Redmond v. Baxley

• Decision Date: 07 September 1979
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 5-72333.
• Citation: 475 F. Supp. 1111
• Parties: Ervin Donald REDMOND, Plaintiff, v. William O. BAXLEY, Charles Egeler, Perry M. Johnson, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Michigan

475 F. Supp. 1111

Ervin Donald REDMOND, Plaintiff, v. William O. BAXLEY, Charles Egeler, Perry M. Johnson, Defendants.

Civ. A. No. 5-72333.

United States District Court, E. D. Michigan, S. D.

September 7, 1979.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

William H. Van Duzer, Lansing, Mich., for plaintiff.

Peter J. Treleaven, Asst. Atty. Gen., Lansing, Mich., for defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER CONCERNING DEFENDANTS' MOTIONS FOR JUDGMENT NOTWITHSTANDING THE VERDICT OR NEW TRIAL

PHILIP PRATT, District Judge.

This case was brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983¹ by a prisoner who alleged that he was raped by three inmates while in a prison infirmary. The plaintiff sought to recover damages from two state officers, a nurse-supervisor and the Director of the state Department of Corrections, who were alleged to have been responsible for the impairment of his civil rights. At the close of the trial the jury returned a verdict against both defendants and in favor of the plaintiff for actual and compensatory damages in the amount of $130,000.

The evidence at trial, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiff, showed the following.

The plaintiff was transferred from a county jail to the State Prison of Southern Michigan at Jackson on April 21, 1974. Because he was 18 years old, diabetic, and potentially vulnerable to the coercion of hardened prisoners, he was placed in the youthful offenders section of the prison infirmary. This section consisted of six cells separated from the rest of the infirmary cells by a heavy wire mesh screen with locked access door. Within the screened-off section the prisoners were not locked in their respective cells, except at night. The nearest prison officer or guard on the floor (aside from a roving inmate nurse who patrolled the whole floor) was defendant Baxley (who was a nurse supervisor untrained in custodial techniques) located in an office "half a football field" away from the youthful offenders section.

The plaintiff was approached twice on his first day in the screened-off section at Jackson Prison, by three other inmates desiring sex. The first time he ran out to the wire mesh barrier and yelled for defendant Baxley. Defendant Baxley could not remember his response, but the plaintiff and another inmate present at the time testified that Baxley ignored the plea for help, basically telling the plaintiff to take care of himself. The inmate nurse did come to see what was wrong, but the plaintiff, intimidated by the looming presence of his three attackers, remained silent. A few hours later the three approached him again, this time forcibly raping the plaintiff. As a result of this experience the plaintiff suffered some bodily injuries and drastic psychological problems.

Defendant Johnson was involved in this incident in that he had been warden at Jackson Prison until his appointment as Director of the State Department of Corrections a little over a year before the rape of the plaintiff occurred. Defendant Johnson was aware of the dangers of homosexual rape at Jackson Prison. (For instance, he knew that a prisoner in the Jackson infirmary had been raped by an inmate nurse just months before the plaintiff was assaulted.) Yet defendant Johnson approved of the policies which contributed to the hazard of homosexual attacks such as the one the plaintiff suffered. For example, Johnson was responsible for the use of inmates as guards, the staffing of only one prison officer on a floor holding 37 inmates, the failure to train that officer in appropriate areas, the location of that officer's office half a football field away from those locked in the youthful offenders section, and the failure to orient arriving prisoners about prison security and the realities of prison life.

The defendants now move for a judgment notwithstanding the verdict, or in the alternative, for a new trial pursuant to F.R.C.P. 50(b) and 59. The defendants postulate numerous grounds for vacating the jury's verdict, but these may be distilled into four main challenges:

1) The Court erred in its determination of the applicable law;

2) The evidence adduced neither supported the jury's verdict nor sustained the plaintiff's burden of making out a prima facie case;

3) The damage award was excessive;

4) Prejudicial evidence was improperly admitted.

I. THE APPLICABLE LAW

The defendants argue at length in their brief about the legal standards which should have been applied in this case. Yet the defendants failed to complain of error in the jury instructions at trial, after being given ample opportunity to object. F.R. C.P. 51 mandates that

". . . No party may assign as error the giving or the failure to give an instruction unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection."

