Reck v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendants-prison medical officials’ motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-prisoner’s section 1983 action, alleging that defendants were deliberately indifferent to plaintiff’s painful abscesses associated with his Crohn’s Disease. While plaintiff asserted that defendant-doctor was deliberately indifferent by pursuing course of treatment known to be ineffective and by failing to make earlier referral to surgeon, record showed agreement between parties that doctor provided reasonable care when doctor first treated plaintiff and disagreement in medical opinion as to whether doctor should have made earlier referral to surgeon. As such, instant disagreement of medical opinion, without more, did establish any 8th Amendment violation. Also, reasonable jury could not find that defendant-nurse was deliberately indifferent to plaintiff’s care, where: (1) nurse provided care on two occasions, with first occasion coming immediately after plaintiff saw doctor, and where nurse provided treatment that was consistent with doctor’s orders; and (2) with respect to second treatment, nurse followed doctor’s orders and provided bandages and gauge to alleviate plaintiff’s immediate issues. Moreover, while plaintiff argued that defendant-prison health administrator ignored his sick call requests, record contained evidence that: (1) said requests did not reach medical personnel; (2) administrator testified that plaintiff’s method of making said requests had greater chance of requests being lost; and (3) plaintiff failed to present evidence that administrator was aware that frequency of lost requests was so high so as to make plaintiff’s method of submission of said requests unacceptable.