Flanders v. Maricopa County

• Decision Date: 26 September 2002
• Docket Number: No. 1 CA-CV 01-0239.,1 CA-CV 01-0239.
• Citation: 203 Ariz. 368,54 P.3d 837
• Parties: Jeremy FLANDERS, a single man, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. MARICOPA COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Arizona; The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, an administrative agency of Maricopa County; Joseph M. Arpaio and Ava Arpaio, husband and wife, both individually and in his capacity as chief administrative officer of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees.
• Court: Arizona Court of Appeals

54 P.3d 837

203 Ariz. 368

Jeremy FLANDERS, a single man, Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant, v. MARICOPA COUNTY, a political subdivision of the State of Arizona; The Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, an administrative agency of Maricopa County; Joseph M. Arpaio and Ava Arpaio, husband and wife, both individually and in his capacity as chief administrative officer of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office, Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees.

No. -0239.

Court of Appeals of Arizona, Division 1, Department A.

September 26, 2002.

Law Offices of Joel B. Robbins By Joel B. Robbins, and The Law Offices of Tracy A. Gromer By Tracy A. Gromer, Phoenix, for Plaintiff-Appellee, Cross-Appellant.

Burch & Cracchiolo, P.A. By Brian Kaven, Daryl Manhart, Suzanne E. Ingold, Phoenix, for Defendants-Appellants, Cross-Appellees.

OPINION

LANKFORD, Judge.

¶ 1 Jeremy Flanders was severely injured after he was brutally attacked by other inmates at the "Tent City" Maricopa County Jail facility. Flanders brought an action in superior court against defendants, the Sheriff and his wife, the Sheriff's Office ("MCSO"), and Maricopa County. Flanders alleged that defendants' gross negligence and civil rights violations rendered them responsible for his injuries. A jury returned verdicts in favor of Flanders.

¶ 2 The County and the Sheriff challenge the judgment entered after the verdicts. By cross-appeal Flanders attacks the entry of judgment as a matter of law in favor of the County on the civil rights claim and the dismissal of MCSO after the verdict.

¶ 3 We address these questions: (1) Do verdicts initially inconsistent but later reconciled by the jury require a mistrial? (2) Does the evidence support the judgment? (3) Is the County liable for the Sheriff's civil rights violations? (4) Did the Sheriff waive a claim of qualified immunity?

¶ 4 We affirm the judgment in favor of Flanders. On the cross-appeal, we reverse the rejection of the civil rights claim against the County. We find it unnecessary to decide whether the superior court correctly dismissed MCSO.

¶ 5 We must review the evidence in a light most favorable to sustaining the jury verdict and affirm the judgment if substantial evidence supports it. See Warrington v. Tempe Elem. Sch. Dist. No. 3, 197 Ariz. 68, 69, ¶ 4, 3 P.3d 988, 989 (App.1999). "We must not `take the case away from the jury' by combing the record for evidence supporting a conclusion or inference different from that reached here.... `Courts are not free to reweigh the evidence and set aside the jury verdict merely because the jury could have drawn different inferences or conclusions or because judges feel that other results are more reasonable.'" Hutcherson v. City of Phoenix, 192 Ariz. 51, 56, ¶ 27, 961 P.2d 449, 454 (1998) (citations omitted). Our statement of the facts reflects this approach, focusing on the evidence that supports the verdict against the defendants. We discuss the facts at some length because defendants challenge the sufficiency of the evidence against them.

¶ 6 Flanders was an inmate in the jail facility known as "Tent City" because prisoners are housed in tents. He had been sentenced to a year of confinement in a Maricopa County jail. He was sent to Tent City in December 1995.

¶ 7 Flanders was a trustee, whose duties included serving meals to other inmates. To gain trustee status and the opportunity for activity this status offered, he had to live in Tent City. The other option was "regular" jail, where inmates are locked down for twenty-three hours a day. Half Anglo and half Hispanic, Flanders was pressured to join competing jail gangs. Flanders instead chose to be "by himself."

¶ 8 On May 10, 1996, Flanders had finished his trustee work, eaten dinner, and returned to his tent. He was alone and fell asleep in his bunk. During a shift change for jail guards, and apparently while he slept, Flanders was violently assaulted.

¶ 9 Flanders later could not remember what had happened to him and did not know why he had been assaulted. However, witnesses saw five or six individuals wearing hoods run into Flanders' tent. The group apparently pulled Flanders off his bunk, struck him with various objects, and kicked and jumped on him. No one could identify the attackers. Other inmates heard noises of the assault, including Flanders' moans and cries.

