Brantley v. Jones

• Decision Date: 11 March 2022
• Docket Number: A21A1251, A21A1252
• Citation: 363 Ga.App. 466,871 S.E.2d 87
• Parties: BRANTLEY et al. v. JONES et al. Brantley et al. v. City of Hiram et al.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

363 Ga.App. 466

871 S.E.2d 87

BRANTLEY et al.

v.JONES et al.

Brantley et al.

v.City of Hiram et al.

A21A1251, A21A1252

Court of Appeals of Georgia.

March 11, 2022

Reconsideration Denied March 29, 2022

J. Wayne Pierce, Atlanta, Kyle J. White, for Appellant.

Harvey S. Gray, Atlanta, Jason Christopher Waymire, Terry Eugene Williams, Lawrenceville, Alexandra Morgan Joseph, for Appellee.

McFadden, Presiding Judge.

On May 10, 2017, City of Hiram police officer Jennifer Darr arrested Lisa Michelle Ariail for driving under the influence and took her to the Paulding County jail for holding. While there, Ariail committed suicide. Ariail's daughter, Kelsie Brantley, filed this action both in her individual capacity and as the administrator of Ariail's estate, asserting a negligence claim against the City of Hiram and Darr, in her individual and official capacities, and against Paulding County and five detention officers employed by the Paulding County Sheriff's Office — Andrew Jones, Kallie Capes, Vida Davis, Kaitlyn Richardson, and Michael Hannah ("the detention officers" or "the officers") — in their individual and official capacities.¹

In these related appeals, Brantley challenges the trial court's orders granting summary judgment to the City of Hiram and Darr (Case No. A21A1252) and granting summary judgment to the five detention officers (Case No. A21A1251). (Earlier in the litigation, the trial court granted judgment on the pleadings to Paulding County, and Brantley does not enumerate that ruling as error.² )

As detailed below, we affirm the grant of summary judgment to the City of Hiram and to Darr in Case No. A21A1252, because sovereign immunity and official immunity, respectively, bar Brantley's action against them.

We also affirm in part the grant of summary judgment to the detention officers in Case No. A21A1251 to the extent that Brantley's action against them is based on alleged negligence other than the officers’ violation of a duty to check on Ariail every 15 minutes. We affirm because the trial court held that official immunity barred any such claims and Brantley has not enumerated that ruling at error.

But we reverse the grant of summary judgment to the detention officers in Case No. A21A1251 to the extent that Brantley's action against them is based on their alleged negligence in failing to follow a procedure requiring them to check on Ariail every 15 minutes. The trial court correctly found that the officers are not entitled to official immunity as to this claim because it involves a ministerial act. But, contrary to the trial court's conclusion, there exist genuine issues of material fact as to causation that preclude summary judgment. And we are not persuaded by the officers’ arguments that we should affirm the grant of summary judgment as right for any other reason.

1. Facts and procedural history.

We construe the facts in favor of Brantley, the nonmovant on summary judgment. See Gatto v. City of Statesboro , 353 Ga. App. 178, 834 S.E.2d 623 (2019). So viewed, the evidence shows the following.

Early in the morning of May 10, 2017, Darr stopped Ariail for a traffic infraction and ultimately arrested her for driving under the influence of both alcohol and medications. During the stop, Ariail told Darr that she took medication for depression.

Darr took Ariail to the Paulding County jail, arriving there shortly before 5 a.m. Detention officers Davis, Jones, and Capes were on duty at that time. Darr informed officers at the jail that Ariail was impaired and that she suspected Ariail had been mixing alcohol and medications, and she gave the officers a citation charging Ariail with driving under the influence of a combination of drugs and alcohol.

At the jail, Darr completed a medical screening form with input from Ariail. Darr was required to complete that form fully and accurately. Davis, as the shift supervisor on duty at that time, was responsible for determining whether Ariail could be booked into the jail, and she signed off of the medical screening form that Darr had completed.

Among other things, the medical screening form asked: "[H]as the arrestee demonstrated any behaviors that might suggest mental illness?" Darr replied "no" to this question. Ariail did not appear to Darr to have a mental illness. Moreover, Darr expressly asked Ariail if she had a mental illness, and Ariail responded that she did not. But Darr did not tell the detention officers that Ariail was taking medication for depression. Darr testified that she did not believe that the fact that a person took medication for depression necessarily meant that the person had a mental illness.

