Prisoner – 8th Amendment Violation

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: William Dean v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc., et al.,

Case No.: 20-3058; 20-3139

Officials: WOOD, ST. EVE, and KIRSCH, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Prisoner – 8^th Amendment Violation

William Dean developed kidney cancer while incarcerated at Taylorville Correctional Center in central Illinois. Seven months after he first presented symptoms, Dean had kidney-removal surgery. Unfortunately, the cancer had already spread to his liver, so Dean remains terminally ill. In this lawsuit Dean sues two of the doctors involved in his care: Dr. Abdur Nawoor and Dr. Rebecca Einwohner. He also sues their employer—Wexford Health Sources, Inc.— a private corporation that contracts with Illinois to provide healthcare to Illinois inmates.

Dean’s lawsuit focuses on delays in the diagnosis and treatment of his kidney cancer. He blames the delays on his doctors’ failure to arrange timely offsite care and on Wexford’s “collegial review” policy, which requires Wexford’s corporate office to preapprove offsite care. Dean submits that the defendants’ actions were not merely negligent but deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The case went to trial, and the jury sided with Dean, awarding him $1 million in compensatory damages and $10 million in punitive damages against Wexford. After trial, the district court reduced the punitive damages award to $7 million. The defendants now appeal, challenging the jury’s verdicts on the Eighth Amendment claims.

We reverse. Dean has endured great suffering, but he did not produce enough evidence at trial to hold any of the defendants liable for violating his Eighth Amendment rights. Dean’s claim against Wexford hinged on the Lippert reports— two expert reports from another case that critique the medical care, and process for medical care, that Illinois provides, through Wexford, to its prisoners. The Lippert reports are hearsay, but the district court allowed Dean to use them for a non-hearsay purpose: to prove that Wexford had prior notice of the experts’ negative assessments of collegial review. The problem with the district court’s ruling is that the second Lippert report postdated all events relevant to this case and thus could not have given Wexford prior notice of anything. And even if the court did not abuse its discretion in admitting the first report—an issue we need not resolve—the first report alone was insufficient to hold Wexford liable under the exacting requirements of Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978), in this single-incident case. Dean fares no better at proving that the doctor-defendants were deliberately indifferent, so we reverse and direct judgment as a matter of law across the board on the Eighth Amendment claims. We do not upset the jury’s findings that the defendants were negligent, but a new jury must reassess the issue of damages.

Reversed and remanded
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Derek A Hawkins is Corporate Counsel, at Salesforce.