What is the test for deliberate indifference to medical care in the context of the Eighth Amendment?

MultiRegion, United States of America

The following excerpt is from Hammler v. Hernandez, Case No. 1:19-cv-00616-SKO (PC) (E.D. Cal. 2020):

"Prison officials violate the Eighth Amendment if they are 'deliberate[ly] indifferen[t] to [a prisoner's] serious medical needs.'" Peralta v. Dillard, 744 F.3d 1076, 1081 (9th Cir. 2014) (citing Estelle, 429 U.S. at 104). "This is true whether the indifference is manifested by prison doctors in their response to the prisoner's needs or by prison guards in intentionally denying or delaying access to medical care...." Estelle, 429 U.S. at 104-05. "A medical need is serious if failure to treat it will result in significant injury or the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain." Peralta, 744 F.3d at 1081 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). "A prison official is deliberately indifferent to that need if he 'knows of and disregards an excessive risk to inmate health.'" Id. at 1082 (quoting Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 837 (1994)).

The test for deliberate indifference to medical needs is two-pronged and has objective and subjective components. See Wilhelm v. Rotman, 680 F.3d 1113, 1122 (9th Cir. 2012). To establish such a claim, a prisoner must first "show a serious medical need by demonstrating that failure to treat [the] prisoner's condition could result in further significant injury or the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain. Second, the plaintiff must show the defendants' response to the need was deliberately indifferent." Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

As to the first, objective prong, "[i]ndications that a plaintiff has a serious medical need include '[t]he existence of an injury that a reasonable doctor or patient would find important and worthy of comment or treatment; the presence of a medical condition that significantly affects an individual's daily activities; or the existence of chronic and substantial pain.'" Colwell v. Bannister, 763 F.3d 1060, 1066 (9th Cir. 2014) (citation omitted).

As to the second, subjective prong, deliberate indifference "describes a state of mind more blameworthy than negligence" and "requires more than ordinary lack of due care for the prisoner's interests or safety." Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U.S. 825, 835 (1994) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Deliberate indifference exists where a prison official "knows that [an] inmate[] face[s] a substantial risk of serious harm and disregards that risk by failing to take

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