GOODWIN v. MEDPRO
Filing
56
MEMORANDUM OF DECISION granting in part and denying in part 39 Motion to Dismiss. By MAGISTRATE JUDGE MARGARET J. KRAVCHUK. (CWP)
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF MAINE
MICHAEL R. GOODWIN,
Plaintiff
v.
MEDPRO, et al.,
Defendants
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) 1:12-cv-00371-MJK
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MEMORANDUM OF DECISION1
Medpro Associates, Loreen Maloney, and Rhonda Walters have moved for the dismissal
of the claims Michael Goodwin presses against them in his second amended complaint, alleging
that this court does not have “jurisdiction” to consider a claim for medical malpractice at this
juncture because of the provisions of the Maine Health Security Act, 24 M.R.S. §§ 2501, et. seq.,
and that Goodwin’s second amended complaint fails to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
(Am. Motion to Dismiss, ECF No. 39.) The motion is granted, in part, based on Goodwin’s
failure to state a claim against Medpro Associates, and otherwise denied.
Neither the second amended complaint nor plaintiff’s response to the motion suggests
that this action is brought as a complaint for medical malpractice that would implicate the Maine
Health Security Act. This court has consistently held that complaints against medical providers
alleging constitutional violations or federal statutory violations do not require submission to a
prelitigation medical malpractice screening panel. Faulkingham v. Penobscot Cnty. Jail, 350 F.
Supp. 2d 285, 287-288 (D. Me. 2004); Ferris v. Cnty. of Kennebec, 44 F. Supp. 2d 62 (D. Me.
1999) (retaining federal constitutional claim despite challenge based on the Maine Health
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Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(c), the parties have consented to have United States Magistrate Judge Margaret
J. Kravchuk conduct all proceedings in this case, including trial, and to order entry of judgment.
Security Act, but dismissing state law malpractice claim); cf. Hewett v. Inland Hosp., 39 F.
Supp. 2d 84 (D. Me. 1999) (retaining federal EMTALA claim despite challenge based on the
Maine Health Security Act, but allowing negligence claim to proceed through prelitigation
screening panel). After all, mere disputes about the best course of treatment and the medically
appropriate standard of care are not actionable under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Estelle v. Gamble, 429
U.S. 97, 106 (1976). Goodwin’s second amended complaint is not a medical malpractice action.
To the extent the motion seeks dismissal for this reason, it is denied.
The defendants also allege that Goodwin has failed to plead a constitutional claim of
deliberate indifference to serious medical needs. To decide a motion to dismiss such as this, the
court accepts as true the factual allegations of the complaint, draws all reasonable inferences in
favor of the plaintiff that are supported by the factual allegations, and determines whether the
complaint, so read, sets forth a plausible claim for recovery. Manning v. Boston Med. Ctr. Corp.,
725 F.3d 34, 63 (1st Cir. 2013).
A state actor in a correctional setting is subject to liability if she treats prisoners with
“deliberate indifference to serious medical needs.” Leavitt v. Corr. Med. Servs., 645 F.3d 484,
497 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting Estelle, 429 U.S. at 106). Deliberate indifference involves a failure
or refusal to act despite “knowledge of impending harm, easily preventable.” Id. A trial-worthy
claim must “satisfy both a subjective and objective inquiry.” Id. The subjective inquiry calls
for evidence that a defendant possessed a culpable state of mind amounting to “deliberate
indifference to an inmate’s health or safety.” Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 834 (1994)
(internal quotation marks omitted). The objective inquiry concerns the harm or need in question,
which must involve “a sufficiently substantial ‘risk of serious damage to [the inmate’s] future
health.’” Id. at 843 (quoting Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 35 (1993)).
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First, contrary to the defendants’ assertion in their motion, there is no question but that,
objectively, Goodwin’s condition amounted to a serious medical need. Goodwin informed
unnamed nurses of his medical difficulties at the time he entered the jail. (Second Amended
Complaint ¶ 15.) Goodwin then submitted two additional emergency medical slips during his
first four days at the jail describing his ongoing pain and worsening conditions caused by an
increasingly debilitating urinary infection. According to the allegations, he was ignored both by
correctional officers and medical staff. Finally, on the fifth day of incarceration, an unnamed
nurse, who did not even exam Goodwin, advised over the phone that he should take a hot shower.