The medical screening form also asked: "[H]as the arrestee demonstrated any behavior that might suggest suicidal tendencies?" Darr replied "no" to this question as well. Ariail had not given Darr any indication that she was suicidal and, when Darr expressly asked Ariail if she had suicidal tendencies, Ariail responded that she did not.

Ariail, however, had a history of suicide attempts, and information about those attempts was in records accessible to the detention officers. The detention officers did not search those records for prior mental health or suicide alerts related to Ariail when she was brought to the jail. The detention officers also did not book Ariail into the jail when she arrived. Had they done so, they would have conducted their own medical observation and suicide screening of Ariail.

Instead, Capes searched Ariail and had her change into a jumpsuit, permitting Ariail (at Ariail's request) to keep her tank top, and then she and Jones placed Ariail in a holding cell. During this process, Ariail was intoxicated and smelled of alcohol, and she was emotional and acting belligerently. Ariail was alone in the holding cell.

Ariail was placed in the holding cell rather than booked into the jail so that she could become sober. This was in accordance with the jail's normal practice of putting heavily intoxicated persons in a holding cell for up to eight hours so that they could become sober before initiating the booking process.

The detention officers are all responsible for knowing the jail's policies and procedures. One of the jail's written procedures provided in part that "[i]nmates who are suicidal, assaultive, escape risks, mentally/emotionally disordered, or recovering from intoxicants shall receive in-person surveillance of at least every 15 minutes" (hereinafter, the "15-minute watch procedure"). (Emphasis supplied.) This procedure served the jail's written policy that, "[t]o ensure the safety and security of inmates and the facility, inmates in the Paulding County Sheriff's Office Adult Detention facility are provided direct in-person surveillance on a routine basis." During a 15-minute watch, a detention officer must actually see the detainee. But at the time of Ariail's death, the jail had no written procedure for how to inform the officers that a detainee was subject to a 15-minute watch.

Shift supervisor Davis agreed in her deposition that a detainee who has been placed in a holding cell to "sober up" for booking is "recovering from intoxicants." But Ariail was not placed on a 15-minute watch.

A shift change occurred at 5:30 a. m.; officers Davis, Jones, and Capes finished their shifts and officers Hannah and Richardson began their shifts. At that point, Ariail was still in the holding cell and had not been booked into the jail. Between 5:30 and 6 a.m., Ariail could be heard screaming from within the cell. No detention officers responded to the screaming, and Ariail stopped screaming around 6 a.m.

Officer Hannah was responsible for checking on Ariail. He was still in training and had a history of not adequately performing surveillance duties and of improperly changing information on the watch logs. Hannah did not make visual contact with Ariail every 15 minutes, as would be required for a 15-minute watch. Instead, five times during his shift Hannah looked through a window flap that provided a view of most of the cell but not the portion where the toilet was located, which was behind a metal privacy partition. And he did not make visual contact with Ariail each of those five times. The last time Hannah actually saw Ariail was between 6:36 and 6:45 a. m. At approximately 6:42 a. m., Hannah began distributing breakfast trays to detainees, but he did not give one to Ariail because he did not see her in the holding cell. He also did not see Ariail when he looked in the cell again at 7:30 a.m.

At 8:04 a.m., an officer entered the holding cell and found Ariail hanging by the neck from her tank top, which was tied to the metal privacy partition in the cell. Ariail was dead and her body was bluish in color.

2. Claims against the City of Hiram and Darr (Case No. A21A1252).

The trial court granted summary judgment to Darr on the ground that she was entitled to official immunity from suit, and he granted summary judgment to the city on the ground that, due to Darr's immunity, the city could not be liable for her actions under a theory of respondeat superior. The city also had argued to the trial court that it was itself immune from suit, and although the trial court did not expressly address that argument in his order, we may consider that theory in reviewing the summary judgment ruling. See Hardin v. Hardin , 301 Ga. 532, 537, 801 S.E.2d 774 (2017) ("Appellate courts ... retain discretion to apply the ‘right for any reason’ rule on de novo review and consider alternative legal theories or analysis not relied on by the trial court on summary judgment.").

Brantley makes three arguments on appeal: that Darr was not entitled to official immunity because her act of filling out the medical screening form was ministerial rather than discretionary; that the city waived its immunity from suit to the extent of its liability insurance; and that Brantley should be allowed to proceed with her derivative claims for punitive damages and attorney fees. As detailed below, we...