Estate of Gaither ex rel. Gaither v. District of Columbia
| Decision Date | 08 September 2009 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 03-1458 (CKK). |
| Citation | 655 F.Supp.2d 69 |
| Parties | ESTATE OF Mikal R. GAITHER, by and through Pearl GAITHER, Personal Representative, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Columbia |
Eric I. Goldberg, John Moustakas, Kartik N. Venguswamy, Richard Lee Matheny, Paul Richard Friedman, Goodwin Procter LLP, Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.
Corliss Vaughn Adams, Office of the Attorney General, Shameka L. Gainey, Fulbright & Jaworski, LLP, Dwayne C. Jefferson, Eric Sebastian Glover, Phillip A. Lattimore, III, Zuberi Bakari Williams, D.C. Attorney General's Office, Washington, DC, for Defendants.
The above-captioned matter was filed by Plaintiff Pearl Gaither as mother and personal representative of the Estate of Mikal R. Gaither, who was fatally stabbed on December 14, 2002, while incarcerated at the District of Columbia Central Detention Facility ("CDF" or the "Jail"). Plaintiff named as Defendants the District of Columbia ("D.C." or the "District"); Odie Washington, both individually and in his official capacity as Director (now-retired) of the D.C. Department of Corrections; Marvin L. Brown, both individually and in his official capacity as Warden (now-retired) of the Jail; Dennis Harrison, both individually and in his official capacity as Associate Warden of Operations of the Jail; Zerline Brooks, in her individual capacity; Gounod Toppin, in his individual capacity; and Joseph White, in his individual capacity1 (collectively, "Defendants").2 As set forth in Plaintiff's Second Amended Complaint, Plaintiff alleges that Gaither's death resulted from Defendants' negligence as well as their deliberate and reckless indifference to conditions at the Jail that they knew were unconstitutionally dangerous. Plaintiff asserts three causes of action in her complaint against all Defendants, alleging a claim for violation of Gaither's constitutional rights pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983 ("Section 1983"), as well as claims for negligence/survival action and wrongful death.
Presently before the Court are Defendants' [146] Motion for Summary Judgment and Plaintiff's [147] Motion for Partial Summary Judgment. After thoroughly reviewing the parties' submissions, including the attachments thereto, applicable case law, statutory authority, and the record of the case as a whole, the Court shall GRANT-IN-PART and DENY-IN-PART Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment and shall GRANT-IN-PART and DENY-IN-PART Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, for the reasons set forth below.
More specifically, the Court GRANTS Defendants' motion insofar as Defendants seek dismissal of Plaintiff's claims against the Defendant Officials in their official capacity as redundant of her claims against the District and with respect to the Defendant Correctional Officers' claims of qualified immunity as against Plaintiff's Section 1983 claim. The Court, however, DENIES Defendants' motion insofar as Defendants assert that issue preclusion bars Plaintiff's Section 1983 claim. The Court also DENIES Defendants' motion with respect to Plaintiff's Section 1983 claim against the District, Plaintiff's negligence-based claims against all Defendants, and the Defendant Officials' claims of qualified immunity as against Plaintiff's Section 1983 claim, finding that genuine issues of disputed material fact preclude summary judgment.
With respect to Plaintiff's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment, the Court GRANTS Plaintiff's motion as conceded to the extent she seeks an order precluding Defendants from raising an affirmative defense based on allegations that Gaither voluntarily involved himself in an altercation, but DENIES Plaintiff's motion to the extent she seeks a similar order precluding Defendants from raising such affirmative defenses based on allegations that Gaither should have notified Jail officials of his involvement with a grand jury murder investigation.
Accordingly, Plaintiff's remaining claims are as follows: (1) Plaintiff's Section 1983 claim against the District and the Defendant Officials in their individual capacities; and (2) Plaintiff's negligence-based claims against the District, the Defendant Officials in their individual capacities, and the Defendant Correctional Officers in their individual capacities.
