United States Ninth Circuit

Summary judgment for defendant-officers in a 42 U.S.C. section 1983 action alleging that defendant officers, doctor, and two nurses violated plaintiff's rights under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments when the doctor, forcibly and without consent, removed a plastic baggie containing cocaine base from plaintiff's rectum is: 1) reversed as to the Fourth Amendment claim against defendant-officers, where the doctor's conduct could be attributed to the police officers because a reasonable jury could conclude that the officers gave false information about plaintiff's medical condition to the hospital staff and to the doctor with the intent of inducing the doctor to perform an invasive search, a jury could conclude the procedures performed by the doctor violated the Fourth Amendment, and defendant-officers were not entitled to qualified immunity on the Fourth Amendment claim; but 2) affirmed as to the Fourteenth Amendment claim which was based on his right to refuse unwanted medical treatment, where it cannot be said that "every reasonable official" would have known the procedures performed by the doctor violated the Fourteenth Amendment, and therefore defendants were entitled to qualified immunity.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/28/2014
• Published 05/28/2014

Judges

• FLETCHER

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel