Thompson v. Cope

Dist. Ct. erred in denying defendant-paramedic’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-decedent’s section 1983 action alleging that defendant had violated plaintiff-decedent’s 4^th Amendment rights when defendant administered sedative to decedent to calm decedent down after decedent was discovered by police lying prone while nude in street and being combative with police. Although decedent died shortly after sedative was administered, case law did not clearly establish at time of 2014 incident that paramedic had “seized” arrestee or that paramedic was subject to 4^th Amendment limits on excessive force by sedating arrestee, who otherwise appeared to paramedic as suffering from medical emergency prior to officials taking arrestee to hospital. Also, plaintiff’s state-law medical malpractice claims against paramedic and others should be dismissed without prejudice, where plaintiff had failed to comply with Indiana law requiring plaintiff to submit case to medical review panel prior to filing instant lawsuit, since said directive is substantive feature of Indiana statute that must be enforced in federal court.