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Abstract: 

Our regular review of important court decisions includes five cases: one in which prison medical records did not support an inmate’s claim of deliberate indifference due to inadequate care (Sims v. Figueroa, 11th Cir. 2022); a second in which a California appellate court ruled that the state’s constitutional right to refuse medical treatment does not require the appointment of a surrogate decision-maker (In re Terraza, Cal.App. 2022); a case in which a Kentucky regional detention center’s treatment of an offender who eventually turned out to have been suffering from the herniation of a cerebral mass was found to be not objectively unreasonable (Bowles v. Bourbon County, Kentucky, 6th Cir. 2021); a ruling that deceased inmate’s estate did not plausibly allege that officers had intentionally refused to provide the inmate with medical care or otherwise had recklessly disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm (McDonald-Witherspoon v. City of Philadelphia, 3rd Cir. 2021); and a case in which a grant of summary judgment was affirmed after a federal appeals court found that no reasonable jury could determine that deliberate indifference to an inmate’s serious medical needs had occurred in the care of an inmate suffering gastrointestinal and kidney ailments (Van Caster v. Hepp, 7th Cir. 2021).

Keywords: Deliberate Indifference to Serious Medical Needs; Right to Refuse Treatment

Affiliations:  1: Ohio Supreme Court Library.