“No Recollection” Testimony Cannot Prove a Disputed Event Occurred: Sixth Circuit Clarifies Evidentiary Sufficiency for Monell Causation

Case: Michael Victor v. Kimberly Reynolds; Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc.
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Date: January 23, 2026
Author: Murphy, Circuit Judge

1. Introduction

This appeal arose from a pretrial detainee’s overnight detention in the Otsego County Jail in Michigan. Michael Victor, who suffers from epilepsy, missed his anti-seizure medication while in custody and suffered a seizure shortly after release, sustaining serious injuries. He sued the jail’s contracted medical provider, Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc. (“ACH”), and Kimberly Reynolds, an ACH nurse who worked at the jail.

Victor’s theory depended on a specific factual predicate: that a corrections officer called an ACH on-call provider during the night and that ACH either failed to return the call or refused to authorize the medication. The evidentiary problem was stark: there were no jail records of such a call, no illness report, and no phone documentation produced; and the relevant witnesses either denied a call occurred or testified they did not remember.

After a jury returned a defense verdict for Reynolds but found ACH liable under Monell v. Department of Social Services, awarding compensatory damages and $700,000 in punitive damages, the district court granted ACH judgment as a matter of law (and conditionally granted a new trial). The Sixth Circuit affirmed the judgment as a matter of law and also affirmed denial of Victor’s request for discovery sanctions.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Sixth Circuit held that, on the trial record, Victor did not present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that any jail officer contacted any ACH employee about his medication. Witness testimony of “I do not remember” did not satisfy Victor’s burden to prove that the call occurred, and Victor’s testimony that an officer told him a nurse denied the medication was inadmissible hearsay for purposes of sustaining the verdict. Because Monell causation required proof that ACH’s policy or custom directly caused the deprivation, the absence of evidence that ACH was even notified of the need defeated the claim as a matter of law.

The court also rejected Victor’s challenge to the denial of discovery sanctions, holding that the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding no violation of discovery orders.

3. Analysis

3.1 Precedents Cited

A. Judgment as a Matter of Law (Rule 50) and the Post-Trial Record

  • Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133 (2000): The court used Reeves for the familiar Rule 50 framework: viewing evidence and reasonable inferences in the nonmovant’s favor, the question is whether reasonable jurors could find for the nonmovant.
  • Monday v. Oullette, 118 F.3d 1099 (6th Cir. 1997): Quoted for the “reasonable jurors” formulation and deployed repeatedly to emphasize that the evidentiary gap here left only one reasonable conclusion.
  • Lowe v. Walbro, LLC, 147 F.4th 601 (6th Cir. 2025): Cited for de novo review of judgment as a matter of law.
  • Dupree v. Younger, 598 U.S. 729 (2023): Used to stress that, post-trial, sufficiency review is based on the evidence introduced at trial (not the summary-judgment record).

B. Monell Liability and “Rigorous” Causation

  • Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978): The foundational rule that § 1983 does not allow vicarious liability; liability must rest on the entity’s own policy or custom.
  • Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs of Bryan Cnty. v. Brown, 520 U.S. 397 (1997): Central to the opinion’s causation analysis. The Sixth Circuit treated Brown’s causation requirement as “rigorous” and dispositive: even assuming ACH had a custom, Victor had to show it “directly caused” the constitutional violation—here, requiring proof that ACH was notified and failed to act.
  • Gambrel v. Knox County, 25 F.4th 391 (6th Cir. 2022): Cited for the proposition that Monell turns on “policy” or “custom,” not respondeat superior.
  • Hehrer v. County of Clinton, 161 F.4th 955 (6th Cir. 2025): Reinforced the non-vicarious nature of § 1983 municipal/entity liability.
  • Thomas v. City of Chattanooga, 398 F.3d 426 (6th Cir. 2005): Cited in tandem with Brown on direct causation.
  • Grote v. Kenton County, 85 F.4th 397 (6th Cir. 2023) and Epps v. Lauderdale County, 45 F. App'x 332 (6th Cir. 2002) (Cole, J., concurring): Addressed Victor’s argument that Monell liability can exist without an identified individual constitutional violator. The panel did not reject that concept, but held it irrelevant: Victor still had to prove Brown/Thomas direct causation, which failed without evidence of ACH notification.

C. Deliberate Indifference Framework and State Actor Status

  • Lawler ex rel. Lawler v. Hardeman County, 93 F.4th 919 (6th Cir. 2024): Provided the governing constitutional standard: the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits deliberate indifference to a pretrial detainee’s serious medical needs.
  • Winkler v. Madison County, 893 F.3d 877 (6th Cir. 2018): Cited (by analogy) for treating private medical contractors providing inmate care as state actors for § 1983 purposes.

