Background
Jimmie Earl Stephens, a California state prisoner, filed a pro se action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 alleging deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs. The district court granted summary judgment for Dr. Montejo, finding no genuine dispute of material fact existed regarding the defendant’s conduct in treating Stephens’s prostatic condition.
The court’s reasoning
The Ninth Circuit reviewed the district court’s decision de novo. The panel concluded that the district court properly granted summary judgment because Stephens failed to demonstrate that the course of treatment chosen by the doctors was medically unacceptable. The court noted that a difference of opinion concerning what medical care is appropriate does not amount to deliberate indifference. Instead, the plaintiff must show that the defendants chose a course of treatment in conscious disregard of an excessive risk to the plaintiff’s health.
A difference of opinion between a physician and the prisoner—or between medical professionals—concerning what medical care is appropriate does not amount to deliberate indifference.
Hamby v. Hammond, 821 F.3d 1085, 1092 (9th Cir. 2016)
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces the high bar for proving deliberate indifference in prisoner medical care cases, requiring proof that the treatment was medically unacceptable rather than merely a difference of professional opinion.
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