Deliberate Indifference – 8th Amendment

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Joni Zaya v. Kul B. Sood

Case No.: 15-1470

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, BAUER and SYKES, Circuit Judges

Focus: Deliberate Indifference – 8^th Amendment

Doctor disregarded request of physician, amounting to deliberate indifference

“Dr. Sood contends that even if a jury could find that he consciously disregarded the risks of delaying Zaya’s return to Dr. Bussey, he is nonetheless entitled to summary judgment on qualified-immunity grounds. The Supreme Court has held that employees of privately operated prisons may not assert a qualified-immunity defense. See Richardson v. McKnight, 521 U.S. 399, 412 (1997). We have construed that holding to extend to employees of private corporations that contract with the state to provide medical care for prison inmates. See Currie v. Chhabra, 728 F.3d 626, 631–32 (7th Cir. 2013); see also Shields v. Ill. Dep’t of Corrs., 746 F.3d 782, 794 n.3 (7th Cir. 2014). As an employee of Wexford, a private corporation that contracts with the Illinois Department of Corrections, Dr. Sood asks us to reconsider our earlier decisions. We need not do so because even if a qualified-immunity defense were available to Dr. Sood, he would not be entitled to summary judgment on that basis. “The doctrine of qualified immunity protects government officials ‘from liability for civil damages insofar as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known.’” Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231 (2009) (quoting Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 818 (1982)). Zaya’s deliberate-indifference claim turns on Dr. Sood’s mental state, and it is well established what the law requires in that regard. See Farmer, 511 U.S. at 837. If Dr. Sood consciously disregarded the risks of delaying Zaya’s return to Dr. Bussey, then his conduct violates clearly established law under the Eighth Amendment. See Petties, slip op. at 18. As we’ve explained, that’s a question of fact that needs to be resolved by a jury”

Reversed and remanded

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