Henricks v. Gonzalez, No. 13-4468 (6th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseHenricks, an Ohio prisoner, had symptoms of acute appendicitis. The following day, upon the recommendation of Dr. Gonzalez, the prison medical director, Henricks was sent to an emergency room. Officer Maynard, who had accompanied Henricks, initially refused to remove Henricks’s restraints, causing a 45-minute delay. The surgery caused nerve damage to Henricks’s leg. Gonzalez refused to prescribe a medication (Neurontin) for the pain caused by that nerve damage, although other doctors indicated that Neurontin was necessary. Henricks filed a pro se complaint (42 U.S.C. 1983) regarding his medical care, naming Maynard and Gonzalez, who invoked qualified immunity. A magistrate concluded that Henricks had stated a colorable claim, but did not address qualified immunity. The defendants did not file an answer, but litigated discovery requests in the ensuing years. The district court subsequently granted Henricks’s motion to strike affirmative defenses of qualified immunity and failure to exhaust administrative remedies under the Prison Litigation Reform Act , finding that defendants had waived them by not asserting them in an answer and that permitting them to assert the defenses at so late would unduly prejudice Henricks. The Sixth Circuit concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to consider the exhaustion requirement ruling and upheld the holding that defendants waived their qualified immunity defense.
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