Baggett v. Bedford County

• Decision Date: 15 January 2008
• Docket Number: No. M2007-00441-COA-R3-CV.,M2007-00441-COA-R3-CV.
• Citation: 270 S.W.3d 550
• Parties: Charles Robert BAGGETT v. BEDFORD COUNTY, Tennessee.
• Court: Tennessee Court of Appeals

270 S.W.3d 550

Charles Robert BAGGETT v. BEDFORD COUNTY, Tennessee.

No. M2007-00441-COA-R3-CV.

Court of Appeals of Tennessee, at Nashville.

September 14, 2007 Session.

January 15, 2008.

Permission to Appeal Denied by Supreme Court June 30, 2008.

William Kennerly Burger, Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for Appellant Charles R. Baggett.

Reynolds Davies and A. Chad Davidson, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee Bedford County.

OPINION

HOLLY M. KIRBY, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which DAVID R. FARMER, J., and STEVE R. DOZIER, Sp. J., joined.

This is a comparative negligence case. The plaintiff prisoner was incarcerated at the defendant county's jail. The inmates were given an opportunity to earn a reduction in their sentences by performing construction work to expand the jail's workhouse facility. The plaintiff volunteered for this program and was assigned the task of hanging cement board on the walls of the workhouse; the jail provided the plaintiff with a scaffold and a step ladder. The plaintiff was told to hang one of the boards at a height that could not be reached by standing on the scaffold alone. To perform the task, the plaintiff put the ladder on top of the scaffold and climbed the ladder. In doing so, he lost his balance, the scaffold collapsed, and he fell to the floor, sustaining serious injuries. The plaintiff prisoner sued the county under the Governmental Tort Liability Act, seeking damages for his injuries. The county moved for summary judgment, asserting the simple tool doctrine and comparative negligence. The trial court granted the motion on both grounds. The plaintiff appeals. We reverse, finding, inter alia, that the simple tool doctrine is a form of assumption of the risk and, as such, has been abolished in favor of comparative negligence.

Plaintiff/Appellant Charles Robert Baggett ("Baggett") was 37 years old and had worked as a house painter. After being arrested on drug charges, he was incarcerated in the jail in Defendant/Appellee Bedford County. During Baggett's incarceration, Bedford County made the decision to expand its jail workhouse facility. To facilitate the expansion, inmates in the Bedford County jail were given the opportunity to participate in Bedford County's "workhouse program" ("the program"), under which inmates could earn a reduction in their sentences by performing manual labor to help expand the jail's workhouse facility. Participation in the program was strictly voluntary; indeed, it was competitive, with numerous inmates seeking to participate. Baggett volunteered and was allowed to take part.

As part of the program, Baggett was assigned the task of hanging cement wall panels in the workhouse. To enable Baggett to perform this task, the jail provided him with a six-foot stepladder and a twelve-foot Baker scaffold.¹ In his previous work as a painter, Baggett had used Baker scaffolds. Generally, a Baker scaffold makes use of stabilizer bars that prevent the scaffold from wobbling. According to Baggett, however, the scaffold provided to him had no stabilizer bars and the screws used to hold the wood planks to the frame were missing.²

On March 29, 2004, Baggett and another inmate assembled the Baker scaffold for Baggett to use. Baggett had been told to hang the cement wall panels on the wall at a height of approximately twenty-five feet. The scaffold provided to Baggett was not tall enough for him to reach such a height, so he placed the folded step-ladder on top of the scaffold in order to hang the panels. Baggett climbed the ladder and began to drive a screw into the panel, to attach it to the wall. As he did so, he lost his balance and the scaffold tipped and fell. Baggett fell and hit the floor head-first. He sustained serious injuries to his face and head, including a fractured eye socket, fractured nasal cavity, fractured vertebrae, a fractured wrist, and several lacerations. Baggett was taken to Vanderbilt University Hospital, where he spent four days being treated for his injuries.

On June 7, 2004, Baggett filed a lawsuit against Bedford County under Tennessee's Governmental Tort Liability Act ("GTLA"), Tennessee Code Annotated §§ 29-20-101 through -408. In his complaint, Baggett noted that Bedford County was under a duty to provide a reasonably safe facility for his incarceration, and asserted that the County breached this duty by providing him with a defective scaffold. In its answer, Bedford County asserted as an affirmative defense that the doctrine of comparative fault precluded Baggett from recovering for his injuries. Bedford County also maintained that it did not breach its duty to provide a reasonably safe facility. The County's answer was later amended to assert the simple tool doctrine as a defense. Discovery ensued.

