Sperle v. Michigan Dept. of Corrections
| Citation | 297 F.3d 483 |
| Decision Date | 25 July 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 00-1468.,00-1468. |
| Parties | Allan J. SPERLE, Personal Representative of the Estate of Tammy L. Sperle, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, Kenneth L. McGinnis, Andrew Jackson, Geraldine Williams, Donald Prough, Stephen Morton, Peter Zissimos, and Clarence Herndon, Defendants-Appellees. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit) |
Scott L. Mazey (briefed), Larry W. Mazey (argued and briefed), Rothe, Mazey & Mazey, Southfield, MI, for Plaintiff-Appellant.
Thomas A. Kulick (argued and briefed), Asst. Attorney Gen., Leonard J. Malinowski, Office of the Attorney General, Corrections Division, Lansing, MI, for Defendants-Appellees.
Before: COLE and GILMAN, Circuit Judges; MILLS, District Judge.*
Tammy L. Sperle was murdered by an inmate while working as the storekeeper at the Huron Valley Men's Facility (HVMF), a Michigan state prison. The decedent's husband, Allan J. Sperle, subsequently brought this lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) and various individuals associated with the MDOC and the HVMF. Sperle alleges, among other things, that the defendants (1) violated his wife's substantive due process rights by failing to prevent her murder, (2) allowed a sexually hostile work environment to exist at the HVMF, and (3) caused the intentional infliction of emotional distress. The defendants moved for summary judgment. After concluding that the defendants were entitled to judgment as a matter of law, the district court granted their motion on all but one of Sperle's claims. This remaining claim, brought under state law, was then dismissed without prejudice. For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.
Tammy Sperle began working as the storekeeper at the HVMF's prisoner store in June of 1994. Prison inmates are able to purchase personal items such as cigarettes, snack food, stationery, and grooming supplies at the store. As the storekeeper, Tammy Sperle was responsible for ordering merchandise from vendors, selling the goods to inmates, keeping track of the monthly inventory, transporting items from the HVMF's warehouse to the store, and supervising three prisoner employees. She also held monthly meetings with two inmates who served on a subcommittee of the Warden's Forum, a group of elected representatives who conveyed the concerns and complaints of inmates to the HVMF staff. During these meetings, she would answer the representatives' questions and elicit their views regarding what products the inmates wanted to have added to the store's inventory. No other HVMF employee worked in the store with Tammy Sperle.
The store, which was located in the HVMF's school building, had two entrances. One was a steel door that led from the exterior prison yard into the store. This door, which had a large window that permitted someone inside the store to see persons standing outside of it in the yard, was always kept locked. It could be opened from the yard by using a key and from inside the store by pushing a bar. Only Tammy Sperle, the HVMF warehouse workers who sometimes substituted for her, and the yard sergeant had keys to this exterior door.
The second entrance was through a door leading from the hallway inside the school building to a section of the store where a laundry was located. This door had a long, narrow window. At some point prior to her murder, Tammy Sperle covered this window to prevent prisoners who were in the school building for classes from looking in at her as they passed the doorway or from knocking on the door to ask her about merchandise. Several of the defendants were aware that the window was covered prior to Tammy Sperle's murder. They disagree as to whether the inability to look into the store was a security risk.
Defendants Stephen Morton and Peter Zissimos were working as corrections officers at the HVMF in February of 1996. Their duties included maintaining security in the school building. Morton's responsibilities required him to enter each classroom twice an hour to make certain that the rooms were secure. Neither Morton nor Zissimos, however, was instructed to check on Tammy Sperle.
On February 5, 1996, Tammy Sperle was murdered while working in the store. An investigation into her death revealed that HVMF inmate Clarence Herndon strangled Tammy Sperle sometime between 12:35 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. that day. A Michigan state-court jury convicted Herndon of first-degree murder in October of 1998.
Tammy Sperle's first encounter with Herndon occurred when she began working at the HVMF in June of 1994. Herndon was serving as a prisoner store worker at that time. Tammy Sperle terminated his employment the following month, however, because his medical limitations restricted his ability to perform the necessary work. Herndon filed a grievance that sought reassignment within the store, but his request was denied. Tammy Sperle and Herndon continued to see each other at the HVMF after his dismissal. In fact, Corrections Officer Zissimos observed them arguing in January of 1996.
