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Governmental Liability: Policy/Custom
Monthly
Law Journal Article: Staff Use of Force Against
Prisoners--Part II: Governmental and Supervisory Liability,
2008 (10) AELE Mo. L.J. 301.
A male county jail employee
admitted that he engaged in sexual acts with two female inmates when they were
incarcerated at the jail at various times. They sued the employee and county
for sexual assault in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, as
well as a state law negligence claim against the county. He
had urged the women not to discuss his sexual advances, and his assaults were
kept hidden from jail officials until a former inmate reported her own sexual encounters
with him to an investigator in a neighboring county. An investigation led to
him pleading guilty to several counts of sexual assault and being sentenced to
30 years in prison. A jury found the employee and the county liable and awarded
each plaintiff $2 million in compensatory damages. It also assessed punitive
damages against the employee of $3,750,000 to each woman. A federal appeals
court upheld the damage awards against the employee for his “predatory” and
“knowingly criminal” assaults. But it overturned the award against the county.
To impose liability against the county for these crimes, the court stated,
there must be evidence of an offending county policy, culpability, and
causation. The employee’s actions were “reprehensible,” but the evidence showed
no connection between the assaults and any county policy. McGreal v. Village of Orland Park, #18-3342, 2019 U.S. App. Lexis 19088 (7th Cir.).
A male jail corrections officer was told that a county’s zero-tolerance policy forbid him to have any sexual contact with inmates. The county repeatedly instructed him not to engage in any such contact and trained him to avoid it. He gave answers to quizzes indicating he understood the training. He nonetheless raped a woman in jail. She sued him and sued the county for indemnification under a Wisconsin state statute. A jury awarded her $6,700,000 against the county, finding that the assaults were in the scope of employment. A federal appeals court reversed. Even viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and the verdict, the court ruled that no reasonable jury could find the sexual assaults were in the scope of the officer’s employment; that the sexual assaults were natural, connected, ordinary parts or incidents of contemplated services; that the assaults were of the same or similar kind of conduct that the officer was employed to perform; or that the assaults were actuated even to a slight degree by a purpose to serve the county. No reasonable jury could even regard the sexual assaults as improper methods of carrying out employment objectives. The plaintiff presented no evidence that the officer’s training was deficient or that he did not understand it. Martin v. Milwaukee County, #18-1060, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 26124 (7th Cir.).
A female arrestee booked into a county jail claimed that a detention officer raped her. She sued the sheriff for the alleged rape, under a theory of inadequate supervision. The sheriff argued that, even assuming he violated the Constitution - the trial court erred in finding that the contours of the constitutional right at issue were clearly established. A federal appeals court agreed: “the clearly established law must be 'particularized’ to the facts of the case.In reaching this conclusion, we do not mean to suggest that “[a] prior case” must have “identical facts” before it will put reasonable officials on notice that their specific conduct is unconstitutional.” Accordingly, the appeals court reversed the trial court’s order and remanded with directions to enter summary judgment in the sheriff’s favor on the basis of qualified immunity. Perry v. Durborow, #17-5023, 892 F.3d 1116 (10th Cir. 2018).
An arrestee was taken to a hospital because of an irregular heartbeat. He tried to escape and stated that he wanted the officers to take his life so that he would not be sent back to prison. He appeared determined to be suicidal. After being treated by psychiatrists and showing improvement, he was released and transported to a city detention facility. Two days later, he was moved to a medical unit, suffering from detoxification from heroin use, congestive heart failure, hypertension, and diabetes. An officer was assigned to monitor the arrestee in his cell via closed-circuit television. She last saw him pacing by the shower area at 9:05 a.m. Within the next 14 minutes, she discovered that he had hanged himself, using his ripped hospital gown. The trial court dismissed federal civil rights claims by his estate. A federal appeals court upheld this result, ruling that the complaint failed to allege that the officer knew that the arrestee presented a suicide risk. There was no claim that any identifiable jail official had knowledge or suspected that the decedent was suicidal or was harming himself. The complaint also failed to allege any constitutional violation arising out of a municipal policy that would expose the city to liability. Whitney v. City of St. Louis, #17-2019, 2018 U.S. App. Lexis 9129 (8th Cir.).
