A big CA3 prisoner-rights win came down yesterday.

A Delaware jail inmate committed suicide after many prior attempts. His family sued the prison administrators, alleging that the suicide resulted from serious deficiencies in the medical care provided by the private vendor the prison hired. Among the sad and unsurprising facts that emerged in discovery:

In deposition testimony, Appellants [the prison officials] acknowledged that
they were aware of the deteriorating quality of FCM’s [the vendor’s]
provision of medical services. Williams admitted that FCM’s
performance had degraded significantly and that he was
aware FCM may not have been fulfilling its contractual
obligations. He was aware of significant
backlogs, that FCM may have been intentionally shortstaffing to save money, and that inmate complaints had increased. [Citations omitted]

The administrators asserted qualified immunity, but the district court disagreed. A divided CA3 panel yesterday affirmed and remanded for trial. The majority held that circuit precedent recognizing Eighth Amendment supervisory liability survived a recent Supreme Court case; the dissent disagreed on this point and others, with the two opinions vigorously engaging each other.

The case is Barkes v. First Correctional Medical. Opinion by Fisher, joined by Ambro. Hardiman dissented. Arguing counsel were Jeffrey Martin for the prisoner’s family and Catherine Damavandi of the DE DOJ for the prison officials.

Star commenter John commented here that he’d be shocked if the appellants don’t seek en banc review, and I agree, although without digging deeper I don’t have much insight on how they’ll fare.