San Diego County, California, et al. v. Ana Sandoval, et al.

Lawsuits alleging deliberate indifference to the medical needs of pretrial detainees are ubiquitous on the district courts’ dockets, but the circuits are split on the basic elements of such claims. The Fifth, Eighth, Tenth and Eleventh Circuits hold that a pretrial detainee suing under the Fourteenth Amendment must show that the defendant was subjectively aware of the detainee’s medical needs. The Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits, reading this Court’s Kingsley decision broadly, hold that the deliberate indifference test is purely objective. The first question presented is: Under the Fourteenth Amendment, must a pretrial detainee alleging deliberate indifference to medical needs prove that the defendant was subjectively aware of his or her medical needs? Or is it sufficient that the defendant’s actions were objectively unreasonable?

The events at issue in this action occurred in

At the time, the Ninth Circuit applied a subjective deliberate indifference test. In 2018, the Ninth Circuit changed course, and adopted its objective deliberate indifference test. The second question presented is: In determining whether a right is “clearly established” for purposes of qualified immunity, must courts address the elements of the claim that existed at the time of the events at issue? Or may they ignore elements based on subsequent changes to the law, as the majority held below?