Sixth Circuit Affirms Denial of State-Law Qualified Immunity in Scabies Case
by David Reutter
On March 26, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed the denial of qualified immunity under Michigan law in a gross negligence claim related to a scabies infestation at a women’s prison. The Court also affirmed the grant of qualified immunity to upper echelon officials on an Eighth Amendment claim.
Starting in November 2016, as PLN reported, the Huron Valley Correctional Facility for Women (Huron Valley) became infested with scabies. The infestation manifested in over 200 prisoners, which is 10% of Huron Valley’s incarcerated population. Scabies infections existed in eight of the prison’s fifteen units. [See: PLN, Apr. 2019, p.58.]
Scabies occurs when parasitic mites burrow under a person’s outer layer of skin and lay eggs. Affected prisoners developed red bumps and lesions on their wrists, fingers, armpits, waists and genitals. The “rentless” itching and “perpetual discomfort” left many prisoners unable to sleep and drove others to contemplate suicide. The prisoners pleaded for help from the Michigan Department of Corrections’ (DOC) private healthcare vendor, Corizon Healthcare.
For years, Corizon misdiagnosed the infestation as being caused by prisoners who washed their own clothes instead of sending them to prison laundry. But scabies spreads from personal contact or from the sharing of clothing—and prison laundries are notorious for spreading disease, for the washers and driers are regularly overloaded and lack adequate amounts of cleaning agents for the load. Upper echelon officials continued to uncritically accept Corizon diagnoses, resulting in failures to create a plan to eradicate the cause of the rashes despite the fact that new infections manifested monthly for over two years at Huron Valley.
The prisoner plaintiffs filed a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983 seeking class action status. They sued Corizon, Corizon employees, Huron Valley’s warden and other officials, upper echelon DOC officials and two doctors the DOC contracted with through Wayne State University. The complaint alleged Eighth Amendment claims of deliberate indifference to serious medical needs and a conditions of confinement claim. The complaint also alleged gross negligence under state law. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan denied the defendant’s motion for summary judgment that claimed qualified immunity under federal and state law. All but the Corizon defendants appealed.
The Sixth Circuit found that the prisoners failed to prove that the right at issue was clearly established. It found no case gave the non-treating defendants notice that their actions were unconstitutional. The Court noted that the defendants could reasonably rely upon the diagnosis of Corizon’s treating medical professionals. Therefore, the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity on the Eighth Amendment claim.
In a dissenting opinion, Circuit Judge Helene N. White took issue with the majority’s opinion. Judge White disagreed with the majority drawing their deliberate indifference standard from excessive force cases, which requires quick decisions, rather than from medical indifference cases. Additionally, Judge White was of the opinion that the circumstances at Huron Valley demonstrated that the non-treating defendants were on notice that the diagnosis of Corizon officials was in error.
Precedent establishes that prison officials must act with a plan, such as cleaning areas and segregating infected prisoners, when confronted with disease within a prison. Finally, Judge White noted that DOC had penalized Corizon $1.6 million between 2016 and 2018 for contractual violations, including treatment delays.
Therefore, the defendants had reason to doubt the reliability and accuracy of Corizons’s treatment of the infected prisoners. Judge White disagreed with the grant of qualified immunity at the pleading stage of the proceedings due to the well pleaded facts.
The Sixth Circuit, however, affirmed denial of qualified immunity under Michigan’s Government Tort Liability Act. That defense cannot be determined at the pleading stage and requires further discovery on the proximate cause of the alleged injuries.
The district court’s order was reversed in part and denied in part. See: Pearson v. Mich. Dep’t of Corr., 170 F.4th 1027 (6th Cir. 2026).
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Related legal case
Pearson v. Mich. Dep’t of Corr.
| Year | 2026 |
|---|---|
| Cite | 170 F.4th 1027 (6th Cir. 2026) |
| Level | Court of Appeals |