Powell v. Oklahoma County of et al

Filing 32

ORDER granting 23 Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint. Oklahoma County Detention Center and the Oklahoma County Sheriffs Department are terminated as parties to this action, and Plaintiffs claims against them are dismissed with prejudice. Signed by Honorable Timothy D. DeGiusti on 5/17/2019. (mb)

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF OKLAHOMA
HEATHER POWELL, individually and as
mother, next friend and guardian of
Elizabeth Kiley Eaton,
Plaintiff,
v.
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
OF OKLAHOMA COUNTY,
OKLAHOMA COUNTY DETENTION
CENTER,
SHERIFF JOHN WHETSEL,
OKLAHOMA COUNTY SHERIFF’S
DEPARTMENT,
CORRECTIONAL HEALTHCARE
MANAGEMENT, INC.,
ARMOR CORRECTIONAL HEALTH
SERVICES, INC., and
JOHN DOE 1-10,
Defendants.

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Case No. CIV-18-294-D

ORDER
Before the Court is the Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint filed by
Defendants Oklahoma County Detention Center (“OCDC”) and Oklahoma County
Sheriff’s Department (“Sheriff’s Department”) [Doc. No. 23]. Plaintiff filed a response in
opposition [Doc. No. 24]. The matter is fully briefed and at issue.
BACKGROUND
This case arises out of the suicide attempt of Elizabeth Kiley Eaton while she was a
pretrial detainee at the OCDC on June 29, 2016. Because of the suicide attempt, Ms. Eaton
was rendered comatose and remains in a vegetative state. Plaintiff Heather Powell – as

Eaton’s mother, next friend, and duly appointed guardian and as an individual – asserts
claims against the Board of County Commissioners of Oklahoma County (“BOCC”), the
OCDC, Sheriff John Whetsel (“Whetsel”), the Sheriff’s Department, Correctional
Healthcare Management, Inc. (“CHM”), Armor Correctional Health Services, Inc.
(“Armor”), and John Doe 1-10 for negligence and for alleged violations of Ms. Eaton’s
constitutional rights.
To summarize, the Amended Complaint [Doc. No. 18] alleges:
 Ms. Eaton was arrested on April 30, 2016, and taken to the OCDC, where she
remained until her suicide attempt on June 29, 2016. She was 21 years old and
charged with violating the terms and conditions of her deferred sentence for seconddegree burglary (felony) and two misdemeanor offenses.
 When Ms. Eaton was booked in, she showed signs of depression and despondency.
A mental evaluation was scheduled, but according to OCDC records, Ms. Eaton did
not show for her appointment. No follow-up attempts were made to diagnose and
treat her mental illness.
 Prior to Ms. Eaton’s jail stay, she had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and
borderline personality disorder. She had a long history of mental illness, and as an
adolescent had been a patient in several behavioral institutions. Ms. Eaton told
Plaintiff that the OCDC had “refused to put her back on Risperdal.” [Doc. No. 18
at ¶ 12].
 Ms. Eaton’s cellmate recalled Ms. Eaton waking up, crying, and saying she “wanted
to die.” Id. Ms. Eaton’s cellmate reported to jailers that Ms. Eaton was “hearing
voices” and had said she “couldn’t take it anymore.” Id. at ¶ 20. In a recorded jail
call from Ms. Eaton to her mother, Ms. Eaton said she was going to kill herself. Ms.
Eaton sent Plaintiff a letter from the jail in which she stated that she was crying and
was “emotional.” Id. at ¶ 12.


Ms. Eaton’s arresting officer told Plaintiff that Ms. Eaton seemed as if she did not
care about anything.

