10th Circuit

Mother was 35 weeks pregnant in custody when her water broke; employees of nationwide private medical contractor ignored and minimized her symptoms, refused to transport her to hospital, failed to conduct even a cursory pelvic exam; after 30 hours of painful labor and bleeding child was born with umbilical cord wrapped around neck, not breathing, with no pulse; court concludes the private medical contractors were not entitled to assert defense of qualified immunity and reversed district court’s grant of summary judgment to defendants.

Applying 8th Amendment standards to claim of failure to provide medical attention to pretrial detainee; three guards who were aware of risk of serious harm and chose to disregard that risk would be liable for failing to provide treatment for plaintiff’s priapism (a result of taking a pill from another prisoner) for three days, which led to a need for surgery and probably impotence for life; qualified immunity denied.

Visitor center for Spaceport America, a public agency, was not a public forum in which government must allow picketing and other forms of protest; there was probable cause for plaintiff’s arrest for trespass, hence there could be no cause of action for retaliatory arrest.

Medical professional who knows that his role is to serve as gatekeeper for other medical personnel capable of treating a condition may be liable for deliberate indifference for denying access to medical care; nurse’s knowledge that plaintiff was “dazed and confused” and unable to remember what kind of work he did was sufficient to trigger nurse’s duty as gatekeeper; nurse was not deliberately indifferent because he referred plaintiff to a physician’s assistant; nurse’s failure to inform doctor of how long plaintiff had been in custody, which was allegedly too long to be suffering from withd

Plaintiff alleged that officers were deliberately indifferent and allowed him to be assaulted in custody; court declines to extend Kingsley to deliberate indifference claims, relying on its decision in Strain v. Regalado, 977 F.3d 984 (10th Cir. 2020) (claim of alleged medical indifference), and found there was no subjective indifference in this case, thus no liability, because the time interval between when the officer became aware of the attack on plaintiff and when he responded was too short to conclude his response was unreasonable.

After pleading no contest, plaintiff had been convicted of two counts of assault and battery on a police officer; the court ruled, “An excessive-force claim against an officer is not necessarily inconsistent with a conviction for assaulting the officer,” and analyzed the incident in detail, concluding that plaintiff had alleged some of the excessive force he complained of took place after he no longer posed a threat, and that Heck would not bar those claims.

Detainee died from alcohol withdrawal while in jail; condition constituted a serious medical need, jury could find that officials who failed to follow doctor’s discharge instructions and had seen inmate’s condition worsen had culpable state of mind to satisfy subjective component of liability for deliberate indifference; law was clearly established, thus officials not entitled to qualified immunity; “[W]hen prison officials prevent an inmate from receiving treatment or deny him access to medical personnel capable of evaluating the need for treatment, they may be liable for deliberate indiff

Reversing summary judgment in favor of officers who shot and killed decedent in his ex-wife’s garage; “the totality of the facts to be considered in determining whether the level of force was reasonable includes any immediately connected actions by the officers that escalated a non-lethal situation to a lethal one”; facts taken in light most favorable to plaintiff were that severity of underlying crime (trespass) was low, officers had not intended to arrest decedent initially thus he was not resisting or attempting to evade arrest, defendant was armed with hammer but jury could conclude he

Clearly established in May 2019 that journalist had First Amendment right to film police performing duties in public and reasonable officer would have known that physically interfering with and intimidating individual filming traffic stop could chill First Amendment activity; NPAP amicus brief filed in this case.

Clearly established in October 2013 that use of taser against suspect who was no longer fleeing or resisting constituted excessive force.