In July 2006, Bedford County filed a motion for summary judgment. In the motion, the County asserted essentially two grounds. First, it argued that Baggett was precluded from recovery under the "simple tool doctrine," as stated in Sivley v. Nixon Mining Drill Co., 128 Tenn. 675, 164 S.W. 772 (1913) and, more recently, Cross v. Matheny, No. 156, 1991 WL 50213 (Tenn.Ct.App. April 10, 1991). Second, the County argued that Baggett was precluded from recovery under the doctrine of comparative fault, as stated in McIntyre v. Balentine, 833 S.W.2d 52 (Tenn.1992), because he was more than fifty percent at fault for his injuries. Baggett responded to the motion for summary judgment, arguing that there was a genuine issue of fact concerning whether he had any choice in performing the work that led to his injury, and that the case was inappropriate for adjudication on a summary judgment motion.

After a hearing, the trial court granted Bedford County's motion for summary judgment. The court based its decision on the simple tool doctrine and the doctrine of comparative fault, stating: "Taking the strongest legitimate view of the evidence in favor of the Plaintiff, reasonable minds cannot differ upon the legal conclusion that the fault of the Plaintiff was at least equal to that of the Defendant." Baggett now appeals this order.

On appeal, Baggett raises the following issues: (1) whether the trial court erred in applying the simple tool doctrine; (2) whether the trial court erred in its analysis of the parties' comparative fault; and (3) whether the trial court erred in failing to find a genuine issue of material fact.

Summary judgment should be granted only if the moving party establishes that there are no genuine issues of material fact and that it is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Tenn. R. Civ. P. 56.04. Summary judgment is proper when "both the facts and the conclusions to be drawn from the facts permit a reasonable person to reach only one conclusion." Carvell v. Bottoms, 900 S.W.2d 23, 26 (Tenn. 1995) (citing Byrd v. Hall, 847 S.W.2d 208, 210-11 (Tenn.1993)). We review the trial court's grant of Bedford County's motion for summary judgment de novo on the record. Bain v. Wells, 936 S.W.2d 618, 622 (Tenn.1997). As there are only questions of law involved, we accord no presumption of correctness to the trial court's decision. Id.

We first address the simple tool doctrine. The simple tool doctrine has been articulated as follows:

... [I]t is the duty of the master [employer] to furnish tools reasonably safe, yet if they are of the simple character indicated, and a casual inspection would disclose the defect in them subsequently complained of, and to which the injury is attributable, the servant [employee] is charged with notice of what he could have observed by such attention, and is held to have assumed the risk thereof; his opportunity of observation being equal to that of the master, and the tool being of such a character that no skill would be required to observe its condition ....

Southern Ry. Co. v. Hensley, 138 Tenn. 408, 198 S.W. 252, 253 (1917) (emphasis added). Simple tools have been described as tools "of a simple nature, easily understood and comprehended, and the defects in them can be readily observed by a person of ordinary intelligence." 27 AM. JUR.2D Employment Relationship § 260 (2004). The simple tool doctrine was adopted in Tennessee in 1913 in the case of Sivley v. Nixon Mining Drill Co., 128 Tenn. 675, 164 S.W. 772 (1913). In Sivley, the tool at issue was a ladder, which was held to be a "simple tool." The Tennessee Supreme Court held that the employer could not be held liable for an injury caused by a defect in the ladder because "a defect in such a simple tool must be obvious to its user, by whom any risk of danger therefrom must be held to be assumed." Sivley, 164 S.W. at 772 (emphasis added).

Soon after its decision in Sivley, the Tennessee Supreme Court refined its application of the simple tool doctrine in Philip Carey Roofing & Mfg. Co. v. Black, 129 Tenn. 30, 164 S.W. 1183 (1914). In Philip Carey, the court held that the simple tool doctrine did not apply where the employer's knowledge of a defect in the tool (again, a ladder) was superior to the employee's knowledge of the defect. Philip Carey, 164 S.W. at 1185. It noted that the simple tool doctrine rests on the presumption that the master (employer) and the servant (employee) had equal knowledge, and observed that "[s]uch a presumption cannot be indulged where the master has actual notice of a defect." Id. at 1184-85.

In explaining the simple tool doctrine, these Tennessee courts refer expressly to assumption of the risk and make it clear that the simple tool doctrine had its provenance in the common law doctrine of implied assumption of the risk.³ As with the simple tool doctrine, assumption of the risk originated in the employer/employee (or "master/servant") context. See Perez v. McConkey, 872 S.W.2d 897, 901 (Tenn.1994). The doctrine of implied assumption of risk has been stated as follows:

The servant on entering into the service knows, or is taken to know, that there are extraordinary dangers inseparable from such a...