Despite the unqualified language of F.R. C.P. 51, some courts maintain that failure to object will not preclude reversal "in exceptional cases . . . to prevent a clear miscarriage of justice", that is, where there is "plain error". Nimrod v. Sylvester, 369 F.2d 870, 873 (1st Cir. 1966). Accord, O'Brien v. Willys Motors, Inc., 385 F.2d 163 (6th Cir. 1967) (judge gave no instruction on contributory negligence, a potentially decisive issue in the case).

The case at bar does not present the sort of extreme circumstances which may justify ignoring F.R.C.P. 51 and entertaining the defendants' contention that the verdict was "contrary to law". Counsel for the defendants approved of the instructions as proposed by the Court in chambers; counsel then twice declined to make objections upon the Court's invitation after the instructions on the law had been read to the jury (plaintiff's counsel did register several objections at these times). Furthermore, the error alleged is not blatant or perverse. Since the defendants contest what are basically nuances or shadings in the Court's interpretation of an unsettled and murky area of the law, it is impossible to characterize any possible error here as "plain".

Nevertheless, because of the importance of the issues involved in § 1983 suits like the one at bar, this Court will address at some length the defendants' contention concerning the applicable legal standards.

A. Personal Involvement

It is now settled that in § 1983 actions public officials cannot be held vicariously liable for the wrongdoing of others. Monell v. N. Y. City Dept. of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658, 692, 98 S.Ct. 2018, 56 L.Ed.2d 611 (1978); Coffy v. Multi-County Narcotics Bureau, et al., 600 F.2d 570, at 580 (6th Cir. 1979) ("Liability under § 1983 may not be imposed upon an official simply on the basis of respondeat superior."). So the defendants are correct when they assert that misconduct by subordinates or third parties cannot be imputed under § 1983 to an official who played no role in causing a deprivation of constitutional rights.²

The defendants would stretch this principle much farther, however, in an attempt to insulate public officials from § 1983 liability. The defendants suggest, that they could only be held responsible for the assault on the plaintiff if they had directly participated in the assault, for example, if they had been physically present when it occurred. If some other persons were the immediate cause of the plaintiff's injury then, the argument goes, the defendants could only be held liable if they induced those persons to carry out the assault by directing, authorizing, or encouraging such conduct. According to this reasoning § 1983 precludes recovery against public officials where those officials indirectly contribute to a deprivation of constitutional rights by merely maintaining policies which lead to that deprivation.

These propositions are mistaken because, aside from the question of fault or state of mind (discussed below), § 1983 only requires that there be a causal connection between the official's conduct and the constitutional tort. Monell, supra, 436 U.S. at 792, 98 S.Ct. 2018; Sims v. Adams, 537 F.2d 829, 831 (5th Cir. 1976). Section 1983, after all, plainly fixes liability on one who (under color of law) "subjects a person, or causes a person to be subjected" to a deprivation of his constitutional rights. The statute does not add the qualification that only a defendant who is the immediate, direct, or precipitating cause of the plaintiff's injury will be held liable.

Section 1983 "should be read against the background of tort liability which makes a man responsible for the natural consequences of his actions". Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 187, 81 S.Ct. 473, 484, 5 L.Ed.2d 492 (1961). Therefore it is misleading to frame the problem in terms of the extent of the defendants' involvement in the plaintiff's injury. All that must be shown on this score is that the defendants' conduct was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's injury.³ It is true that under some circumstances an intervening cause may be so unforeseeable and the defendants' contribution so attenuated or remote that the defendants may be relieved of liability—but this is merely an application of tort principles of proximate cause. Thus, a claim under § 1983 is stated where it is alleged that the defendant "has personally subjected the plaintiff to a deprivation of his constitutional rights or has caused the condition complained of or participated in some manner". Knipp v. Weikle, 405 F.Supp. 782, 783 (N.D.Ohio 1975) (emphasis supplied).

Finally, the defendants advert to case authority for the proposition that supervisory officials cannot be found liable under § 1983 if their sole involvement in the deprivation of the plaintiff's rights consists of an alleged failure to train, supervise, or control their subordinates adequately. However, this generalized principle does not accurately reflect the case law. Most of the cases cited by the defendants stand for the rule that a negligent failure to oversee the conduct of subordinates does...