 On June 29, 2016, Ms. Eaton attempted to kill herself by hanging. She tied a sheet
or pillow case to a grate above the sink in her jail cell and jumped off the sink.
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Because of the suicide attempt, Ms. Eaton was rendered comatose and remains in a
vegetative state.
 The OCDC was aware of Ms. Eaton’s mental condition and did nothing to prevent
or prepare for a possible suicide attempt by Ms. Eaton. Medical personnel at the
jail never assessed Ms. Eaton to determine if she posed a danger to herself.
 Armor and CHM had a contract with Oklahoma County to provide medical services
to inmates at the OCDC. Alternatively, OCDC staff informed Armor or CHM
employees of Ms. Eaton’s mental condition, and Armor or CHM failed to provide
Ms. Eaton with proper medical care.
 Whetsel knew that the OCDC was understaffed and under-supervised. He had
requested multiple funding increases, which were rejected by the BOCC. This lack
of funding caused or contributed to the unconstitutional practices at the OCDC.
 At the time of Ms. Eaton’s admission, the OCDC had more than 2,000 detainees,
which was nearly double its rated capacity. The large number of detainees, coupled
with the awkward physical layout of the jail cells, made adequate supervision of
detainees “virtually non-existent.” Id. at ¶ 27. At the time of the incident, the OCDC
was not adequately staffed to maintain necessary supervision or to meet the basic
medical needs of inmates.
 Due to overcrowding, the OCDC did not have sufficient jail cells to match the
classification level of the detainees according to accepted standards of correctional
practice.
 The OCDC did not adequately screen detainees for serious medical problems, did
not adequately provide detainees access to medical care, and the medical care that
was provided was “superficial and meaningless.” Id. at ¶ 30.
 The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) conducted inspections of the
OCDC in April 2007. In its letter to the BOCC, the DOJ noted that certain
conditions at the OCDC violated the constitutional rights of detainees. These
constitutional violations continued through 2016. In 2009, the BOCC entered a
memorandum of understanding with the DOJ. The BOCC agreed to implement
mental health policies and procedures and to maintain sufficient staff. The BOCC
agreed to screen all written requests for mental health care within 24 hours and to
see patients within the next 72 hours or sooner.
 Before Ms. Eaton’s suicide attempt, a male inmate had used a ventilation grill to
hang himself. The DOJ specifically criticized the OCDC concerning this safety
issue: “cells have ventilation grills and other fixtures that have not been modified to
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minimize the risk that they may [be] used to facilitate a suicide attempt.” Id. at ¶
40.
STANDARD OF DECISION
“To survive a motion to dismiss [under Rule 12(b)(6)], a complaint must contain
sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to ‘state a claim to relief that is plausible on its
face.’” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (quoting Bell Atlantic Corp. v.
Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007)). “A claim has facial plausibility when the plaintiff
pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the
defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. The “plausibility
standard” announced in Twombly and Iqbal is not a “heightened standard” of pleading, but
rather a “refined standard.” Khalik v. United Air Lines, 671 F.3d 1188, 1191 (10th Cir.
2012) (citing Kansas Penn Gaming, LLC v. Collins, 656 F.3d 1210, 1214 (10th Cir. 2011)).
Under the “refined standard,” plausibility refers “to the scope of the allegations in the
complaint: if they are so general that they encompass a wide swath of conduct, much of it
innocent, then the plaintiffs ‘have not nudged their claims across the line from conceivable
to plausible.’” Khalik, 671 F.3d at 1191; see also Robbins v. Oklahoma, 519 F.3d 1242,
1247 (10th Cir. 2008) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570).
Further, the Tenth Circuit has noted that “[t]he nature and specificity of the
allegations required to state a plausible claim will vary based on context.” Khalik, 671
F.3d at 1191 (quoting Kansas Penn Gaming, 656 F.3d at 1215). “Thus, [it has] concluded
the Twombly/Iqbal standard is ‘a middle ground between heightened fact pleading, which
is expressly rejected, and allowing complaints that are no more than labels and conclusions
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or a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action, which the Court stated will
not do.’” Id. (quoting Robbins, 519 F.3d at 1247).
“In other words, Rule 8(a)(2) still lives. There is no indication the Supreme Court
intended a return to the more stringent pre-Rule 8 pleading requirements.” Id. It remains
true that “[s]pecific facts are not necessary; the statement need only ‘give the defendant
fair notice of what the … claim is and the grounds upon which it rests.’” Erickson v.
Pardus, 551 U.S. 89, 93 (2007) (quoting Twombly, 550 U.S. at 555); see also al-Kidd v.
Ashcroft, 580 F.3d 949, 977 (9th Cir. 2009) (“Twombly and Iqbal do not require that the
complaint include all facts necessary to carry the plaintiff’s burden.”).
Finally, “[w]hile the 12(b)(6) standard does not require that Plaintiff establish a
prima facie case in [its] complaint, the elements of each alleged cause of action help to
determine whether Plaintiff has set forth a plausible claim.” Khalik, 671 F.3d at 1192
(citing Swierkiewicz v. Sorema N.A., 534 U.S. 506, 515 (2002). “[A] well-pleaded
complaint may proceed even if it strikes a savvy judge that actual proof of [the alleged]
facts is improbable, and ‘that a recovery is very remote and unlikely.’” Sanchez v. Hartley,
810 F.3d 750, 756 (10th Cir. 2016) (citing Twombly, 550 U.S. at 556).
DISCUSSION
The OCDC and the Sheriff’s Department move to dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended
Complaint asserting that neither entity has the legal capacity to be sued or has a legal
identity separate from Oklahoma County. Plaintiff does not address this argument in her
response brief.

