Suit over suicide at state prison OK’d

actual plan of how he would carry out his own suicide, it cannot be said as a matter of law that the risk of suicide is nothing more than a ‘mere possibility,’ ” Judge Smith wrote.

He went on to note that while Palakovic was incarcerated at SCI-Cresson, which was closed in June 2013, he reported feeling depressed and having suicidal thoughts. His fellow inmates nicknamed him “Suicide.”

Despite that, Palakovic had no comprehensive suicide risk assessment at the prison and did not receive counseling or group therapy and that mental health interviews lasted less than two minutes through the slot in the cell door in solitary confinement.

“If we were to conclude that Brandon’s circumstances were insufficient to allege a ‘particular vulnerability to suicide,’ it is difficult to imagine how any plaintiff could ever succeed in doing so,” the court wrote. “In our view, the sum of the facts alleged in the amended complaint are more than sufficient to support plausible inferences that there was a ‘strong likelihood’ that selfinflicted harm would occur, and that Brandon therefore suffered from a particular vulnerability to suicide.”

In addition, Judge Smith wrote, prison officials were aware that mentally ill inmates held in solitary confinement had an increased risk of self-harm. In 2011, the opinion said, 14 of 17 documented suicide attempts at Cresson occurred in restricted housing.

“Considering these factual allegations in light of the increasingly obvious reality that extended stays in solitary confinement can cause serious damage to mental health, we view these allegations as more than sufficient to state a plausible claim that Brandon experienced inhumane conditions of confinement to which the prison officials … were deliberately indifferent.”

Bret Grote, the attorney representing the Palakovics, said the case will now move into discovery. That will allow him to find what the Department of Corrections knew about the U.S. Department of Justice investigation into conditions at Cresson and prisons statewide, which was announced in December 2011 and concluded after Palakovic’s suicide.

The Justice Department report, issued in May 2013, was critical of Cresson’s “long-term and extreme forms of solitary confinement on prisoners with serious mental illness.”

Mr. Grote said his clients want their day in court.

“More than money damages, they want this case to set a precedent so others don’t have to go through what they’ve had to.”