A pretrial detainee asserted that medical
care at a county jail fell below constitutional standards as a matter of
official policy, custom, or practice.The 2008 findings from a U.S. Department
of Justice investigation of health care at the jail found systemic flaws in the
jail's scheduling, record-keeping, and grievance procedures that produced
health care below the minimal requirements of the U.S. Constitution. In this
case, a federal appeals court reversed the trial court’s refusal to allow
admission of the report as evidence toward meeting a plaintiff’s burden of
proving an unconstitutional custom, policy, or practice. The appeals court
concluded that it should be admitted under the hearsay exception for civil
cases in Federal Rule of Evidence 803(8)(A)(iii) for factual findings from
legally authorized investigations. Daniel v. Cook County, #15-2832, 2016 U.S.
App. Lexis 14886 (7th Cir.).
An arrestee claimed
that he was "savagely" attacked by another intoxicated arrestee when
they were both placed in a "sobering" cell by employees of the
sheriff's department. A jury entered a verdict against both individual
defendants and the county. A total of $2,605,632.02 in damages was awarded.
Based on the jury's findings, the parties later stipulated to $840,000 in
attorney fees, $12,000 in punitive damages against one jailer, and $6,000 in
punitive damages against a second jailer. A federal appeals court rejected the claim
that the individual defendants were entitled to qualified immunity as there was
evidence from which the jury could have concluded that the jailers had been
deliberately indifferent to the clearly established duty to protect the
plaintiff against a substantial risk of harm, including evidence that one
defendant had disregarded the plaintiff's pounding on the cell door at the time
of the attack, while the other had placed the two arrestees in the same cell
despite the fact that separate cells were then available. As to the jury's
award of punitive damages, once a finding of deliberate indifference was
reached, no additional evidence was needed to make a finding of "reckless
disregard." The award against the county, however, was reversed as there
was no evidence that the county had actual knowledge of the risk to the
plaintiff's safety. Castro v. County of Los Angeles, #12-56829, 2015 U.S. App.
Lexis 7240 (9th Cir.).
A former detainee sued a county after its jail
allegedly failed to provide him with his prescribed and necessary anti-seizure
medication when he was incarcerated there. A federal appeals court upheld
summary judgment for the county since the plaintiff presented absolutely no
evidence that county policymaking officials would have been informed of the
denial of his medication on the morning in question and made a deliberate
choice to either ignore it or tacitly authorize the denial in the next few
hours. There also was no evidence of a widespread persistent continuing pattern
of unconstitutional misconduct by the county's employees. Johnson, Jr. v.
County of Douglas, #13-1134, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 15938 (8th Cir.).
A 67-year-old male prisoner prone to
disorientation and confusion and suffering from dementia sued jail officers and
the county sheriff after his cellmate at the county jail severely beat him. The
defendants were entitled to qualified immunity because there was no evidence
that officers were subjectively aware that the plaintiff faced a substantial
risk of serious harm or that the sheriff's department policies or customs
caused his injuries. His wife's claims for loss of consortium were also
rejected. Goodman v. Kimbrough, #12-10732, 2013 U.S. App. Lexis 12740 (11th
Cir.).
A federal appeals court overturned a judgment for
a county in a lawsuit claiming that it was responsible for a man's false
conviction that was based on perjured testimony obtained from a jailhouse
informant who was unreliable. The court reinstated the claim, noting that the
district attorney, in determining admiistrative policies and carrying out
training regarding the functioning of the officer, represented the county, and
that his actions had included establishing an index concerning the use of
jailhouse informants. Goldstein v. City of Long Beach, #10-56787, 2013 U.S.
App. Lexis 9333 (9th Cir.).
A pretrial detainee claimed that his conditions
of confinement at a county jail were unconstitutional, and that the sheriff was
deliberately indifferent to his medical needs for an injury to his leg. The
conditions complained of included poor sanitation and hygiene alongside lack of
heat and bedding, blocked ventilation, overcrowding, and inadequate recreation.
