WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to consider whether a prison inmate can sue a nurse for failing to provide medical assistance after a riot. The case concerns a lawsuit brought by Kekai Watanabe, who alleges he was denied medical treatment following a July 2021 riot at a federal prison in Honolulu.

Watanabe stated he complained of pain and asked Francis Nielsen, a nurse at the facility, to be taken to the hospital. He stated he was denied treatment other than over-the-counter pain medication. Watanabe was later diagnosed with a fractured coccyx and found to have bone chips embedded in surrounding soft tissue. He was ultimately referred to a specialist.

Watanabe sued, claiming that his 8th Amendment rights were violated. The 8th Amendment protects against cruel and unusual punishment. A federal court rejected Watanabe's lawsuit, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals revived it in a September 2024 ruling.

The Supreme Court will examine the scope of its 1980 ruling in Carlson v. Green. That ruling stated that federal prison inmates could sue officials for deliberate indifference to their medical needs under the Constitution's 8th Amendment. The 1980 ruling expanded on the 1971 decision in Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, which found that people could sue federal officials for constitutional violations.

In 2022, the Supreme Court ruled that Border Patrol agents could not be sued. Lower courts cited this 2022 ruling 228 times in cases against federal officials within the 12 months following the decision. Constitutional claims were dismissed in 195 of those cases. The Supreme Court also ruled last year against a prison inmate seeking to sue corrections officers for an alleged assault in a case involving a Bivens claim.

Legislation has been proposed in Congress to specifically allow federal officials to be sued individually for constitutional violations, but lawmakers have not enacted such a law. A long-standing federal law allows similar claims to be brought against state and local officials.