Morgan v. District of Columbia

• Decision Date: 21 July 1987
• Docket Number: Nos. 85-5331,85-5709,s. 85-5331
• Citation: 263 U.S. App. D.C. 69,824 F.2d 1049
• Parties: , 23 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 232 Andrew Ellsworth MORGAN v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant (Two Cases).
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

Page 1049

824 F.2d 1049

263 U.S.App.D.C. 69, 23 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 232

Andrew Ellsworth MORGAN v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Appellant (Two Cases).

Nos. 85-5331, 85-5709.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia Circuit.

Argued Dec. 15, 1986.

Decided July 21, 1987.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (Civil Action No. 83-03660).

Charlotte Brookins-Pruitt, Asst. Corp. Counsel, with whom John H. Suda, Acting Corp. Counsel, and Charles L. Reischel, Deputy Corp. Counsel, Washington, D.C., were on brief, for appellant in Nos. 85-5331 and 85-5709.

Stephen L. Braga, with whom Randall J. Turk, Washington, D.C., was on the brief, for appellee in Nos. 85-5331 and 85-5709.

Before MIKVA, STARR, Circuit Judges, and McGOWAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge MIKVA.

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge STARR.

MIKVA, Circuit Judge:

This is an appeal from a jury verdict that awarded Andrew Ellsworth Morgan, a former inmate of the District of Columbia Jail (the Jail), $75,000 in damages for injuries he sustained in a fight with another inmate while incarcerated at the Jail. Morgan had sued the District of Columbia, alleging negligence and violations of 42 U.S.C. Sec. 1983 in the District's failure to protect him from his aggressor. Morgan's claims were premised largely on severe overcrowding at the Jail. At the close of all the evidence in the trial, the court denied the District's motion for a directed verdict. After the jury rendered verdicts in favor of Morgan on both claims, the district court denied the District's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, for a new trial. The court then awarded most of the attorney's fees and costs Morgan's counsel had requested. The District challenges all of these rulings. Finding no merit in appellant's arguments, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

This case has its origins in the conditions of the District of Columbia's jails generally and, in particular, of the Jail at which Morgan was confined at the time of the assault. Overcrowding has been a persistent, systemic problem in the District's prison facilities and has been the subject of continuous litigation for over fifteen years. The District built the Jail at which appellee Morgan was housed only after considerable prodding from the federal courts to ease the overcrowding problem in the old detention facility, in which conditions were notoriously appalling. See Campbell v. McGruder, 580 F.2d 521, 533-35 (D.C.Cir.1978). The new Jail, which houses both pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners, is designed exclusively for single-celling and has a rated single-cell capacity of 1,355 inmates. From the time the first sections of the Jail were opened in April of 1976, the district court has monitored inmate conditions.

For a time after the opening of the Jail, the District was able to keep the inmate population at, or at least close to, its rated capacity. By early 1981, however, the District found it necessary almost every evening to bus inmates from the Jail, where they stayed during the day, to penal facilities in Lorton, Virginia, where they slept. Such temporary solutions soon became insufficient to keep the Jail anywhere near its rated capacity, and by late 1981, the District was housing a large number of inmates in makeshift dormitories in the common areas of the Jail, as a result of which dayrooms could no longer be used for inmate recreation.

By October of 1982, the Jail population was more than 2,000 and growing at an average of over nine inmates a week. In light of the District's representation that overcrowding at the Jail had reached emergency proportions, the district court reluctantly permitted the District to institute double-celling as a temporary relief measure. However, in compliance with the constitutional requirements set forth in Bell v. Wolfish, 441 U.S. 520, 535, 99 S.Ct. 1861, 1872, 60 L.Ed.2d 447 (1979), the court established certain conditions on the use of double-celling with regard to pretrial detainees. See Campbell v. McGruder, 554 F.Supp. 562 (D.D.C.1982). Two months later, the court ordered the District to develop a plan to eliminate overcrowding in its detention facility. See Campbell v. McGruder, C.A. No. 1462-71 (D.D.C. Dec. 17, 1982).

