“Deliberate indifference” due process claim under 42 USC § 1983; Pretrial detainee's suicide; Qualified immunity; Whether defendant-jail social worker “responded unreasonably” to the known suicide risk such that her actions constituted more than “ordinary negligence”; Campbell v Riahi; Lawler v Hardeman Cnty; Whether plaintiff could establish a violation of “clearly established law”

[This appeal was from the WD-MI.] The court reversed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity to defendant-O’Neil, holding that plaintiff-Estate could not offer a case that “clearly established” that her compromise decision regarding suicide-prevention procedures showed “deliberate indifference” to the risk that the Estate’s decedent (Lovell) would kill himself. After a long battle with mental illness, Lovell, a pretrial detainee, committed suicide while in defendant-County’s jail. Despite several precautions to prevent his actions, he successfully killed himself after he was mistakenly given regular bedding instead of the suicide-prevention blanket that O’Neil had ordered for him. His Estate sued individual corrections officers, O’Neil, her employer, and the County under § 1983, alleging that the individual defendants had acted with deliberate indifference to the risk that Lovell would kill himself. The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s recommendation and granted all the individual defendants except O’Neil qualified immunity, as well as summary judgment to the employer and county. On her appeal, the court focused on the second element of the qualified immunity analysis—whether “O’Neil violated clearly established law ‘at the time’ she examined Lovell.” It applied the standard that existed when the incident occurred, 2020, when pretrial detainees had to “meet the same constitutional rules as convicted prisoners.” The court knew “of no case that would have ‘put [O’Neil] on notice that’” her compromise solution of removing Lovell from a padded cell and using alternative methods to reduce his agitation, such as the special blanket, “qualified as the type of unreasonable response that could render her liable.” It noted that even “officials who respond ‘carelessly’ to a risk do not necessarily respond in a deliberately indifferent way. And a reasonable person could believe that O’Neil did not respond carelessly.” Thus, she was improperly denied qualified immunity. The court also rejected the Estate’s challenge to its jurisdiction. Remanded.