A federal judge has ruled that a Tampa rape victim known as R.W. can sue the Hillsborough County Sheriff after a jail guard refused to give her an emergency contraception pill because it was against her religious beliefs. Jail employee Michele Spinelli explained to R.W. that she would not give her the pill approved by a doctor because she viewed them to be a sin.
R.W.says she was raped on Jan. 27, 2007 and went to Tampa’s Rape Crisis Center where a doctor gave R.W. gave two anti-contraception pills. She took one as instructed and was supposed to take the other 12 hours later. However, a Tampa police officer discovered that she had a warrant out for her arrest and took her into custody. When the time came to take the second pill, Spinelli refused.
R.W. did not get pregnant but sued for the violation of her right to privacy and denial of equal protection.
U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich found the amended complaint to be sufficient to go to trial. In doing so, she found that “The single action of a final policy-maker can represent official government policy, even when the action is not meant to control later decisions.” The Sheriff allowed Spinelli to work at the jail without supervision or direction. Taking the allegations as true for the purposes of the motion, the court ruled that the lawsuit could proceed.
If true, the allegations could not be more disturbing. We have seen a debate over pharmacies and religious organizations opposed to supplying contraceptives. However, this is a state employee with a woman who is in custody. Had she given birth, it would have created a bizarre “wrongful birth” case where the defendant is the state. Even without a birth, if these allegations are true, this woman was put through a harrowing experience.
Source: Courthouse
anon, Apparently you are an employee of a contractor who provides another employee as your supervisor. You are called a contract engineer b/c that is your relationship with the entity that has the contract with your boss.
Or are you saying that your supervisor is from the entity that has the contract with your boss? In this case you’re working as a highly skilled temp? If this is the case I think there are special conditions and I don’t know them.
I have worked on-site as a contractor, getting my paycheck and per diem from my employer. I knew what was expected of me in terms of a work product. They provided me a work space and the hours that the space was available. No other direct supervision. When I finished, they had the work product and I was done.
When I worked as an independent contractor for the state, I was given training and a manual that laid out how the work was to be done. The chief contractor determined who else was to be a contractor in order to get the job done and was responsible that it be done correctly, included staffing, scheduling, training, supervision. When the job moved to an agency, the chief contractor became an employee and had no say in scheduling, staffing or even that federal and state guidelines were to be used. Considering that the persons in charge at the agency were liars and incompetent, I quit or maybe I was fired. Doesn’t matter, I gave them a hard time b/c I couldn’t do the job properly or with the necessary integrity when it was grossly understaffed and violated the state/federal mandated guidelines for staffing and qualifications.
I don’t believe the W-2 or 10-99 status of an individual acting on behalf of a gov’t agency creates an insulation from liability here. Acting as an agent of government can often include persons in no employment or contractual relationship to the agency. A person is acting as an agent of goverment when acting under the direction of a gov’t official even in an informal relationship.
I would find it to be rather disturbing to see that a gov’t could effectively disclaim all responsibilities for bad behavior by writing up a Contractor agreement and then having the contractor endeavor to do whatever harm the government desires.
At the very least it offers some rather unsavory temptations.
“Spinelli was a contractor and therefore, not under direct supervision of the Sheriff. If she were under the supervision of the sheriff, she would be an employee.”
Hmm. When I have worked as contract engineer, that has certainly not been the relationship.
The contract engineer never sees his actual (as far as W-2 pay flows) boss, but works for an employee/supervisor of the contracting company who directly supervises him.
Woosty, you have typed out a short message that has encapsulated my “life” for 35 years. It is what has caused me to become interested in the research that led me to the Deshaney case, the Dred Scott case, the “state agency child abuse cover-up debacle,” the “jurisdictional trussed up turkey citizenship” investigations, the “lexogenic crime” hypotheses and the “HEY WAIT A MINUTE WHAT ABOUT THE LIFE INTEREST” obsession.
And I’m a dog person!
Gene, a local nursing home lost a $5.2M lawsuit recently after they let a patient die in a fall and did not discover the body on the floor until several hours later. If he had been a jail inmate, there would have been no lawsuit, and nobody would have cared, other than his loved ones.
Woostey, love the Good Will Hunting clip. Terrific explanation of “unintended” consequences.
Xavius Scullark-Johnson, Prisoner, Dies After He’s Denied Health Care
Spinelli was a contractor and therefore, not under direct supervision of the Sheriff. If she were under the supervision of the sheriff, she would be an employee.
raff, I once went off on a jailer. Told him that when he could show me a diploma with either MD or DO after his name, then and only then could he make medication decisions. Until that time, he had better give the inmate the medications my practice partner (a psychiatrist) had prescribed.
really Malisha? so not only are my Federally secured civil rights being ‘kicked back’ to the State, now they are being ‘kicked back’ to a right-wing fundamentalist
prison guard who is in the employ of a for profit corporation with what over-sight please? (despite the comforting addition of the ‘but this doesn’t have to be precedent’ clause?
did I get it?
do we really have to go all the way back to the civil war???? well, someone is making progress….
Rafflaw, this is the future and she is HERE.
Since when can a prison employee or contractor override the prescription of a medical doctor?? If she made this decision on her own, is she not practicing medicine without a license? This is the type of situation that will prevail if the radical right is allowed to push religion on all of us.
Lrobby, The judge dismissed many of the charges. She also said that if the plaintiff prevailed her damages would probably amount to $1. I guess the anxiety of maybe being pregnant until her next period didn’t count.
I find the judge’s signature, hmmm, interesting. The document seems to be about a 12.5. The E (for Elizabeth) is about 170! She sure thinks a lot of herself.
Woosty, my attempt at interpreting the judge’s words:
Although the jail guard is not an “official govt policy-maker,” her decision not to give the medicine was pretty damn FINAL for the inmate concerned.
in the context of this case….
“The single action of a final policy-maker can represent official government policy, even when the action is not meant to control later decisions.”
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I’m not sure I understand what the Judge was saying here?
Mike A.,
Yep. My exact reaction as well.
Given the degree to which the notion of religious liberty has been twisted beyond recognition recently, this story, or a variation of it, was inevitable.
I hope she is awarded a huge settlement.
Woostie.
With regard to the above video. Could this be a tie-in to the “Twinkie Defense” that is, “The Devil Dog made me do it”?