These conditions, he argued, together with a failure to provide detainees with
a way to clean themselves with running water or cleaning supplies, stated a
claim for relief. He said that three doctors told him that his leg infection
was the result of the unsanitary conditions. His claim for medical indifference
was rejected, since he received ongoing observation, medication, and medical
attention, but the federal appeals court ordered further proceedings on his
unconstitutional conditions of confinement claim. Budd v. Motley, #11-3425,
2013 U.S. App. Lexis 6557 (7th Cir.).
A prisoner's conviction for criminal sexual
conduct was reversed by a Michigan state appeals court, and remanded for a new
trial. For unknown reasons, one was not scheduled and the trial court was
unaware of the 1989 reversal until 2007. As a result, he spent over seventeen
years as a pretrial detainee after the reversal of his conviction. Rejecting
his claim that the county was liable for violating the plaintiff's right to a
speedy trial, the appeals court noted that there was no evidence that the
prosecutor was directly responsible for the failure to respond to the appeals
court's remand order. There was also no indication that the need for action at
any time became obvious to a county policymaker, nor was what happened a
predictable result of a county policy or inadequate training of assistant
prosecutors. Heyerman v. County of Calhoun, #10-2322, 2012 U.S. App. Lexis
10731, 2012 Fed. App. 160P (6th Cir.).
Prisoners who sued a county for alleged acts of
excessive force against them by correctional employees were entitled to a new
trial on their claims. The model jury instructions that the trial court gave
the jury on municipal liability and what constitutes an unconstitutional custom
or practice failed to adequately state that this could be proven "through
evidence that incidents of excessive force were not investigated and their
perpetrators were not disciplined." Hunter v. County of Sacramento,
#09-15288, 2011 U.S. App. Lexis 15309 (9th Cir.).
Two former prisoners at a county jail claimed
that deputies, in separate incidents, used excessive force against them. A
federal appeals court held that the plaintiff prisoners were entitled to a new
trial on their claims against the county because the jury instructions did not
adequately define what a practice or custom was for purposes of imposing
municipal liability. The trial court should have included the plaintiffs'
proposed instructions relating to jail officials' alleged failure to
investigate incidents of excessive force and to take disciplinary action
against guards who used such force "despite the existence of an official
policy prohibiting the use of excessive force." Hunter v. County of
Sacramento, #09-15288, (9th Cir.).
In a lawsuit by a pretrial detainee attacked by
other prisoners who were gang members, he failed to show that correctional
officials and officers acted with deliberate indifference in housing gang
members together with non-gang members and allegedly periodically leaving them
unsupervised. He failed to show the existence of a "de facto" policy
of housing gang members and non-gang members together, of allowing gang members
to retain weapons, or of leaving prisoners unsupervised. Further, he failed to
show that officers were aware of a specific threat to him, since he did not
tell them about threats after a first attack, or tell them that the attack
occurred because he was not a gang member. Klebanowski v. Sheahan, No. 06-2572,
2008 U.S. App. Lexis 18760 (7th Cir.).
Prisoner who claimed that he was beaten by
correctional officers failed to show that the warden was personally involved in
the violation of his rights or that there was an unlawful county policy or
custom concerning the use of excessive force or that such a policy caused his
injuries. Further, he failed to show that the force used against him was excessive
under the circumstances. Hernandez v. York County, No. 07-4774, 2008 U.S. App.
Lexis 17985 (Unpub. 3rd Cir.).
The fact that officers transporting prisoners had
different duties than arresting officers, or that jail clerks did not receive
training on the watching of monitors and had too much work to do to adequately
watch them was insufficient to impose liability on the city for an alleged
practice or custom of failing to provide adequate suicide prevention training
to jail personnel. City and officers were not liable for detainee's suicide in
city jail. Coleman v. City of Pagedale, No. 4:06CV-01376, 2008 U.S. Dist. Lexis
6781 (E.D. Mo.).
Prisoner failed to provided any evidence of an
official city policy permitting or encouraging the excessive or unnecessary use
of force by sheriff's employees against arrestees, or a widespread custom of
such use of force, so that the city was entitled to summary judgment. Ludaway
v. City of Jacksonville, Florida, No. 07-10859, 2007 U.S. App. 21150 (11th Cir.).
California prisoner failed to show that a sheriff
was personally involved in or had knowledge of the alleged verbal threats,
unsanitary conditions, denial of a needed special diet, or denial of use of the
library. The county could not be held liable for such deprivations, even if
true, when no claim was made that they were the result of an official county
policy or custom. Apollo v. County of Sacramento, No. 05-16774, 2007 U.S. App.