D. The Key Evidentiary Holding: “No Recollection” Cannot Carry the Burden

  • Pineda v. Hamilton County, 977 F.3d 483 (6th Cir. 2020): The court framed Victor’s burden as proof by a preponderance (“more likely than not”) and invoked Pineda’s “equipoise” concept: evidence that leaves the factfinder in balance cannot satisfy the plaintiff’s affirmative burden.
  • Pratt v. Brown Mach. Co., 855 F.2d 1225 (6th Cir. 1988) and Wysong v. City of Heath, 260 F. App'x 848 (6th Cir. 2008): These Sixth Circuit authorities were the core doctrinal support for the proposition that a witness who “has no recollection” cannot “create a dispute of fact” about whether an event occurred.
  • Hemphill v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 805 F.3d 535 (5th Cir. 2015); Larsen v. Citibank FSB, 871 F.3d 1295 (11th Cir. 2017); Harriman v. Hancock County, 627 F.3d 22 (1st Cir. 2010); Shawmut Bank N.A. v. Kress Assocs., 33 F.3d 1477 (9th Cir. 1994); Boykin v. Family Dollar Stores of Mich., LLC, 3 F.4th 832 (6th Cir. 2021): The panel relied on this cross-circuit consensus to reinforce a sufficiency rule: memory failure does not prove the underlying event and generally cannot carry a party’s burden. Shawmut’s phrasing—“does not prove anything”—was used to crystallize the point.

E. Hearsay, Admissibility, and What Counts in Rule 50 Review

  • Weisgram v. Marley Co., 528 U.S. 440 (2000) and Sardis v. Overhead Door Corp., 10 F.4th 268 (4th Cir. 2021): Cited for the proposition that a court assessing sufficiency may disregard inadmissible evidence; Rule 50 demands a “legally sufficient evidentiary basis.”
  • Jacklyn v. Schering-Plough Healthcare Prods. Sales Corp., 176 F.3d 921 (6th Cir. 1999) and Cincinnati Fluid Power, Inc. v. Rexnord, Inc., 797 F.2d 1386 (6th Cir. 1986): Used to identify Victor’s “understanding” testimony as hearsay offered for its truth.
  • Mutual Life. Ins. Co. of New York v. Hillmon, 145 U.S. 285 (1892): The classic authority underpinning Rule 803(3)’s “state of mind” exception (intent to do a future act as evidence that the act likely occurred).
  • United States v. Washington Water Power Co., 793 F.2d 1079 (9th Cir. 1986) and United States v. Moore, 571 F.2d 76 (2d Cir. 1978): Cited for a practical limitation on Hillmon evidence: statements of intent often require corroboration to prove the intended act occurred.
  • United States v. Tyler, 281 F.3d 84 (3d Cir. 2002): Addressed Victor’s “independent legal significance” argument; the panel distinguished Tyler because Victor’s Monell theory did not turn on the mere fact the statement was made, irrespective of its truth.

F. Preservation/Forfeiture and District Court Flexibility

  • Hanover Am. Ins. Co. v. Tattooed Millionaire Ent., LLC, 974 F.3d 767 (6th Cir. 2020): Cited to reject Victor’s forfeiture claim; ACH preserved Rule 50 by moving under Rule 50(a).
  • Massachusetts v. United States, 333 U.S. 611 (1948) (Jackson, J., dissenting): Quoted for the idea that a district court is not bound to adhere to an earlier (potentially mistaken) view simply because it previously held it.

G. Discovery Sanctions

  • Freeland v. Amigo, 103 F.3d 1271 (6th Cir. 1997): Provided factors relevant to Rule 37 sanctions, including bad faith.
  • Prime Rate Premium Fin. Corp. v. Larson, 930 F.3d 759 (6th Cir. 2019): Cited for the abuse-of-discretion standard in reviewing sanctions decisions.

3.2 Legal Reasoning

A. The “Missing Link” in Monell Causation

The court accepted (for purposes of the appeal) that Victor introduced evidence from which a jury could infer a problematic practice: officers sometimes could not get return calls from ACH’s on-call list during late-night hours, and Victor introduced numerous past allegations of poor ACH care. But the opinion treated that showing as only the first Monell step.

The dispositive step was Brown/Thomas causation: whether ACH’s policy or custom “directly caused” Victor’s medication deprivation. The panel reasoned that ACH could not have “caused” a failure to respond to a call unless there was evidence that a call (or equivalent notice) actually occurred. If the real cause was officer error—failure to notify ACH—then the custom alleged against ACH did not directly produce the constitutional deprivation.

B. Why “I Don’t Remember” Cannot Prove the Fact Necessary to Win

The opinion’s central evidentiary holding is narrow but consequential: testimony that a witness “does not recall” whether an event occurred, without more, cannot satisfy the plaintiff’s burden to prove the event occurred. Such testimony (at most) leaves the question in equipoise, which is insufficient under the preponderance standard.

