Civil Rights — cruel and unusual punishment — deliberate indifference — jury instructions

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United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit

Civil

Civil Rights — cruel and unusual punishment — deliberate indifference — jury instructions

A new trial is required where the district court instructed the jury that “cruel and unusual punishment” was an independent element of liability above and beyond a showing that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to the plaintiff’s serious medical need.

“The confusion in the instructions prejudiced Cotts. See Byrd v. Ill. Dep’t of Pub. Health, 423 F.3d 696, 705 (7th Cir. 2005) (‘If an instruction is so misleading that an appellant is prejudiced, reversal is required.’). The erroneous instruction went to the elements of Cotts’s claim. See United States v. Perez, 43 F.3d 1131, 1139 (7th Cir. 1994). The confusion was not clarified by other instructions. And this was not a slam-dunk victory for the defendants. A reasonable jury could have believed evidence suggesting that for almost three years, the defendants refused to repair Cotts’s hernia surgically because they followed an inflexible policy against surgery for reducible hernias. They might also have believed that the fact that Wexford would have to pay for any surgery impacted the decision not to allow it. In short, a factfinder could have reasonably concluded that the defendants ‘substantially departed from professional judgment by refusing to authorize surgical repair for [Cotts’s] painful hernia.’ Gonzalez v. Feinerman, 663 F.3d 311, 314 (7th Cir. 2011). A new trial is necessary.”

Reversed and Remanded.

10-3687 Cotts v. Osafo

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of Illinois, Baker, J., Williams, J.