The District failed to take remedial action, and the inmate population continued to swell. In May of 1983, the District's Assistant Director for Detention Services testified before the district court that overcrowding at the Jail had reached the "danger point." By June of 1983, when Morgan's injuries occurred, the Jail's inmate population passed 2,300, exceeding the rated capacity by more than 75%. That month, the district court declared that conditions at the Jail had reached "the point of crisis," and, frustrated with the District's continual unresponsiveness ordered the District to show cause why it should not be held in contempt. See Campbell v. McGruder, C.A. No. 1462-71 (D.D.C. June 27, 1983). On July 22, 1983, one month after Morgan had sustained his injuries, a riot did occur in the Jail, and order was not restored until the arrival of large numbers of policemen and guards armed with shotguns. In September, the district court found that the District had deliberately failed to obey its orders concerning overcrowding at the Jail and held the District in civil contempt. See Campbell v. McGruder, C.A. No. 1462-71 (D.D.C. Sept. 30, 1983).

On June 26, 1983, the day the assault occurred, Morgan was housed in the Southeast-Three unit of the Jail. Southeast-Three was a medical unit designed to accommodate inmates suffering or recuperating from medical problems. Southeast-Three was considered an "open population" unit; inmates were confined to their cells (or their bunks) only during meals and count times. The unit contained 80 cells and was, accordingly, designed to hold 80 inmates. The unit also contained two TV rooms and four dayrooms. On June 26, Southeast-Three housed approximately 120 inmates: 78 inmates were assigned to individual cells, and the remaining 42 inmates were assigned to three areas that had formerly served as two dayrooms and a gymnasium. Morgan, who was serving a sentence for a second degree burglary charge, was assigned to one of the dayrooms in which bunk beds had been placed.

Southeast-Three was staffed by three correctional officers. One officer was stationed at all times in the "bubble," a glass enclosed unit from which the officer can observe the entire cellblock. The other two officers patrolled the cellblock. Correctional Officers Smith, Harrison and Delegal were on duty in the unit at the time of the assault.

In addition to its role as a medical cellblock, Southeast-Three also served as an "overflow" ward for the Jail's mental health unit, South-Three. The forensic unit was intended to house those inmates who posed danger to themselves or others and who needed psychiatric care and supervision. South-Three differed from Southeast-Three in several significant respects. The inmate population in South-Three was restricted to 80 inmates who were kept locked-down in their cells during most of the day; no inmates were housed in open areas. The unit was more closely guarded than Southeast-Three: whereas there was 1 guard for every 40 inmates in Southeast-Three, there was 1 guard for every 20 inmates in South-Three. In addition, eight to ten medical technicians were on permanent assignment to South-Three. When there was insufficient space in South-Three, inmates who normally would have been housed there were shunted over to Southeast-Three.

The fight between Morgan and Donnell Hurt, who was also assigned to Southeast-Three, occurred on Sunday, June 26, 1983. After dinner that night, Morgan left his bunk in the dayroom and headed upstairs to the TV room with a jar of peanut butter and jelly which he had purchased in the canteen, several slices of bread he had saved from earlier meals, and a previously prepared sandwich. As Morgan neared the stairs, Hurt approached him and demanded a sandwich. Morgan refused, and a loud argument ensued. After a few minutes, Officer Delegal went to the top of the stairs and told the two men to stop arguing. Hurt then snatched the bread from Morgan's hand, touching Morgan's sandwich in the process, which provoked Morgan to throw the sandwich in the trash can. When Hurt grabbed for the jar, Morgan spit into it. Hurt, who had psychiatric problems as well as a history of physical violence, then punched Morgan in the face with his fist and began to pummel him about the face and body, as other inmates gathered around to watch.

There are two theories as to what motivated the altercation. One explanation is that it concerned the sandwich. The other theory was advanced by prisoner Kim Fleming at trial; Fleming testified that Hurt really wanted a sexual favor, not food, from Morgan on the night of the fight. Morgan, who was an admitted bisexual and known to be so throughout the cellblock, testified that he had had contact with Hurt on one other occasion several days before the fight, when Hurt approached him sexually and Morgan refused his advances.

The testimony at trial conflicted as to where the guards were positioned at the time the fight broke out, whether they intervened to stop the fight, and how long they took to do so. According to the guards, Officer Delegal succeeded in separating Morgan and Hurt after a few blows were landed, but the two inmates soon started shoving and hitting each other again. By this time, Officer Harrison, who had been standing beside the bubble when the argument started, had been attracted to the top of the stairs by the rush of inmates to the site. As Delegal strained to hold off Hurt, Harrison tried to get Morgan up the stairs, but Morgan resisted. Hurt then broke away and swung at Morgan, hitting Harrison in the shoulder instead and knocking the officer aside. The...