Lexis 14209 (9th Cir.).
Prisoner could not pursue federal civil rights
claim against sheriff and county for his injury in a prison shower exit based
on alleged negligence in failing to provide a shower mat, since negligence is
insufficient for such a claim. The prisoner also failed to show, for purposes
of an Eighth Amendment civil rights claim, that there was an official county
policy or custom which results in the absence of non-slip shower exits. Smith
v. Leonard, No. 06-41123, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis 14003 (5th Cir.).
When no previous suicide had occurred at a city
jail, and there was no evidence of a city policy which was deliberately
indifferent to prisoner suicide, the city could not be held liable for the
death of a prisoner placed on suicide watch (after he asked a detective, during
his booking, to please give him a gun so that he could shoot himself), but who
hung himself with two blankets torn into strips. Bradley v. City of Fendale,
No. 02-73001, 2007 U.S. Dist. Lexis 26270 (E.D. Mich.).
Prisoner who claimed that he was beaten by
unknown prison guards failed to present evidence of inadequate training or
hiring policies which could support a claim for liability on the part of the
county. Aguirre v. Nueces County, Texas, No. 06-40317, 2007 U.S. App. Lexis
3028 (5th Cir.). [N/R]
Estate of jail inmate who died from untreated
methadone withdrawal on the sixth day of a ten day sentence for a traffic
offense presented sufficient evidence from which a jury could find that the
county had a widespread custom or practice of failing to provide timely methadone
treatment to prisoners. Davis v. Carter, No. 05-1695, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis
16183 (7th Cir.). [2006 JB Aug]
City Department of Corrections was not liable for
damages for having kept an inmate in custody beyond the maximum length of his
sentence. There was no showing that the extended detention was the result of an
official city policy or custom. Dupree v. City of New York, No. 04CV0992, 418
F. Supp. 2d 555 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). [N/R]
Federal appeals court finds a triable issue of
fact on whether a county had inadequate policies regarding the training of jail
medical personnel as to how to respond to the fall of a medically unstable
prisoner, a prisoner's refusal of needed medical treatment, or the need to
conduct a prompt assessment on whether such a prisoner should be transferred to
another facility with more medical resources. Civil rights claim against county
reinstated in lawsuit over death of 71-year-old prisoner from cardiac arrest.
Long v. County of Los Angeles, No. 04-55463, 2006 U.S. App. Lexis 7552 (9th
Cir.). [2006 JB May]
Despite a detainee's alleged intoxication, jail
personnel's failure to either transfer him to the hospital or at least contact
an on-call nurse was unreasonable for purposes of a Fourteenth Amendment claim
for deliberate indifference to serious medical needs when the detainee insisted
that he was suffering from a serious medical condition and needed assistance.
His estate could proceed with its claim against individual personnel for the
detainee's death from an allegedly untreated heart attack, but there was not
proof of an official policy or custom causing the deprivation which could
support liability on the part of the city or county. Hollenbaugh v. Maurer, No.
5:05-CV-207, 397 F. Supp. 2d 894 (N.D. Ohio 2005). [N/R]
Detainee kept for six days at county detention
facility after a judge ordered his release without bail failed to show that a
county policy caused his prolonged incarceration or that there was a widespread
pattern of such problems that the county knew about. Russell v. Hennepin
County, No. 04-3922, 420 F.3d 841 (8th Cir. 2005). [2006 JB Feb]
A twelve-hour delay in releasing a detainee after
a judge determined that no bail was required on his intoxicated driving charge
did not "shock the conscience," and was not caused by any official
county policy or custom. Federal appeals court upholds summary judgment for
county and sheriff in detainee's due process lawsuit. Lund v. Hennepin County,
No. 05-1791, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 23833 (8th Cir.). [2005 JB Dec]
Jury was properly instructed that county could
not be held liable for alleged injuries prisoner suffered from not receiving
prescription medicine unless he could show that the county had a wide-spread
policy or custom of failing to pre-approve detainees' prescriptions for
administration before they reported for incarceration at the jail. Calhoun v.
