In Thomas v. Dart, the court (Manion/Jackson-Akiwumi, with Manion writing) affirmed the denial of a motion for leave to amend the plaintiff’s complaint on futility grounds. The case involves Fourteenth Amendment failure-to-protect claims brought by a pretrial detainee who was attacked by other detainees at the Cook County Jail. The opinion contains a nice, thorough discussion of the standard governing the plaintiff’s failure-to-protect claim, recognizing that the claim is governed by an objective standard (and not the subjective standard that governs failure-to-protect claims under the Eighth Amendment). Slip Op. at 8-9 (citing Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060, 1071 (9th Cir. 2016) (en banc)). In affirming the district court, the Seventh Circuit focused on the element of the claim requiring an allegation that a reasonable officer in the defendant’s situation would have appreciated the substantial risk the plaintiff faced as a result of the defendant’s action or inaction. In Thomas, the court finds that Thomas cannot plausibly make this allegation against the defendants Thomas proposed to add because the only notice they were given about his risk of harm was his PTSD and his assignment to the general population section of the Jail. The court recognizes that a risk can be general as to the victim (i.e., the victim was not attacked because of something personal to him but instead because of the “assailant’s predatory nature”) or as to the assailant (i.e., the attack was because of the “victim’s particular vulnerability” even if the assailant is not known before the attack), but it cannot be based on a “mere general risk of violence” at the Jail. Slip Op. at 11. The court found Thomas’s allegations to fit into the last category, rendering the amendment futile and the district court within its rights to deny it.[SB1]