14th Amendment Violation – Damage Award

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Donald E. Beard, Jr. v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc.

Case No.: 16-1763

Officials: WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER and EASTERBROOK, Circuit Judges.

Focus: 14^th Amendment Violation – Damage Award

Wexford Health Sources provides medical care to inmates in Illinois’s prisons. Donald Beard, Jr., an inmate, experiences chronic ankle pain. In December 2010 he consulted with his prison’s doctors about managing his condition. Beard wanted surgery, but the doctors ordered conservative treatment. When Beard’s pain persisted, the doctors considered referring Beard for surgical evaluation, a step that requires Wexford’s approval. It rejected the doctors’ requests for surgical evaluation, though it authorized Beard to see a podiatrist in September 2012 and an orthopedist in January 2015.

Beard filed a pro se complaint in September 2011. He alleged that members of the prison’s medical staff and administrative team were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical need in violation of the Eighth Amendment (applied to the states through the Fourteenth), and he sought damages plus injunctive relief. The district court recruited counsel, who added Wexford as a defendant and stipulated to the dismissal of the individual defendants. Beard presented his case against Wexford to a jury, which awarded him $10,000 in compensatory damages and $500,000 in punitive damages. Wexford persuaded the judge that the punitive-damages award violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s prohibition on excessive or arbitrary punishment. The judge reduced punitive damages to $50,000. Initially he offered Beard a choice between retrying the issue of punitive damages and accepting the reduced award but later withdrew the option and entered a judgment that awarded only $50,000 in punitive damages (plus the jury’s compensatory award).

Beard’s first argument on appeal is that the district court improperly prevented him from presenting an additional theory of liability. Beard convinced the jury to find Wexford directly liable; he contends that he should have been allowed to argue that Wexford also is vicariously liable for its doctors’ violations of his constitutional rights. Beard maintains that Iskander v. Forest Park, 690 F.2d 126 (7th Cir. 1982), which stopped him from pursuing vicarious liability, should be overruled.

Beard also contends that the district court erred in reducing the jury’s award of punitive damages without offering him a new trial. Punitive damages punish blameworthy behavior and deter defendants from committing future bad acts—the more reprehensible a defendant’s conduct and the more easily a defendant can conceal violations, the higher the punitive damages. See, e.g., Zazú Designs v. L’Oréal, S.A., 979 F.2d 499, 508 (7th Cir. 1992). But excessive punitive damages awards violate the Due Process Clause. See, e.g., State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408 (2003); BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559 (1996). The Justices have instructed courts to review whether an award of punitive damages exceeds the Due Process Clause’s bounds by considering the reprehensibility of the defendant’s conduct, the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, and any civil penalties that punish similar behavior. See, e.g., BMW of North America, 517 U.S. at

We need not choose which of these options is best. We raise the subject only to call attention to it so that statutory decisions precede constitutional adjudication. Both legal and factual issues are open on remand. Because we vacate the judgment and remand for the district court to offer Beard the choice between a reduced punitive-damages award and a new trial limited to damages, we also vacate the award of attorney’s fees and costs. Until we know whether Beard prefers to take his chances on a new trial (and, if he does, the measure of his success), saying anything about fees would be premature. See Hensley v. Eckerhart, 461 U.S. 424 (1983). Still, we remind the district court that any award of attorney’s fees must comply with Murphy v. Smith, 138 S. Ct. 784 (2018).

Vacated and Remanded

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.