(Id. ¶ 34.) When Goodwin collapsed from pain in the shower, he was finally escorted to the
medical department. (Id. ¶¶ 36-38.) Nurses Maloney and Walters then became involved in
“treating” Goodwin, although neither of them addressed the underlying reasons for acute pain
and distress Goodwin had been suffering for the last five days, at best providing him with a band
aid in the form of a catheterization, removing 800ml of urine. (Id. ¶ 40.) After Goodwin left the
Somerset County Jail he was eventually hospitalized as a result of these urinary problems. (Id. ¶
64.)
A medical need is “serious” if it has been diagnosed by a physician as needing treatment
or is so obvious that even a lay person would see the need for medical attention. Leavitt, 645
F.3d at 497. The medical condition Goodwin suffered from, an acute urinary infection, was by
objective measures a serious medical need. Any lay person would recognize that the inability to
urinate over a five-day period while experiencing acute pain and distress was a serious matter.
Whether nurses Maloney and Walter were recklessly indifferent or merely negligent in
their treatment of Goodwin requires drawing too fine a line in terms of the Rule 12 pleading
standard on the type of facts alleged in the second amended complaint. In terms of the subjective
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component of the deliberate indifference inquiry, the complaint’s allegations at this juncture are
sufficient to enable the reader to draw a plausible inference that nurses Maloney and Walter
knew that Goodwin had been suffering for four days from the medical records that were
available to them and yet took no meaningful steps to investigate or alleviate that suffering.
While the nurses ask the court to draw the inference that they merely undertook a different
course of medical treatment than the one Goodwin would have preferred, without a developed
factual record it is an equally plausible inference that they chose to disregard his complaints and
proceed on the assumption that he was due to be transferred and would soon be someone else’s
problem. The complaint should not be dismissed as to them.
Medpro Associates, the other moving defendant, requires a different analysis. Medpro,
as the corporate employer, has moved to dismiss the complaint brought against it because the
doctrine of respondeat superior does not apply to claims brought pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983.
In his response to the motion to dismiss, Goodwin fails to articulate a theory of liability as to
Medpro, other than that multiple employees may have been deliberately indifferent to Goodwin’s
situation. It is generally accepted that the standard for municipal liability under section 1983
applies to entities such as Medpro who have contracted to fulfill governmental responsibilities.
See Leavitt, 645 F.3d at 504 (applying municipal liability standard to claims against private
medical services entity, but treating the issue as conceded); Woodward v. Corr. Med. Servs. of
Ill., Inc., 368 F.3d 917, 927 (7th Cir. 2004) (treating corporate entities as municipal entities in the
context of section 1983 prison-medical-care actions).
Under section 1983, municipalities cannot be held liable for constitutional violations
perpetrated by municipal employees simply because they are the employers. Welch v. Ciampa,
542 F.3d 927, 941 (1st Cir. 2008) (citing Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658, 691
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(1978)). Section 1983 claims against a municipal defendant will only be successful under
Monell if the entity was responsible for a policy, custom, or practice that caused the violation in
question. Id. Assuming that an underlying deprivation is established, proof of a municipal
custom or policy claim involves two additional elements:
First, the custom or practice must be attributable to the municipality, i.e., it must
be “so well settled and widespread that the policymaking officials of the
municipality can be said to have either actual or constructive knowledge of it yet
did nothing to end the practice.” Bordanaro v. McLeod, 871 F.2d 1151, 1156 (1st
Cir. 1989). Second, the custom must have been the cause of and “the moving
force” behind the deprivation of constitutional rights. Id. at 1157.
Miller v. Kennebec Cnty., 219 F.3d 8, 12 (1st Cir. 2000). Together, these additional elements
require the plaintiff to “identify a municipal ‘policy’ or ‘custom’ that caused the plaintiff’s
injury.” Bd. of the Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 402 (1997).
Goodwin has not plead that Medpro had a corporate “policy” or “custom” of denying
medical treatment to inmates. Nor has he alleged any other facts that would support imposing
liability upon the corporation itself. Just as a town or city cannot be held responsible for its
officers’ use of excessive force in effectuating an arrest in the absence of allegations that the
policy-making officials of the town or city were somehow involved in causing the constitutional
violations of the officers, so Medpro cannot be liable for the deliberate indifference of its
medical staff in the absence of direct allegations against it and its policy-making officials.
Based on the foregoing, Defendants’ Amended Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 39) is
granted as to Medpro Associates and denied as to Maloney and Walters.
So Ordered.
October 25, 2013
/s/ Margaret J. Kravchuk
U.S. Magistrate Judge
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