Rhonda Hehrer v. County of Clinton, Michigan, et al.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, personal injury lawyers represented the Plaintiff who sued on a deliberate indifference civil rights violation wrongful death theory.

This case’s tragic facts took place during Joseph Hehrer’s detention at a county jail. After Hehrer showed signs of illness (including vomiting), medical staff repeatedly evaluated him. Yet they failed to uncover that he suffered from a previously
undiagnosed condition: diabetes. Four days after Hehrer’s first request for medical care, his health worsened. Paramedics rushed him to a hospital, and he died days later. Hehrer’s estate brought federal claims against the county and its officials and state-law claims against the medical provider and its personnel. As relevant now, the estate asserted that several corrections officers acted with deliberate indifference to Hehrer’s medical needs and that the county failed to adequately train them. But we agree with the district court that the officers reasonably deferred to the medical professionals. The court thus correctly granted summary judgment to the county and its officials and reasonably refused to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state-law claims.

Point Two: For the first qualified-immunity step, we still must identify the constitutional
right underlying the Estate’s deliberate-indifference claim. While the Eighth Amendment’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishments” protects convicted prisoners, the Fourteenth Amendment’s ban on “depriv[ations]” of “life” or “liberty” “without due process of law” protects pretrial detainees. U.S. Const. amends. VIII, XIV, § 1; see Lawler, 93 F.4th at 926. Should we treat Hehrer as a pretrial detainee (protected by the Fourteenth Amendment) or a convicted prisoner (protected by the Eighth Amendment)? Clinton County held him on charges that he operated his vehicle while under the influence of heroin and violated the terms of his probation for an earlier conviction. He qualified as a pretrial detainee for the former charge. And no party argues that we should treat him as a convicted prisoner for the latter one. But see Peterson v. Heinen, 89 F.4th 628, 634–35 (8th Cir. 2023). We thus will treat Hehrer as a pretrial detainee in this appeal.

But the Estate’s claim stumbles at the subjective element. It had to show that the Officers
acted “recklessly ‘in the face of an unjustifiably high risk of harm’” that they knew of or should have known of. Brawner, 14 F.4th at 596 (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 836). We have said that this test requires more than mere negligence. See id. In what way? According to common-law sources, the difference turns on the size of the risk of harm. For recklessness, the risk must be “substantially greater than that which is necessary to make [a defendant’s] conduct negligent.” Restatement (Second) of Torts § 500 (A.L.I. 1965); see Safeco Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 68–69 (2007). That is, the “difference” in the risk must be “so marked as to amount substantially to a difference in kind” rather than degree. Restatement (Second) of Torts § 500
cmt. g. Put differently, it must be “highly probable” that the risk would materialize and cause harm. W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts § 34, at 213 (5th ed. 1984).

Affirmed on appeal.