Porter v. Hendrix
| Docket Number | 2:19-CV-00138-LPR |
| Decision Date | 24 July 2023 |
| Parties | DAMON DEWAYNE PORTER PLAINTIFF v. DEWAYNE HENDRIX, et al. DEFENDANTS |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Arkansas |
On June 6, 2023, the Court presided over a bench trial in this case.[1] The trial involved only one claim under the Federal Tort Claims Act. That single claim alleged that (1) the United States negligently failed to repair a hole in a prison shower, (2) Plaintiff Damon Dewayne Porter stepped in the hole and fell, and (3) Mr. Porter suffered injuries from the fall.[2] At the bench trial, the Court heard evidence and legal argument. Now, in accordance with Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 52(a), and after reviewing the entire trial record, the Court makes the following findings of fact and conclusions of law regarding Mr. Porter's claim.
1. During the time period involved in this lawsuit, Mr. Porter was an inmate at the Federal Correctional Institution in Forrest City, Arkansas (Forrest City).[3] He was serving a 151-month sentence for enticement to prostitution.[4]
2. Mr Porter was originally incarcerated at Beaumont Medium.[5] But sometime in 2015 or 2016, he was sent to Forrest City Medium.[6]
3. At Forrest City, Mr. Porter was housed in the A-1 Unit.[7] He was in cell 220.[8] The following picture shows Mr. Porter's cell in relation to the showers and much of the A-1 Unit.[9]Cell 220 is in the foreground of the picture, on the left side as one looks at the picture. The two rows of showers-one row above the other row-are in the background of the picture, on the right side as one looks at the picture.
4. The A-1 Unit has twelve showers.[10] Showers one through six are on the first floor and showers seven through twelve are directly above on the second floor.[11] Generally speaking, inmates may use any of these showers; the decision of which shower to use is left to the individual inmate.[12] 5. The following picture shows more clearly the two rows of showers.[13] Shower 8, which is the shower directly at issue in this case, is on the top row, second-from-the-left as one looks at the picture.[14]
6. On October 25, 2018, Mr. Porter took a shower in Shower 8.[15] There was a hole in the floor of Shower 8 as the result of water eroding away the tile.[16] The hole was about five to eight inches wide.[17] The deepest part of the hole was “approximately an inch and a half to [two] inches deep.”[18] It was located about ten inches from the back wall of the shower, almost directly below the shower head.[19]
7. Below are two pictures to aid in understanding the contours of the shower and the location of the hole. The first picture is an image of the shower taken in 2022, well after the hole was fixed.[20] That picture was taken from essentially the entrance to the shower, and shows the shower head, two drains, and no hole. The second picture is of the eroded tile and resulting hole in Shower 8 as it was on October 25, 2018.[21] That picture shows the drain closest to the shower head and the hole between the drain and the wall to which the shower head is attached.
8. The hole was there ever since Mr. Porter arrived at Forrest City in 2015 or 2016.[22]Mr. Porter knew about the hole for years.[23] And he knew it was getting worse bigger, and deeper over time.[24] Indeed, he had made efforts to report the hole to Forrest City staff prior to October 25 2018.[25] Despite the existence of the hole and Mr. Porter's knowledge of it, Mr. Porter chose to use Shower 8 almost exclusively from his arrival at Forrest City through October 25, 2018.[26]Mr. Porter does not suggest he forgot about the hole when he chose to use Shower 8 on October 25, 2018. The Court finds that, on October 25, 2018, before he entered Shower 8, Mr. Porter knew about the hole, its general size, and its general depth.
9. Mr. Porter was not the only one to know about the hole. Bureau of Prisons officials knew about the hole as well.[27] They knew about it and the need to fix it at least as far back as August of 2018.[28] And the reasonable inference the Court draws is that BOP officials knew about it long before August of 2018, especially since officials came around and did safety inspections at regular intervals.[29]
10. While showering in Shower 8 on October 25, 2018, Mr. Porter got soap in his eyes, inadvertently stepped into the hole, and fell to the ground.[30] The fall caused him some pain and resulted in some level of injury.[31]
11. All of the foregoing is either undisputed or only minimally disputed. The serious factual dispute (at least with respect to liability) is whether, on October 25, 2018, Shower 8 was the only shower in the A-1 Unit with hot water.