¶ 10 One witness saw an assailant use a tent spike to beat Flanders on the head, neck and shoulders. Tent spikes were made of steel rebar and were used to secure the tents to the ground. Another witness heard a tent spike drop on the concrete floor of Flanders' tent during the assault.

¶ 11 The attack complete, another inmate entered the tent and found Flanders unconscious, gasping for air, and spewing blood out of his mouth, nose and ears. Flanders had been bloodied and beaten so badly that the other inmate initially did not recognize Flanders.

¶ 12 No jail guards had arrived, so the other inmate carried Flanders over his shoulders for almost 100 yards, across the yard and into the main building. Flanders was laid at the feet of several detention officers. His eyes were rolled back in his head; his body was bloody and his face was swollen.

¶ 13 Flanders' injuries were severe and some were permanent. He suffered a closed head injury and was in a coma for several days. Permanent brain damage resulted. He has loss of motor function, loss of sensation in his left hand, and permanent loss of cognitive function causing short-term memory loss. Flanders also suffers from psychological problems, likely to be permanent, including anxiety and depression.

¶ 14 At the time of the attack, no guards were present in the yard or at the tents. No alarm sounded. No guard saw or heard the beating or noticed Flanders being carried across the yard.

¶ 15 Flanders sued the Sheriff,¹ the MCSO, and the County for the damages resulting from the beating. Flanders alleged that the policies set by the Sheriff on behalf of the County created conditions at Tent City which had violated his rights to humane confinement conditions under the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution.² These violations gave rise to the civil rights claim for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Flanders also asserted that defendants had been grossly negligent in operating Tent City and that their negligence had contributed to his injuries.³

¶ 16 At trial, the parties presented evidence about security problems at Tent City. The tents are located in a yard adjacent to a more permanent structure containing, among other things, toilets and showers, an area for meals, and a "day room."

¶ 17 Tent City is supposed to be a minimum security classification facility for minimum security prisoners on trustee status. The Sheriff described Tent City as a place where he was "entertaining drug dealers and sex offenders and murderers, too, with no more than two or three detention officers guarding them at any one time." He acknowledged, however, that some inmates who had been violent "on the outside" were also violent "on the inside."

¶ 18 Tent City has capacity for 1000 inmates. Most of the tents housed twenty men each, although two held forty each. The facility generally was full. Guards counted 900 inmates the day Flanders was attacked. Some inmates left the tents during the day for work release or to work as trustees, but by evening when Flanders was assaulted, most would have returned.

¶ 19 Guards were stationed indoors, in an area known as the "fishbowl," to observe inmates. However, guards inside the facility could not see the tents outside.

¶ 20 A single guard was assigned to the tent area and was expected to stay in the yard for eight hours. This guard ventured outside only occasionally, however, usually staying inside the air-conditioned fishbowl. On the day of Flanders' attack, the assigned yard guard was inside gathering his gear for the shift change when he learned of the assault.

¶ 21 Another guard was stationed in a tower in the corner of the yard, fifty-feet above the ground. Visibility from the tower into the tents and the surrounding yard was limited and the tower guard could not respond quickly to events in the yard.

¶ 22 Guard patrols were sporadic. After the regular head count was performed at about 6:00 p.m., guards rarely entered the yard. Flanders had been attacked at about 6:20 p.m. Inmates had a system for warning each other whenever guards entered the tent area.

¶ 23 The tents at Tent City are not secure. The Sheriff admitted that a tent was "only canvas" and could be uplifted easily. Tent flaps were usually open for ventilation, and inmates freely roamed in and out of the tents. A lockdown to confine inmates was impossible. According to one former inmate, "[Y]ou can do whatever you want in the tents."

¶ 24 The Sheriff conceived the idea of housing inmates in tents and was the architect of Tent City policy. He acknowledged that he had intentionally made conditions in the tents uncomfortable. The tents were neither air-conditioned nor cooled by evaporation: Evaporative coolers had been replaced by fans. Temperatures inside the tents could exceed 100 degrees, and the heat made the inmates irritable and tense. The Sheriff had also denied inmates access to cigarettes and coffee and the food was scanty and unappetizing. The Sheriff acknowledged that he had said that he may spend more to feed his dogs than it costs to feed inmates.

¶ 25 Contraband of various kinds, including weaponry, was pervasive. Some inmates returning from work release brought in contraband, but much more came in over the perimeter fences. The tents were surrounded by two chain link fences about twelve feet high and seven feet apart. Outside access to these fences could be gained from a nearby road, a parking lot, or the wall of a nearby office building. Inmates regularly obtained forbidden items by having them tossed over the fences, an activity facilitated by the absence of guards in the...