Whiting v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc.

While serving a probation-revocation sentence in an Illinois prison, Whiting fell ill with what turned out to be a rare form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A prison doctor initially diagnosed an infection and prescribed antibiotics and nonprescription pain relievers. Two months later the doctor ordered a biopsy and the cancer was discovered. Whiting filed suit under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the prison doctor and the prison’s private medical provider alleging that they were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs during the two months that his cancer went undiagnosed. The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of the defendants. There was no evidence from which a jury could infer that the doctor was subjectively indifferent to Whiting’s condition. Without expert testimony a lay jury could not infer that because amoxicillin and Bactrim did not work, it was obvious to the doctor that the doxycycline and Augmentin also would fail. To survive summary judgment Whiting needed to present evidence sufficient to show that decision was “so far afield of accepted professional standards as to raise the inference that it was not actually based on a medical judgment.” He did not do so. View "Whiting v. Wexford Health Sources, Inc." on Justia Law