Firm that runs state juvenile jail can be liable for teen's suicide, U.S. Court of Appeals rules

A private company that runs a state of Michigan juvenile detention center can be held liable for the suicide of a 15-year-old teen in the Highland Park facility, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled Friday.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of judges in the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reverses a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge that determined the firm Spectrum Human Services Inc. could not be held accountable for the teen's suicide. The Appeals Court found that Spectrum is a "state actor," according to the majority opinion written by Judge John Bush of the Appeals Court.

"In the case of incarceration, when the state grants a private actor legal authority to exercise control overinmates, there is state action," Bush said in the opinion.

The decision means the case filed by family members of the teen returns to the lower court so the court can reconsider the suit.

Attorneys representing the family or representatives for the county detention center could not immediately be reached late Sunday.

Spectrum is licensed by the state of Michigan to run the facility. The facilities are “similar to a prison setting”— the children are completely restricted in their movements, and the state requires Spectrum to monitor them on a 24-hour, seven-days-a-week basis, according to the opinion.

The court ordered the teen's detention at Spectrum on Aug. 24, 2018. "In the days that followed, he struggled with depression, anxiety, and difficulty sleeping, among other things," the lawsuit said.

On Sept. 11, 2018, the 15-year-old took his own life alone in his bedroom at the facility. No one checked his room in the 45 minutes between the last time he was seen alive and when his body was found, according to the filing.

No one checked his room in the 45 minutes between the last time he was seen alive and when his body was found, the suit said.

"That fatal omission violated a contractual requirement the state imposed on Spectrum tosurveil children, every fifteen minutes when they are outside of the direct supervision of staff," according to the opinion. Spectrum's failure to check on the teen "was not an aberration from normal practice," Bush said. "In fact, Spectrum had a policy or custom of skipping many 'eye-on checks' and falsifying supervision logs to reflect that the eye-on checks had been performed. These neglectful and deceptive activities were all the more troubling because Spectrum’s residents often struggled with self-harm and suicide."

In his dissent, Judge Richard Griffin disagreed Spectrum is a "state actor for purposes of liability."

"Defendants are private entities, and, as such, can only be subject to constitutional liability if their conduct is “fairly attributable to the State,” he wrote in his dissent.

"... Plaintiffs have not carried their pleading burden to 'advance historical and factual allegations in their complaint giving rise (to a reasonable inference that (defendants’ juvenile detention center performs a function that) is traditionally exclusively in the province of the State” of Michigan.

... Accordingly, the district court correctly dismissed plaintiffs’ complaint on the ground that it did not plausibly allege defendants were state actors ... I would affirm the judgment of the district court and therefore respectfully dissent."

laguilar@detroitnews.com

Correction: The Highland Park juvenile detention center is overseen by the State of Michigan. The government affiliation of the facility was incorrect in a previous version of this story.

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