On the morning of her murder, Tammy Sperle met with the two members of the prisoner store committee, a subcommittee of the Warden's Forum. These two members were Herndon and inmate Michael Miller. The meeting, which included, among other things, discussions of a soup sample, lasted for about an hour. Corrections Officer B. Christian spoke with Tammy Sperle at about 10:30 a.m., after the meeting had ended, and asked her what she had planned for the day. She told him that no inmates would be in the store and that she would be working on the inventory by herself. Christian was then relieved by Tammy Sperle of any store duties and was reassigned by the HVMF administration to assist in providing custody for an inmate who was being taken to the hospital. If the store had been open for inmates to purchase items, one corrections officer would have been assigned to the store and a second officer would have been monitoring the line outside the store.
After the meeting of the prisoner store committee, Herndon left the school building and checked into his housing unit at 10:35 a.m. He left the housing section at 11:55 a.m. when his unit was called for lunch. Herndon was later observed in his housing unit at 1:00 p.m.
Perry Taylor, a HVMF employee who had been working at the prison's Technical Rules Violation Center, found Tammy Sperle lying in a pool of blood on the floor of the prisoner store at 1:40 p.m. Efforts to resuscitate her were unsuccessful. Prior to Taylor's finding Tammy Sperle's body, HVMF officials had telephoned the store at 12:45 p.m. and 1:00 p.m., but those calls went unanswered.
Several details relating to the events surrounding Tammy Sperle's murder are the subject of disagreement between the parties. The first dispute pertains to the yard sergeant's key ring, which included a key to the store's exterior door. Both parties agree that the key ring was reported missing on December 11, 1995. But Allan Sperle contends that its whereabouts was not fully established prior to his wife's murder. Although an e-mail message stated that the key ring was found on the perimeter road outside of the HVMF's fencing on January 30, 1996, Allan Sperle emphasizes that the return of the key ring was never documented in any logbook.
The second subject of disagreement relates to the availability of personal protection devices (PPDs) for HVMF employees working in the school building. A PPD emits an electronic signal that enables employees to communicate with the HVMF's security guards in the event of an emergency. If the button on a PPD is pressed, an alarm sounds in the prison's control center to indicate that the staff member to whom the transmitting PPD has been assigned is in danger and needs assistance. The defendants acknowledge that Tammy Sperle was not wearing a PPD on the day of her murder and had not previously been issued a PPD. Allan Sperle contends that his wife was unable to obtain a PPD because Corrections Officer Morton had stored the PPDs for the school building in a locked cabinet and had never issued them to the building's employees. Moreover, not all of the PPDs available at the HVMF worked in the school building.
The third disputed subject is the method by which Herndon entered the store before strangling Tammy Sperle. Although the defendants contend that Tammy Sperle must have seen Herndon through the window and voluntarily allowed him to enter the store by opening the prison-yard door for him, Allan Sperle notes that the absence of any eyewitnesses prevents anyone from knowing for sure how Herndon entered. Allan Sperle raises the possibility that Herndon might have opened the door with the key from the yard sergeant's key ring or a copy of that key. But this scenario is inconsistent with Allan Sperle's alternate contention that Herndon came to the prisoner store "cloaked with the authority given to him by Warden Jackson and Deputy Warden Williams as the Chairman of the Warden's Forum and as a Prisoner Store Committee Member (pursuant to MDOC Policy Directives and HVMF Operating Procedures), purportedly to discuss official store business with Tammy Sperle regarding the soup sample that she gave him earlier that day, and he used his authority to get Tammy Sperle to open the yard door to the store and to become his victim."
The fourth matter in contention pertains to whether the HVMF violated any MDOC policy directives by failing to escort the inmates to the prison cafeteria. Herndon was unsupervised for about 55 minutes on the day of Tammy Sperle's murder, including the time when the murder occurred. According to Allan Sperle, this unsupervised period would not have occurred if the HVMF had adhered to its operating procedure for prisoner movement. The...
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