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Abstract: 

In this issue, we examine two appellate decisions that serve to illustrate how the courts apply the deliberate indifference standard to claims of negligent care. In McGinnis v. Hammer, 2017 WL 4286420 an inmate’s lawsuit claiming that staff at SCI Pittsburgh had failed to provide full medical care for knee pain and a hernia as retaliation for his repeated complaints about the care he received was dismissed by the court, which found that the institution’s care was fully adequate. In a second case, a seriously addicted woman was placed in a jail “detox” cell where she died of opiate withdrawal. The plaintiff had argued that jail staff should have known from the detainee’s strange and volatile behavior in the holding cell that she was intoxicated at a life-threatening level; the trial court and 6th Circuit found that while her care could have been better and more attentive, it did not constitute deliberate indifference.

Keywords: Deliberate Indifference Standard

Affiliations:  1: Ohio Supreme Court Library.