In the United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ Nos. 18-1498, 18-1499, 18-2170 & 18-2177 J.K.J. and M.J.J., Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. POLK COUNTY and DARRYL L. CHRISTENSEN, Defendants-Appellants. ____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin. Nos. 3:15-cv-00428 & 3:15-cv-00433 — William M. Conley, Judge. ____________________ ARGUED DECEMBER 5, 2019 — DECIDED MAY 15, 2020 ____________________ Before WOOD, Chief Judge, and BAUER, EASTERBROOK, KANNE, ROVNER, SYKES, HAMILTON, BARRETT, BRENNAN, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. While confined in the Polk County Jail, two female inmates, J.K.J. and M.J.J., endured repeated sexual assaults at the hands of correctional officer Darryl Christensen. The two women brought suit in federal court against Christensen and Polk County. A trial ensued, and the jury heard evidence of Christensen’s horrific misconduct over 2 Nos. 18-1498, et al. a three-year period. The County’s written policy prohibited sexual contact between inmates and guards but failed to ad- dress the prevention and detection of such conduct. Nor did the County provide any meaningful training on the topic. What is more, toward the beginning of the relevant period, the County learned that another guard made predatory sex- ual advances toward a different female inmate. The trial evi- dence showed that the County imposed minor discipline on the guard but from there took no institutional response—no review of its policy, no training for guards, no communication with inmates on how to report such abuse, no nothing. In the end, the jury returned verdicts for J.K.J. and M.J.J. The case against Christensen was open and shut. But a di- vided panel of this court overturned the jury’s verdict against Polk County, determining that the trial evidence failed to meet the standard for municipal liability under Monell v. De- partment of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). We decided to rehear the case en banc and now affirm the jury’s verdicts against both Christensen and Polk County. While the stand- ard for municipal liability is demanding—designed to ensure that a municipality like Polk County is liable only for its own constitutional torts and not those of employees like Christen- sen—the evidence was sufficient to support the verdict against the County. I J.K.J. and M.J.J. sued Christensen and Polk County under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the defendants violated the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments by acting with deliber- ate indifference to a serious risk of harm to their safety and well-being. They also brought a negligence claim under Wis- consin law against the County. The district court consolidated Nos. 18-1498, et al. 3 the cases for trial. The five-day trial ended with the jury find- ing both defendants liable on all claims, and we recount the facts in the light most favorable to that verdict. See Martin v. Milwaukee County, 904 F.3d 544, 547 n.1 (7th Cir. 2018). A J.K.J. and M.J.J. suffered from addictions and committed crimes that landed them in the Polk County Jail intermittently between 2011 and 2014. Located ...
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