Estate of Perry v. Wenzel

Dist. Ct. erred in granting defendants-prison officials’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-deceased detainee’s section 1983 action alleging that defendants violated his constitutional rights by failing to provide any follow-up medical care after plaintiff suffered multiple seizures and was discharged by hospital back to defendants with instructions to seek prompt medical care if plaintiff experienced complications, where record showed that plaintiff ultimately died from cardiac condition within 24 hours of his initial arrest, and where plaintiff presented additional complications including blood discharge from mouth and inability to ambulate following his discharge from hospital. While plaintiffs maintained that plaintiff’s discharge from emergency room indicated that he was “fine for time being,” and that his subsequent complaints and inability to walk was attempt by plaintiff to be uncooperative, record contained triable issue as to whether defendants had sufficient notice of plaintiff’s serious medical condition that deteriorated after his discharge from hospital. Record also contained evidence that several defendants (both prison guards and medical personnel) did nothing while plaintiff was in obvious medical distress. Moreover, Dist. Ct. erred in dismissing certain County defendants based on claim that County had no control over plaintiff because it had refused to book plaintiff in as prisoner because of his poor medical condition, since: (1) County personnel had physical control over plaintiff at some point after his discharge from hospital; and (2) County could not insulate itself from liability by enacting admission policies that dictated when its constitutional obligation to plaintiff began.