Applying that principle, the Sixth Circuit emphasized:

  • No documentary corroboration existed (no illness report, no log entry, no phone records).
  • Two officers (Tallent and Musall) essentially denied involvement or any call; the remaining officers (Leach and Sullivan) could not remember but testified they typically logged calls, yet no log existed.
  • The only ACH witness with relevant on-call status (Nocerini) did not recall any missed calls or a call that night.

On that record, the verdict required speculation rather than inference.

C. Hearsay as a Sufficiency Problem (Not Merely a Trial-Evidence Problem)

Victor tried to supply the missing “call occurred” fact through his testimony describing what an officer allegedly conveyed: that a nurse was contacted and denied medication because Victor had alcohol in his system. The court treated this as double hearsay offered for its truth and therefore inadmissible for Rule 50 sufficiency review. By invoking Weisgram v. Marley Co., the panel made explicit that inadmissible evidence cannot create the “legally sufficient evidentiary basis” required by Rule 50.

D. “Intent to Act” Evidence (Rule 803(3)) Still Needs Corroboration

The court drew an important distinction between two statements:

  • The officer’s alleged statement that he was “going to reach out to a nurse” was admissible under Rule 803(3) as evidence of then-existing intent, consistent with Mutual Life. Ins. Co. of New York v. Hillmon.
  • But admissibility did not equal sufficiency. Relying on authorities like United States v. Washington Water Power Co. and United States v. Moore, the panel treated such intent evidence as typically inadequate without corroboration—corroboration that was absent here (indeed undermined by the lack of logs/records).

3.3 Impact

A. Evidentiary Sufficiency in Jail/Medical-Contractor Cases

The opinion is likely to be cited in § 1983 detainee-medical cases where plaintiffs must prove an intermediary communication occurred (e.g., an officer called a nurse, a request was transmitted, a provider received notice). It establishes a practical sufficiency rule: absent corroboration, “no recollection” testimony does not bridge a missing factual predicate needed for liability.

B. Monell Causation as a Notice-Dependent Inquiry

For plaintiffs pursuing Monell claims against private jail medical contractors, the decision underscores a recurring structural point: if causation depends on the contractor’s failure to respond, plaintiffs must prove the contractor received notice (or that some alternative route of knowledge existed). A “bad system” narrative (unreturned calls generally) cannot substitute for proof that the system was actually invoked in the plaintiff’s incident.

C. Litigation Practice: Records, Logs, and Phone Data

The reasoning implicitly elevates the importance of objective call evidence (logs, phone records, incident reports). Future litigants will treat contemporaneous documentation not merely as persuasive, but as essential where the decisive event is a communication that should have left routine traces.

4. Complex Concepts Simplified

  • Judgment as a matter of law (Rule 50): A post-evidence ruling that the jury legally could not find for one side because the proof is too weak—even when viewed in that side’s favor.
  • Monell liability: A municipality (or a private entity acting under color of state law) is liable under § 1983 only for its own policy/custom that caused the constitutional harm, not automatically for employees’ acts.
  • “Rigorous” causation (from Bd. of Cnty. Comm'rs of Bryan Cnty. v. Brown): The plaintiff must show the policy/custom directly produced the violation—not merely that the policy existed and something bad happened.
  • Hearsay and “double hearsay”: An out-of-court statement offered for its truth is usually inadmissible. If A tells B what C said, and you offer B’s testimony to prove what C said, you generally need an exception for both layers.
  • State-of-mind / intent exception (Rule 803(3)) and Hillmon: A person’s statement of intent (“I’m going to do X”) can be admitted to suggest they later did X. This opinion emphasizes that, in sufficiency terms, such intent evidence often needs corroboration.
  • “Equipoise”: If the evidence leaves the factfinder evenly balanced between “it happened” and “it didn’t,” the party with the burden loses.

5. Conclusion

The Sixth Circuit’s core contribution in Michael Victor v. Kimberly Reynolds; Advanced Correctional Healthcare, Inc. is a clear evidentiary-sufficiency rule with practical bite: testimony that key witnesses “do not remember” whether a disputed event occurred cannot, without corroboration, satisfy a plaintiff’s burden to prove the event occurred—especially where objective records that would ordinarily exist are absent. In a Monell setting, that missing factual predicate can be fatal because “rigorous” causation requires proof that the challenged policy/custom actually operated on the plaintiff’s incident.

The decision thus tightens the link between Monell causation and proof of notice/communication, and it signals that courts will not permit juries to infer a crucial event from memory gaps and inadmissible hearsay when the record otherwise contains no legally sufficient basis for the finding.