Walker v. Groot

Plaintiff-detainee waived both issues on appeal from jury verdict in favor of defendants in section 1983 action alleging that defendants-members of treatment team at Rushville Treatment Center violated his First Amendment rights by subjecting him to “decision-making model” treatment plan in retaliation for plaintiff’s sending of letter to executive director of conditional release program for purposes of assisting his counsel in challenging plaintiff’s inpatient detention at Center. While plaintiff argued on appeal that Dist. Ct. gave wrong jury instruction in instant retaliation claim because it relieved defendants from burden of showing that they would have taken same action even absent his protected activity, plaintiff waived said issue by failing to object to jury instruction on two separate occasions. Fact that plaintiff represented himself at trial did not require that Ct. of Appeals consider said issue under plain error standard. Plaintiff similarly waived issue on appeal regarding Dist. Ct.’s admission of two documents containing psychiatrist notes that plaintiff claimed were not admissible under patient-psychiatrist privilege, where: (1) plaintiff did not object to one document’s admission, while plaintiff failed to include privilege issue when unsuccessfully objecting to other document; and (2) plaintiff had introduced into evidence other privileged patient-psychiatrist treatment records.