Ramsey, No. 03-3036, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 8694 (7th Cir.). [2005 JB Jul]
Two officers were not entitled to summary
judgment on claim of deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of
insulin-dependent diabetic prisoner when they allegedly had knowledge of her
condition. Prisoner failed to show, however, that the city had a custom of
denying medical treatment to pre-arraignment detainees. Garretson v. City of
Madison Heights, No. 04-1046 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 7164 (6th Cir.). [2005 JB
Jul]
County, correctional officers, and on-call
physician were not deliberately indifferent to serious medical needs of
detainee who died of a brain tumor. Miller v Calhoun County, No. 03-2434, 2005
U.S. App. Lexis 9716 (6th Cir.). [2005 JB Jul]
Pretrial detainee who claimed that delay in
transporting him to a hospital caused him to become a paraplegic failed to show
that an alleged county policy of understaffing the sheriff's office and jail
resulted in his injuries. McDowell v. Brown, No. 04-10272, 392 F.3d 1283 (11th
Cir. 2004). [2005 JB Mar]
Federal appeals court upholds jury's award of $29
million in compensatory and $27.5 million in punitive damages against two
deputy sheriffs for causing pre-trial detainee's death through use of excessive
force. Failure to show that the death was caused by any official policy or
custom, or by deliberate indifference to a widespread pattern of violation of
jail policies, required summary judgment on claims against county sheriff. Mere
number of uses of pepper spray did not show that it was being misused. Estate
of Moreland v. Dieter, No. 03-3734, 2005 U.S. App. Lexis 743 (7th Cir.). [2005
JB Mar]
Prisoner showed an adequate connection between
the alleged attack on him by other inmates and a D.C. alleged policy or custom
of transferring prisoners without informing the transferee correctional
facility about active orders requiring their separation from other prisoners to
state a federal civil rights claim against the District. Ashford v. District of
Columbia, No. Civ.A. 02-1955, 306 F. Supp. 2d 8 (D.D.C. 2004). [N/R]
Female prisoners who claimed that they were
sexually assaulted by a jailer stated a viable claim against the city for
alleged failure to adequately train or supervise its jailers. "We are
unwilling to say, at this point, that it is not obvious that male jailers who
receive no training and who are left virtually unsupervised might abuse female
detainees." Drake v. City of Haltom, 106 Fed. Appx. 897 (5th Cir. 2004).
[N/R]
Even if female prisoner's constitutional rights
were violated when she was allegedly strip searched by male guards at city jail
"without good cause," she did not claim that the city had a policy or
custom of allowing "baseless cross-gender strip searches," so that
the city could not be held liable. Further, the Constitution does not require
jails that house female detainees either to staff more than one jailer at a
time or to staff a female jailer. The appeals court also found that even if the
prisoner alleged a constitutional violation arising out of the misuse of the
jail's video system, she failed to show any basis for holding the city liable
on the basis of any of its customs or policies. Soto v. City of Haltom, No.
03-10650, 106 Fed. Appx. 903 (5th Cir. 2004). [N/R]
Inmate in New York correctional facility could
not pursue federal civil rights lawsuit against county, county prosecutor, or
county sheriff claiming that they violated his constitutional rights because
they failed to prosecute correctional officers for allegedly threatening him on
three occasions, in the absence of any allegation that the failure to prosecute
was the result of any official policy or custom. Additionally, neither
prosecutor nor sheriff were in a supervisory position within the prison
hierarchy, and therefore did not have a duty to protect him from these alleged
threats. Lewis v. Gallivan, 315 F. Supp. 2d 313 (W.D.N.Y. 2004). [N/R]
Even if prisoner received inadequate medical care
after secretly ingesting cocaine upon his arrest, resulting in his death in
custody, county was not liable to his estate in the absence of any evidence
that an official policy of providing inadequate care was the cause of his
injuries. Graham v. County of Washtenaw, No. 02-1614, 358 F.3d 377 (6th Cir.