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A.

Federal Constitutional Claims

Rule 17(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure provides that a non-corporate
entity’s capacity to be sued is determined by the law of the state in which the district court
is located. FED. R. CIV. P. 17(b)(3). In Oklahoma, each organized county can sue and be
sued. OKLA. STAT. tit. 19, § 1(1). The authority of each county is exercised by its board
of county commissioners, and a lawsuit brought against a county must be filed against the
board of county commissioners of that relevant county. OKLA. STAT. tit. 19, §§ 3, 4.
Because the OCDC and the Sheriff’s Department do not have legal identities separate from
that of Oklahoma County, they are not suable entities and are not proper defendants in a
civil rights action. See Lindsey v. Thomson, 275 Fed. Appx. 744, 747 (10th Cir. Sept. 10,
2007) (unpublished)1 (affirming dismissal of § 1983 claims against police departments and
a county sheriff’s department, noting that defendants were “not legally suable entities”);
Reid v. Hamby, No. 95-7142, 1997 WL 537909, at *6 (10th Cir. Sept. 2, 1997)
(unpublished)2 (holding that “an Oklahoma ‘sheriff’s department’ is not a proper entity for
purposes of a § 1983 action”); Aston v. Cunningham, No. 99-4156, 2000 WL 796086, at
*4 n. 3 (10th Cir. June 21, 2000) (unpublished)3 (affirming dismissal of a county detention
facility on the basis that “a detention facility is not a person or legally created entity capable
of being sued”).

1

Unpublished opinion cited pursuant to FED. R. APP. P. 32.1(a) and 10TH CIR. R. 32.1.

2

Unpublished opinion cited pursuant to FED. R. APP. P. 32.1(a) and 10TH CIR. R. 32.1.

3

Unpublished opinion cited pursuant to FED. R. APP. P. 32.1(a) and 10TH CIR. R. 32.1.
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Accordingly, Plaintiff’s federal constitutional claims against the OCDC and the
Sheriff’s Department should be dismissed for failure to state a claim upon which relief may
be granted.
B.

Negligence Claims

Plaintiff’s negligence claims are subject to the Oklahoma Governmental Tort
Claims Act, OKLA. STAT. tit. 51, § 151 et seq. (“OGTCA”). The OGTCA “is the exclusive
remedy by which an injured plaintiff may recover against a governmental entity for its
negligence.” Speight v. Presley, 203 P.3d 173, 176 (Okla. 2008); OKLA. STAT. tit. 51, §
152.1(A) (all tort claims against the state or its political subdivisions must be brought
pursuant to the OGTCA). Neither a county detention center nor a sheriff’s department are
included in the Act’s statutory definition of a “political subdivision.” OKLA. STAT. tit. 51,
§ 152(11).
Independent of the OGTCA is the statute cited supra, OKLA. STAT. tit. 19, § 4, which
provides that “[i]n all suits or proceedings by or against a county, the name in which a
county shall be sued or be sued shall be, ‘Board of County Commissioners of the [relevant
county].’” This statute is a rule of general applicability and is not specific to the OGTCA.
Further, there is no ambiguity about the meaning of OKLA. STAT. tit. 19, § 4. “All suits”
cannot be construed as having any meaning other than the plain language indicates. See,
e.g., Green Constr. Co. v. Okla. County, 50 P.2d 625, 627 (Okla. 1935) (“This statute is
mandatory, and requires that all suits prosecuted by or against a county be prosecuted in
the name of the board of county commissioners of the county of interest.”); OKLA. STAT.

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tit. 19, § 1 (explaining the powers of Oklahoma counties, including their ability to sue and
be sued).
Accordingly, Plaintiff cannot sue the OCDC or the Sheriff’s Department under the
OGTCA.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint filed by
Defendants Oklahoma County Detention Center and Oklahoma County Sheriff’s
Department [Doc. No. 23] is GRANTED. The Oklahoma County Detention Center and
the Oklahoma County Sheriff’s Department are terminated as parties to this action, and
Plaintiff’s claims against them are dismissed with prejudice.
IT IS SO ORDERED this 17th day of May 2019.

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