On December 14, 2002, Mikal Gaither was fatally stabbed by a fellow inmate while incarcerated at the Jail. Pl.'s Stmt. ¶ 1.3 The stabbing occurred while Gaither was housed in the in the Northeast Three Cellblock ("NE-3") of the Jail. Id. At the time of Gaither's death, Defendant Washington was Director of the D.C. Department of Corrections, Defendant Brown was the Warden for the Jail, and Defendant Harrison was the Deputy Warden for Operations at the Jail. Defs.' Stmt. ¶¶ 5-7. Defendants Toppin, Brooks, and White were the correctional officers assigned to NE-3. Id. ¶¶ 8-10.4
Although neither party in their briefing now before the Court has specifically addressed Gaither's status at the Jail at the time of his death, it is the Court's understanding from previous filings in this case that Gaither was in Jail awaiting sentencing in the D.C. Superior Court, having earlier pled guilty to one felony count of distribution of cocaine.5 For reasons that are unclear, however, the Second Amended Complaint incorrectly alleges that "Mr. Gaither was fatally stabbed . . . while he was a pretrial detainee at the Jail awaiting trial on drug charges." Second Amended Complaint, Docket No. [34] ("Sec. Am. Compl.") ¶ 2 (emphasis added).6 Quite obviously, having already pled guilty, Gaither was not—as the Second Amended Complaint asserts—awaiting trial, but rather was awaiting sentencing only. The Court highlights this fact at the outset because, as will become clear below, Gaither's status at the Jail at the time of he was stabbed is constitutionally-significant.
In the wake of Gaither's death, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department ("MPD") conducted an investigation into his stabbing at the Jail, and concluded that two of Gaither's fellow inmates at the Jail, Delonte Kent and Matthew Ingram, had forced Gaither into an open cell in the NE-3 cellblock, where they proceeded to stab him, causing the injuries that ultimately killed Gaither. Pl.'s Stmt. ¶¶ 13-14. A D.C. Superior Court Grand Jury indicted Kent and Ingram for Gaither's First-Degree Murder. Id. ¶ 14. The Grand Jury found that Gaither had been killed because of his previous involvement in the grand jury investigation into the murder of an individual by the name of Kenneth Muldrow, Jr. Pl.'s Stmt. ¶ 15. Ingram and Kent were subsequently tried for Gaither's murder, but were found "not guilty" by the jury on December 13, 2006. See Joint Status Report and Consent Motion to Lift Stay, Docket [30].
The remaining facts surrounding Gaither's incarceration at the Jail in December of 2002 are largely in dispute. In particular, the parties disagree as to many of the material facts relating to the policies, procedures and practices, as well as the conduct of the Defendant Correctional Officers, that Plaintiff alleges led to Gaither's death. Given the sheer number of factual issues raised by the parties and the number of allegations and defendants involved in this lawsuit, for clarity's sake, the Court shall address the remaining facts below in discussing and ruling upon the parties' specific arguments.
As explained above, Plaintiff, as mother and personal representative of the Estate of Mikal R. Gaither, filed the above-captioned lawsuit on July 1, 2003. See Compl., Docket No. [1]. On October 6, 2003—before Defendants' response to Plaintiff's complaint was due—the District moved, with Plaintiff's consent, for an order staying this civil case pending resolution of the criminal investigation into Gaither's death that was being conducted by the MPD. See Consent Mot. of Def. D.C. to Stay Pending Outcome of Criminal Case, Docket No. [7]. The Court granted the District's motion, and the case was stayed, effective October 8, 2003, pending further notice from the parties. See 10/8/03 Min. Order. The stay remained in place until January 4, 2007, when the Court granted the parties' joint request to lift the stay based upon their representation that the criminal investigation into Gaither's death was now complete and the related criminal trials had recently concluded. See Joint Status Report and Consent Mot. to Lift Stay, Docket No. [30]; see also 1/4/07 Min. Order.
Plaintiff filed her Second Amended Complaint on February 9, 2007, shortly after the stay in this case had been lifted. See Sec. Am. Compl., Docket No. [34]. Plaintiff asserts three separate causes of action against Defendants. First, Plaintiff sets forth a claim pursuant to Section 1983 for violation of Gaither's Fifth Amendment rights. More specifically, with respect to the Defendant Officials (in both their official and individual capacities) and the District (whom Plaintiff asserts is liable for the conduct of the Defendant Officials), Plaintiff alleges that they subjected Gaither to a "serious and unreasonable risk of violent injury as a result of the unconstitutional conditions at the Jail that were well-known to the defendant officials," including "pervasive violence; overcrowding; a shortage of necessary correctional officers; inadequate training of correctional officers; negligent supervision of correctional officers; inadequate policies, procedures, and practices for critical staffing, classification, and security; and failure to enforce such policies, procedures, and practices relating to critical staffing and security that were in effect." Id. ¶ 63. According to Plaintiff, the "[d]efendant officials' ongoing failure to address these unconstitutionally...
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