Luther Poynter v. Aaron Bennett

Bowling Green, Kentucky, personal injury lawyer represented the Plaintiff on a 82 U.S.C. 1983 civil rights violation theory.

Luther Poynter was incarcerated in the Barren County Detention Center (“BCDC”) on December 25, 2020, for contempt of court due to his failure to pay child support. On December 28, BCDC moved Poynter to a general-population cell, where Scotty Wix and Timothy Guess were also housed. Within one minute and thirty seconds of Poynter entering the cell, Guess and Wix attacked him, punching him repeatedly in the head. Poynter suffered a traumatic brain injury from the assault and is permanently impaired. Collectively, Wix and Guess had assaulted other detained persons in their cells in BCDC eleven times before they attacked Poynter, but BCDC nevertheless continued to house them in general-population cells. Poynter, by and through his guardian and sister, Anita Fernandez, sued Aaron Bennett, in his official capacity as Barren County Jailer, and Barren County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that they violated his rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment because they were deliberately indifferent to his safety. Following discovery, Bennett and Barren County moved for summary judgment, arguing that Poynter failed to show that he suffered a constitutional violation.

A municipality can be held liable for a constitutional violation under § 1983 if the plaintiff demonstrates that the violation occurred “because of a municipal policy or custom.” Id. at 470 (quoting Burgess v. Fischer, 735 F.3d 462, 478 (6th Cir. 2013)). This is often referred to as Monell liability, or a Monell claim. Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978). A custom is a practice “that has not been formally approved” but “is so widespread as to have the force of law.” Ford v. County of Grand Traverse, 535 F.3d 483, 495–96 (6th Cir. 2008) (quoting Bd. of Cnty. Comm’rs v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397, 403–04 (1997)).

Poynter has presented evidence that would allow a trier of fact to find his constitutional rights were violated. We begin the analysis of his claim with some necessary background on its constitutional basis. The Eighth Amendment protects incarcerated persons from “cruel and unusual punishments.” U.S. Const. amend. VIII. Prisons have “a duty . . . to protect [incarcerated persons] from violence at the hands of other [incarcerated persons].” Westmoreland, 29 F.4th at 726 (first alteration in original) (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 833 (1994)). An incarcerated person’s constitutional rights are violated if the prison is “deliberate[ly] indifferen[t] to [their] health or safety.” Id. (first two alterations in original) (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 833). Pretrial and civil detainees’ claims for deliberate indifference, however, “derive . . . from the Fourteenth Amendment,” and “not from the Eighth Amendment, with its focus on punishment.” Grote, 85 F.4th at 405; see also Hopper v. Plummer, 887 F.3d 744, 755 (6th Cir. 2018) (“[T]he Supreme Court long ago ‘t[ook] the position that the Eighth Amendment is inapplicable to [a civil contempt] sentence.’” (second and third alteration in original) (quoting United States v. Dien, 598 F.2d 743, 745 (2d Cir. 1979) (per curiam))). “The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment provides the same protections” as the Eighth Amendment. Westmoreland, 29 F.4th at 727.8 Claims for deliberate indifference under the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments are similar in many respects, and “‘historically [we] analyzed’” them entirely “‘under the same rubric.’” Brawner v. Scott County, 14 F.4th 585, 591 (6th Cir. 2021) (quoting Richmond v. Huq, 885 F.3d 928, 937 (6th Cir. 2018), abrogated on other grounds by, Brawner, 14 F.4th at 591–96). Recently, however, we held in Brawner that there is an important difference between the two—plaintiffs bringing a Fourteenth Amendment claim are not required to show subjective knowledge, while plaintiffs bringing an Eighth Amendment claim are. Id. at 591–96; Westmoreland, 29 F.4th at 726. Under Brawner, a plaintiff asserting a Fourteenth Amendment

claim must establish only that the defendant “acted deliberately (not accidentally), but also recklessly ‘in the face of an unjustifiably high risk of harm that is either known or so obvious that it should be known.’” Brawner, 14 F.4th at 596 (quoting Farmer, 511 U.S. at 836). We use a four-part test to determine whether a defendant violated a pretrial detainee’s rights in the failure-to-protect context. Westmoreland, 29 F.4th at 728–29 (discussing Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc)). The plaintiff must show: (1) the defendant “act[ed] intentionally [(2)] in a manner that put[] the plaintiff at substantial risk of harm, [(3)] without taking reasonable steps to abate that risk, and [(4)] by failing to do so actually cause[d] the plaintiff’s injuries.” Id. at 729. The third element incorporates the recklessness requirement—the plaintiff must show that the defendant “acted with ‘reckless disregard’ in the face of ‘an unjustifiably high risk of harm.’” Id. at 730 (quoting Brawner, 14 F.4th at 596). The four-part test laid out in Westmoreland is consistent with Brawner, which also required that the defendant’s action be intentional rather than accidental. Id. at 729. The intentional-action requirement makes good sense, because the Supreme Court has held that accidental conduct does not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. See Kingsley v. Hendrickson, 576 U.S. 389, 395–96 (2015).

The District Court granted the Defendant's motion for summary judgment.

Reversed