City and Supervisor Liable For Transportation of Disabled Inmate

This post is offered as a discussion topic only and does not represent legal advice. Officers must refer to the laws in their own State as well as their agency's policies, which can be more restrictive on officers than the law requires.

Scenario:  While working as a custody supervisor, a Police officer directs deputies to relocate an inmate from his cell to a disciplinary cell. The man has an amputated leg and was issued a wheel chair and a prosthetic leg by medical staff. He objects to the movement and boards up in his cell, forcing the officer to organize the Special Operations Response Team to do a cell extraction. By the time the officer and their team enter the section and reach his cell, he has removed all items for boarding up and is sitting in his wheel chair with his hands raised and is complying with the officer's orders. The officer's deputies handcuff him and stand him on his one leg. Instead of using his wheelchair, the officer direct's him to hop to the disciplinary cell which is 64 feet away. When he does so, his leg gives out and he falls. The officer directs their deputies to pick him up by his handcuffed arms and carry him the remainder of the way. Once inside the cell, The officer does not provide medical treatment to address his claims of pain.

Are the City and Supervisor Liable For Transportation of Disabled Inmate?

Answer: These were the circumstances in the 2024, 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Case Bell v. Williams. In this case, the man sued the custody sergeant, the deputies involved in the extraction, the Chief Deputy and the city and county where this event occurred. The case went before a jury who awarded the man over $500,000 from the city when the jury found the sergeant liable for ordering the actions of the deputies.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued an opinion in this case in 2024. Because the man was a pre-trial detainee who had not yet been convicted, the use of force analysis the court did was based on the 14th Amendment standard of the US Constitution.

That means that instead of the typical 4th Amendment factors from Graham v. Connor (crime, threat, resistance and flight), the court will evaluate

1) the severity of the security threat at issue;

2) the threat reasonably perceived by the deputies;

3) whether the man was actively resisting;

4) any effort made by the deputies to temper or to limit the amount of force used;

5) the extent of the man's injuries; and 6) The relationship between the need for the use of force and the amount of force used. In addition, because the man was disabled, they will consider whether the actions of the deputies were in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Using that analysis framework, the 9th Circuit decided that since the man had become compliant by the time the deputies entered his cell, his security threat, resistance level, and the threats percieved by the deputies were diminished. They said the deputies attempts to temper the force used fell short after the man fell and they picked him up by his cuffed arms instead of helping him to walk or pausing to get a wheel chair. They determined his injuries of bruising, swollen joints and pain were minor but not insignificant. And regarding the need to use force, they said, "If a detainee is complying with orders, then any amount of unnecessary force is objectively unreasonable, even if the detainee previously disobeyed orders. Persisting in using force in such a situation would amount to punishment, and the Fourteenth Amendment."

Regarding the American's with Disabilities Act the court said, "Under our precedent, transporting detainees to safety cells is a function covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act and Rehabilitation Act." "Jail medical staff prescribed for (the man) the wheelchair and prosthetic leg, so they are obviously reasonably accommodations for transportation within the jail under normal circumstances.

"Jail staff must often make difficult calls in tense and fast-evolving situations, and courts owe them considerable deference in such cases. This is not one of those cases. (The sergeant) had over forty minutes after she decided to perform a cell extraction to obtain a wheelchair, gurney, or other mobility device that would accommodate (the man's) disability. Jail policies provided for just such accommodations. The jury could find that reasonable accommodations existed to assist (the man) in transiting between the two cells even in light of the jail's legitimate security interests."

Although they did send the case back to the appeals court for a lower damages amount, they did say,

"...we affirm the district court's decisions that (the sergeant) violated Bell's Fourteenth Amendment right against excessive force and that the City violated the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act."

Want to watch the full video on this lesson?  Click here and login to view it in your The Briefing Room Library.

This blog topic serves as a summary of our video lesson on this crucial topic. If you're interested in accessing the full video lesson and additional resources, click the link to register for your free 30-day trial.