2004). [2004 JB May]
Plaintiff failed to show that county had a policy
of deliberate indifference in training correctional officers in the handling of
mentally ill detainees, or that any such inadequacy in county's training caused
detainee's death. No liability for county for the death of detainee from heart
failure while incarcerated. Carey v. Helton, No. 01-5623, 70 Fed. Appx. 291
(6th Cir. 2003). [N/R]
Lawsuit by New York prisoners against over fifty
correctional employees concerning more than forty separate and unrelated
incidents at fourteen different prisons over a period of almost ten years was
properly dismissed, federal appeals court rules. Complaint failed to establish
the existence of a policy or practice existing throughout the state
correctional system or even within one prison which caused a violation of
Eighth Amendment rights. Claims included alleged assaults by correctional
officers, failure to protect inmates from assaults by other prisoners, and
failure to provide medical care for injuries. Additionally, none of the
plaintiffs stated that they had exhausted available administrative remedies
prior to filing suit. Webb v. Goord, #02-0097(L), 340 F.3d 105 (2nd Cir.
2003). [2003 JB Nov]
Federal appeals court rules that prisoner could
pursue his claim against the District of Columbia asserting that it had a
policy or custom that caused him to suffer inadequate medical treatment once he
was transferred to a Virginia state prison while serving a D.C. sentence.
Prisoner should not, appeals court holds, be required to show that D.C.
officials acted with subjective deliberate indifference in order to pursue his
claim. Baker v. Dist. of Columbia, No. 01-5205, 326 F.3d 1302 (D.C. Cir. 2003).
[2003 JB Jul]
California sheriff acted on behalf of the county
in establishing a policy segregating gang members in a special unit in the
county jail, rather than on behalf of the state. The county, therefore, could
be liable for his actions in continuing to hold a former gang member in the
unit, which allegedly resulted in the prisoner being beaten to death by five of
his cellmates. Eleventh Amendment immunity did not apply. Cortez v. County of
Los Angeles, #00-56781, 294 F.3d 1186 (9th Cir. 2002). [2002 JB Nov]
Sheriff could not be held liable for alleged
deliberate indifference by county jail medical personnel when there was no
evidence that he had authorized, approved, or even knowingly acquiesced in any
failure by the personnel to dispense treatment to the plaintiff. County was
also not liable, despite criticized sick call policy, in the absence of any
showing that the policy somehow caused the alleged problem. Warren v. Shelby
County, Tenn., 191 F. Supp. 2d 980 (W.D. Tenn. 2001). [N/R]
250:149 Sheriff
was not a county policymaker under Alabama law, but rather acted on behalf of
the State; county therefore could not be held liable for his actions in federal
civil rights action. McMillian v. Monroe Co., Alabama, 117 S.Ct. 1734 (1997).
238:156
Regardless of whether way in which disciplinary hearing was held violated
inmate's constitutional rights, city could not be held liable in absence of
municipal policy or custom causing the violation, and supervisory officials
could not be held liable without personal involvement in the incident, or role
in creating policy or mismanaging personnel who caused the violation. Perkins
v. N.Y. City Dept. of Correction, 887 F.Supp. 92 (S.D.N.Y. 1995). [Cross-reference:
Prisoner Discipline].
238:154 U.S.
Supreme Court to review case in which county was held liable for approximately
$800,000 for injuries to arrestee flung to the ground by deputy who was hired
despite having a number of misdemeanor convictions and a long arrest record;
issue of hiring standards for officers at issue. Brown v. Bryan Co., Ok., 67
F.3d 1174 (5th Cir. 1995), cert. granted, Board of Co. Commissioners v. Brown,
116 S.Ct. 1540 (1996).
Case remanded to
district court for determination of whether jail officials handcuffed inmate to
bed for six days and opened his legal mail in violation of his civil rights.
O'Donell v. Thomas, 814 F.2d 524 (8th Cir. 1987).
No liability for
sexual assault committed by convict placed in half-way house. Carlson v.
Conklin, 813 F.2d 769 (6th Cir. 1987).
Supreme Court
rejects inmate's Federal civil rights suit for lack of due care as insufficient
cause to be a constitutional deprivation. Simple negligence is not actionable
under Sec. 1983. Davidson v. Cannon, 54 U.S. Law Week 4095 (1/21/86).
Sex is bona fide
occupational qualification for sergeant. State Div. of Human Rights v. Oneida
Co., 500 N.Y.S.2d 995 (A.D. 4 Dept. 1986).
Sergeant not
entitled to compensation as work commander, even though he claimed he performed
equivalent duties. Sec. & Law Enforcement Employees v. Hartnett, 500
N.Y.S.2d 571 (A.D. 3 Dept. 1986).
