23-c-1 Treatment for Diagnosed Conditions

• Library: A Jailhouse Lawyer's Manual (2020 Edition)

23-C-1. Treatment for Diagnosed Conditions

To decide whether or not you have an Eighth Amendment claim for lack of treatment for diagnosed medical illnesses and conditions, there are several things you must consider. As discussed above, you must prove both the objective and subjective parts of "deliberate indifference." This involves proving that the medical condition was "sufficiently serious" and proving that prison officials knew about the risk to your health and ignored it.

In the following examples, courts found that diagnosed medical conditions were sufficiently serious. In Montalvo v. Koehler, the court found that a prison's failure to provide shower and sleeping facilities to a prisoner confined to a wheelchair was sufficiently serious because it posed a risk of serious bodily injury to the prisoner.⁹² Also, in Koehl v. Dalsheim, a court found that prison officials were deliberately indifferent when they confiscated a prisoner's eyeglasses.⁹³ The...