12. Mr. Porter testified that he usually used Shower 8 because it was the only shower with hot water.[32] This portion of Mr. Porter's testimony was focused generally on his entire term of incarceration at Forrest City up until the day of the incident.[33] As to the day of the incident, Mr. Porter also specifically testified that Shower 8 was the only shower in the A-1 Unit that had hot water.[34]
13. The Court credits the testimony discussed in paragraph 12 in part. To be clear, the Court finds that Mr. Porter sincerely believed, both before and on October 25, 2018, that Shower 8 was the only shower in the A-1 Unit with hot water. However, the Court finds that Mr. Porter has failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that, in fact, Shower 8 was the only shower in the A-1 Unit with hot water during his incarceration at Forrest City and on October 25, 2018.
14. The problem with Mr. Porter's testimony is a lack of personal knowledge. Mr. Porter testified that, when he first came to Forrest City, he used each of the available showers and, at that time, the only shower with hot water was Shower 8.[35] He also testified that, after this initial period, he used each of the other showers one or two more times before October 25, 2018-the date of his fall in Shower 8.[36] And he testified that each time he used the other showers, they did not have hot water.[37]
15. The Court assumes (fairly conservatively based on the testimony) that Mr. Porter was at Forrest City for at least 730 days (2 years) prior to the October 25, 2018 incident.[38] Over those 730 days, he used each shower other than Shower 8 only two or three times.[39] With respect to each shower, that's not enough to have personal knowledge that a particular shower was cold all the time or, specifically, on October 25, 2018. With respect to the showers cumulatively, he only used the 11 showers other than Shower 8 between 22 and 33 times-less than 5 percent of the days between his arrival at Forrest City and the day of his fall. Again, that's not enough to give him personal knowledge that the other showers were always cold or cold on October 25, 2018. Moreover, what he had personal knowledge of-in terms of the number of cold showers he had taken-does not make it more likely than not that only Shower 8 had hot water on October 25, 2018.
16. Aside from his own personal experience, Mr. Porter testified to seeing, over the course of his time at Forrest City, groups of other inmates running to get in line for Shower 8 as soon as their cell doors were opened.[40] And he testified that everybody in the A-1 Unit preferred to use Shower 8 because of the hot water.[41] Specifically, he testified that the only time another inmate would use a shower other than Shower 8 was if the inmate was brand new to the facility or if it was summertime.[42]
17. There are some problems with this testimony. First, Mr. Porter does not specify when he saw groups of inmates running to Shower 8. It is speculative to assume that Mr. Porter was saying this happened every day of his incarceration at Forrest City. The Court does not make that leap. Without knowing when this occurred, its evidentiary value is extremely minimal. Second, we know that Mr. Porter was not always present in the A-1 Unit throughout the day; he often left the unit for work in other parts of the facility.[43] Although he can testify to what he saw while he was present in the A-1 Unit, he can't testify to what other inmates did or didn't do while he was away from the unit working elsewhere in the facility.
18. Moreover, there was no competent evidence as to why groups of inmates were running to Shower 8 or not showering in other showers. To the extent Mr. Porter is relying solely on the fact that other inmates ran to Shower 8 or the fact that he didn't see inmates using the other showers often, it is sheer speculation as to why. For certain, the Court accepts that this evidence bolsters the idea that Mr. Porter sincerely believed Shower 8 was the only shower with hot water.
But Mr. Porter can't testify as to what was in the minds of those other inmates; in any event, those other inmates might have been operating on incorrect assumptions as well. And if Mr. Porter's testimony was trying to suggest what inmates told him about why they used Shower 8 and not the other showers, that's inadmissible hearsay if used for the truth of the matter asserted.
19. In a deposition admitted without objection at trial, Martha McGlawn (a Senior Officer Specialist at Forrest City) testified that she vaguely recalled that, at some unspecified time period, inmates would say “there might be hot water on the end showers or in certain spots certain times of the day ”[44] Even putting aside the hearsay problems with this statement, her vague and unspecific recollections don't come anywhere close to suggesting that Shower 8 was the only one with hot water on October 25, 2018. Indeed,...
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