The Colorado Springs Gazette final

Court tosses detainee’s lawsuit over lack of sleep apnea machine

BY MICHAEL KARLIK michael.karlik@coloradopolitics.com

A man detained in the Adams County jail did not plausibly allege sheriff’s employees and medical contractors violated his constitutional rights when they failed to provide a machine to treat his sleep apnea, the federal appeals court based in Denver ruled Thursday.

Alexander Noel Garcia sued the Sheriff’s Office and the jail’s medical contractor, Wellpath, after repeatedly telling officials he feared for his life in the absence of a CPAP machine, which ensures oxygen flow during sleep.

“I have a 2-year-old daughter and I’m 48, I don’t want to die in my sleep and not be there for my daughter,” he wrote.

But a three-judge panel of the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed Garcia’s allegations had not amounted to a constitutional violation, given that jail officials had provided oxygen treatment in another form to him. Consequently, they had not been deliberately indifferent to Garcia’s serious medical needs.

“Mr. Garcia merely disagrees with the treatment he received for his sleep apnea,” wrote Judge Carolyn Mchugh in the panel’s order. “Although he underscores that he had been prescribed a CPAP machine in the past, that fact does not support a claim that medical staff acted with deliberate indifference when they prescribed alternative treatment.”

Garcia entered the Adams County jail as a pretrial detainee in February 2021. At the time, he had a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea, a disorder that causes a person to repeatedly stop and start their breathing. He reportedly stops breathing 103 times per hour while sleeping, which constitutes severe sleep apnea.

According to Garcia, a doctor “refused to get me my prescribed CPAP machine,” instead telling Garcia he had to provide his own. Garcia’s family allegedly lost his machine, and he reported waking up with migraines, choking and being unable to breathe while in jail. He received Tylenol and an oxygen concentrator, which Garcia argued was not the proper treatment for sleep apnea.

Garcia then filed requests to the jail for a CPAP machine.

“I don’t want to die,” he wrote.

“Sir, CPAP machines are to be provide (sic) by personal means,” one employee responded. “From what I understand, you did not have the machine while a fugitive from justice.”

Garcia then sued various workers at the jail by alleging deliberate indifference, a claim that relates to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment, but also applies to pretrial detainees.

In February, U.S. District Court Senior Judge Christine Arguello dismissed the lawsuit, agreeing Garcia had not established either of the two parts of deliberate indifference: that Garcia had a serious medical need and that jail personnel nevertheless knew about it and ignored it.

“Although sleep apnea may, in some cases, be a sufficiently serious medical condition to require treatment, Garcia’s factual allegations suggest that his sleep apnea may not pose a serious risk to his health,” she wrote, observing that Garcia acknowledged losing his prior CPAP machine. Because medical staff had given him oxygen in another form during his stay, a “difference of opinion over what the course of treatment should have been or how a doctor should have handled a condition does not state a constitutional violation.”

Garcia appealed the dismissal, with Wellpath and Adams County arguing Garcia had never shown the CPAP machine was required for his treatment in the first place, or that a detention facility must provide any detainee with the “medical device of his choice at public expense.”

If successful, Garcia’s legal claims would “potentially force counties to pay for voluntary medical devices solely because the inmate demands one,” wrote Assistant County Attorney Michael Sink.

While the lawsuit was pending, however, the defendants reversed course and granted Garcia his CPAP machine.

“If you cannot or will not arrange to bring in the C-PAP from home, please let us know, and Wellpath is authorized to loan you one on a temporary basis,” read a letter dated Jan. 26. “We believe that accommodating your request should be sufficient for you to voluntarily dismiss your lawsuit. Nevertheless, the offer to accommodate your request is not contingent on you dismissing the lawsuit.”

While Garcia characterized the change of heart as a “confession of liability,” the 10th Circuit disagreed with that interpretation of the gesture. It upheld the dismissal of the lawsuit.

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2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

2022-12-04T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://daily.gazette.com/article/281582359657460

The Gazette, Colorado Springs