CA7: Fourth Amendment applies to arrestee’s medical needs

While the Fourth Amendment applies to an arrestee’s medical needs at the time of arrest, here the officers had qualified immunity for denying baby aspirin to a suspect who had a heart attack when they battered in his door. They also had no notice at the time of the raid that the plaintiff was a potential heart attack victim. Florek v. Mundelein, 649 F.3d 594 (7th Cir. 2011):

The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated ….” U.S. Const. amend. IV. We have held that an officer violates the prohibition on unreasonable seizures when, in the course of making an otherwise lawful arrest, he does not respond reasonably to an arrestee’s medical needs. Sides v. City of Champaign, 496 F.3d 820, 828 (7th Cir. 2007) (citing Graham v. Connor, 490 U.S. 386, 394-95, 109 S. Ct. 1865, 104 L. Ed. 2d 443 (1989), and holding that the Fourth Amendment’s ban on unreasonable seizures applies to claims of unreasonable inattention to medical needs at the time of arrest). Not every constitutional violation will furnish a plaintiff with a basis for recovery, however. Qualified immunity will shield an officer from money damages unless a plaintiff establishes that the officer violated a right that was clearly established. Pearson v. Callahan, 555 U.S. 223, 231, 129 S. Ct. 808, 172 L. Ed. 2d 565 (2009). And because “[l]evel of generality is destiny” in law, see Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, __ F.3d ___, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 13265, 2011 WL 2556039, at *27 (6th Cir. June 29, 2011) (Sutton, J., concurring), it bears emphasizing that courts should not decide that a right is clearly established at a high level of abstraction: we look to “whether the violative nature of particular conduct is clearly established.” Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, 131 S. Ct. 2074, 2084, 179 L. Ed. 2d 1149 (2011) (emphasis added).

[Sounds a bit like the taser cases where the police taser an older person who has a heart attack. Aren’t they on notice that the age of the target might be a health problem when the batter down a door in a surprise “dynamic” entry?]