Appeals Court’s Bar for Negligence Favors Prison Health Workers

The recent decision of an Eleventh Circuit appeals court to apply a “more than gross negligence” standard in a case involving a prisoner’s medical care is highly favorable to health-care providers in prisons and likely to set the bar for these cases in the circuit going forward—unless the full court takes up the case, attorneys said.

Five prison employees at Walker State Prison in Georgia, three of whom were nurses, were granted qualified immunity by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit after being accused of deliberate indifference to a prisoner’s medical needs in violation of the Eighth ...