible to say whose part definitively resulted in Plaintiffs’ overdetention. Plaintiffs
do not offer argument on the subject of how, under the law, each party is specifically liable
for false imprisonment. They merely set forth the facts of each Plaintiff’s case, repeat the
elements of false imprisonment, and make the conclusory argument that the over
detention gives rise to liability for false imprisonment, without addressing the ambiguities
of physical custody, legal custody, and so on. Nor is it clear from Plaintiffs’ Motion how
the individual Defendants were personally involved, if at all, in the actual detention of
Plaintiffs. Therefore, the Court concludes that Plaintiffs have not carried their summary
judgment burden of showing that they are entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Accordingly, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary Judgment shall be denied as to their
false imprisonment claims under Louisiana law.
The DPS&C Defendants move for summary judgment on the false imprisonment
claims, arguing that there is no evidence “that any of DPS&C Defendants personally
detained Plaintiffs without lawful authority.”216 Because they did not have “physical
custody of an individual housed in Parish Jail,”217 they argue, the false imprisonment claim
against them must be dismissed. The Court is not persuaded that physical custody is
dispositive of the issue. Louisiana law is clear that, as DOC-sentenced inmates, Plaintiffs
were “committed to the Department of Public Safety and Corrections and not to any
particular institution within the jurisdiction of the department.”218 The same law provides

216

Rec. Doc. No. 110-1, p. 28.
Id.
218
LA. REV. STAT. § 15:824(A).
217

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that DPS&C may “enter into a contract with a law enforcement district, municipal, or parish
governing authority to house additional prisoners.”219 The DPS&C Defendants fail to
articulate why, by virtue of Plaintiffs’ physical presence at River Bend, they cannot be
liable for the overdetention and false imprisonment. Thus, the DPS&C Defendants’ Motion
for Summary Judgment on this count shall be denied.
iii.

Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress

The DPS&C Defendants also move for summary judgment on the intentional
infliction of emotional distress claim against them. Under Louisiana law, to prevail on a
theory of IIED, a plaintiff must show “(1) that the conduct of the defendant was extreme
and outrageous; (2) that the emotional distress suffered by the plaintiff was severe; and
(3) that the defendant desired to inflict severe emotional distress or knew that severe
emotional distress would be certain or substantially certain to result from his conduct.”220
The DPS&C Defendants argue that there is no evidence that they “actually desired to
inflict emotional distress upon the Plaintiffs.”221 Plaintiffs counter that even if DPS&C did
not desire to inflict the distress, the third prong of the analysis also creates liability for a
party who “knew that severe emotional distress would be certain or substantially certain
to result from his conduct.”222 This element is satisfied, Plaintiffs contend, because the
“DPS&C Defendants have admitted in deposition testimony that failure to timely and
correctly calculate release dates could lead to the detention of DOC-sentenced prisoners
after they had served their lawful sentences.”223 “It cannot be doubted that incarceration

219

LA. REV. STAT. § 15:824(D).
White v. Monsanto Co., 585 So. 2d 1205, 1209 (La. 1991).
221
Rec. Doc. No. 110-1, p. 29.
222
White, 585 So. 2d at 1209.
223
Rec. Doc. No. 142, p. 29.
220

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without legal authority is likely to cause severe emotional distress,”224 Plaintiffs add.
Because the DPS&C Defendants have not adequately addressed the “substantially
certain to result” element of the IIED analysis, the Court finds that their Motion for
Summary Judgment on this count shall be DENIED.
The ECPSO Defendants also move for summary judgment on the IIED claim
against them. Their two-sentence argument states that “the plaintiffs do not establish that
the East Carroll Defendants were aware or should have been aware that the plaintiffs
faced a risk of overlong detention.”225 The Court, supra, found that there is evidence that
the ECPSO Defendants were aware of the risk of overdetention.226 The ECPSO
Defendants cite no evidence in support of their argument and do not address the first two
prongs of the IIED analysis at all, thus failing to carry their summary judgment burden of
showing that they are entitled to judgment in their favor as a matter of law. Accordingly,
their Motion for Summary Judgment on the IIED count is denied.

224

Rec. Doc. No. 142, p. 29.
Rec. Doc. No. 102-1, p. 15.
226
See supra at p. 33.
225

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III.

CONCLUSION
For the reasons set forth above, Plaintiffs’ Motion for Partial Summary

Judgment;227 the ECPSO Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment;228 the OPSO
Defendants’ Motion for Summary Judgment,229 and the DPS&C Defendants’ Motion for
Summary Judgment230 are hereby DENIED. The matter will be set for trial.
IT IS SO ORDERED.
Signed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana on April 13, 2020.

S
CHIEF JUDGE SHELLY D. DICK
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF LOUISIANA

227

Rec. Doc. No. 111.
Rec. Doc. No. 102.
229
Rec. Doc. No. 104.
230
Rec. Doc. No. 110.
228

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