State law allows
station officers bail authority; no liability for city's not following it.
Talbert v. Kelly, 799 F.2d 62 (3rd Cir. 1986).
Court upholds
prisoner release fund. Sahagian v. Dickey, 646 F.Supp. 1502 (W.D. Wis. 1986).
Nurse wins over
$200,000 for deputy's sexually harassing her. Information was obtained from the
San Francisco Chronicle, Ca., 9/23/86.
Utah Supreme
Court refuses to grant administrator immunity for released juvenile's stabbing
girl. Doe v. Argulles, 716 P.2d 279 (Utah 1985).
Corrections
department gets new trial on issue of damages. Department of Corrections v.
Hill, 490 So.2d 118 (Fla. App. 1986).
Liability
results over prisoner's admittance to college where he raped and killed
student. Eiseman v. State, 489 N.Y.S.2d 957 (A.D. 4 Dept. 1985).
Co. not liable
for sheriff's actions. Dugan v. Co. of Rensselaer, 495 N.Y.S.2d 753 (A.D. 3
Dept. 1985).
City sued for
not warning female employee about fellow employee's past sexual assaults. Duffy
v. City of Oceanside, 224 Cal.Rptr. 879 (App. 1986).
Prisoners with
long term sentences that exceed life expectancy not entitled to same benefits
under "life term" definition. Longval v. Commissioner of Correction,
484 N.E.2d 112 (Mass. App. 1985).
Negligence in
escape results in liability for killing. Brown v. American Druggists' Ins. Co.,
476 So.2d 882 (La. App. 1985).
No duty to warn
victim of inmate's history of sex crimes. Anthony v. State, 374 N.W. 662 (Iowa
1985).
Co. is
vicariously liable for intentional wrongs of onduty deputies. White v. Co. of
Orange, 212 Cal.Rptr. 493 (App. 1985). Case reversed; state could be liable for
off-duty correctional officer's use of firearms. Frazier by Westion v. State,
486 N.Y.S.2d 919 (Ct. App. 1985).
By contrast,
off-duty correctional officer denied representation over shooting incident with
robber. Williams v. City of New York, 476 N.E.2d 317 (N.Y. 1985).
Co., not state,
liable for circuit court employee's actions in delayed release of inmate.
Hodges v. State of Oregon, 688 P.2d 132 (Ore. App. 1984).
State not responsible
for correctional guard's off-duty incidents to prevent crime. Frazier by
Western v. State, 474 N.Y.S.2d 7 (App. 1984).
Corrections
officials not liable; release of juvenile who rapes and kills young girl.
Larson v. Darnell, 448 N.E.2d 249 (Ill. App. 1983).
State not liable
for rape committed by parolee. Humann v. Wilson, 696 F.2d 783 (10th Cir. 1983).
Murder victim's
husband and children permitted to sue the United States under Federal Tort
Claims Act for release of prisoner with known homicidal tendencies. Payton v.
United States, 636 F.2d 132 (5th Cir. 1981).
Punitive damages
for Section 1983 violation cannot be assessed against state or local
governments. City of Newport v. Fact Concerts, Inc., 453 U.S. 247, 101 S.Ct.
2748 (1981).
State
governmental immunity laws apply to bar suit by victim of parolee released by
prison officials. Martinez v. State of California, 444 U.S. 277, 100 S.Ct. 553
(1980).
Commander of
parole unit does not enjoy absolute immunity from suit by woman who was
attacked by a parolee; question of qualified immunity left to trier of fact.
Eide v. Timberlake, 497 F.Supp. 1272 (D. Kan. 1980). Co. not liable directly
under Section 1983 or derivatively under Fourteenth Amendment for false arrest
and imprisonment. Daughtry v. Arlington Cty., Va., 490 F.Supp. 307 (D. D.C.
1980).
Municipal
governments can be held liable for civil rights violations which occur as a
result of official policy or custom. Monell v. Dept. of Socl. Serv. of City of
New York, 436 U.S. 658, 98 S.Ct. 2018 (1978).
Unless state
consents, federal courts do not have jurisdiction over state or its agencies in
order to redress inmate claims of cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama v.
Pugh, 438 U.S. 781, 98 S.Ct. 3057 (1978).