Recent Post-Iqbal Supervisory Liability Decisions

By Sheldon Nahmod [reposted from Nahmod Law]

I blogged on September 7, 2012, and on July 29, 2013, about post-Iqbal pleading decisions in the circuits.

This past year, I was, as usual, preparing the annual update for my treatise, CIVIL RIGHTS AND CIVIL LIBERTIES LITIGATION: THE LAW OF SECTION 1983 (4th ed. 2014; West Group), when I came across three additional recent circuit court decisions applying Iqbal to supervisory liability.

The Second Circuit decision addresses personal involvement, the Ninth Circuit decision deals with causation and the Eleventh Circuit decision discusses deliberate indifference.

Second Circuit

The Second Circuit dealt with a post-Iqbal case involving a pretrial detainee’s pro se individual capacity claim against a warden in connection with allegations of denial of visitation rights, telephone usage, access to a law library and deprivation of temperature control, ventilation and various amenities. The district court dismissed on the ground that the complaint contained no allegations from which the warden’s personal involvement could be determined and further ruled against the plaintiff’s request for leave to amend. Reversing, the Second Circuit held that the plaintiff should at least have been allowed to amend his complaint in order to allege plausibly that the warden had been informed of the alleged denials and deprivations by a letter that the plaintiff had previously sent to him. The Second Circuit observed that in response to the defendant’s motion to dismiss, the plaintiff referred to such a letter informing the warden of the conditions of his confinement. If such a letter had been sent, a court could infer that the warden was in fact aware of the alleged conditions of which the plaintiff complained, thus constituting the requisite personal involvement. Grullon v. City of New Haven, 720 F.3d 133 (2d Cir. 2013) (quoting Hansen v. Black, 885 F.3d 642, 645-46 (9th Cir. 1989)).

Ninth Circuit

The Ninth Circuit, in a post-Iqbal supervisory liability case involving allegations of deliberate indifference against a prison medical director and others in connection with the plaintiff prisoner’s medical care, said the following: “[Under § 1983 a] supervisor may be liable only if (1) he or she is personally involved in the constitutional deprivation, or (2) there is a ‘sufficient causal connection between the supervisor’s wrongful conduct and the constitutional violation.’” Here, there was no evidence that the defendant’s policy of changing dosages of Lithium from three to two, without increasing the total amount prescribed, could have caused plaintiff’s Lithium toxicity. Crowley v. Bannister, 764 F.3d 967 (9^th Cir. 2013).

Eleventh Circuit

In a post-Iqbal case involving a pretrial detainee’s allegations against various supervisory prison officials that they did not protect her from a corrections officer who sexually assaulted her, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court and held that she did not plausibly allege the requisite deliberate indifference. It was not enough that she repeatedly alleged deliberate indifference and that the defendants knew or should have known of the risk to her. There were only a few properly pleaded facts—that the corrections officer verbally harassed the plaintiff and told her there was nothing she could do, that he sexually assaulted her, that he had previously sexually assaulted another pretrial detainee and that he had previously had sexual relations with a third detainee. These were insufficient to state a plausible claim against the defendants that each was subjectively aware of the risk and knowingly disregarded it. Indeed, and to the contrary, the plaintiff’s allegations suggested that the jail’s policy was to promptly investigate claims of sexual harassment. Franklin v. Curry, 738 F.3d 1246 (11th Cir. 2013).

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