Ryan v. Burlington County
| Decision Date | 09 November 1987 |
| Docket Number | Civ. A. No. 85-2002. |
| Citation | 674 F. Supp. 464 |
| Parties | Timothy RYAN, Plaintiff, v. BURLINGTON COUNTY, et al., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey |
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Slimm, Dash and Goldberg by Joseph Goldberg, Westmont, N.J., for plaintiff.
W. Cary Edwards, Atty. Gen. of N.J. by Douglass L. Derry, Deputy Atty. Gen., Trenton, N.J., for defendants William H. Fauver and Joseph G. Call.
Kummer, Knox & Naughton by Stephen R. Knox, Parsippany, N.J., for defendant Michael J. Hogan.
On October 3, 1983, plaintiff Timothy Ryan was a pretrial detainee in the Burlington County Jail.1 He was a healthy, fully functioning human being capable of the things human beings take for granted. He could walk, feed himself, go to the bathroom on his own, and make love. On October 4, 1983, Timothy Ryan was rendered quadriplegic. The person who caused this injury, Michael Scott, was Ryan's cellmate and a criminal convicted of a crime involving death or injury to another. On October 4, 1983, Scott was awaiting transfer to a state run facility as a parole violator, and had been waiting for 58 days during which time he was involved in several violent attacks on other inmates.
This tragedy occurred despite a federal consent decree ordering the classification of prisoners as well as the capping of the number of inmates at eight instead of the ten housed in Ryan's cell on October 4, 1983. It occurred despite an Executive Order by the Governor of New Jersey authorizing the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections to take whatever steps he deemed necessary to efficiently allocate inmates of both state and county facilities to relieve the pressures caused by overcrowding.
The moving defendants, as discussed below, are not guilty of wholly disregarding the overcrowding pervasive in the state and county prisons. Indeed, the record is replete with special reports, letters, and memoranda detailing efforts to relieve this problem. Nevertheless, the record convinces me that the conditions at the Burlington County Jail on October 4, 1983 were the product of a system in which no one assumed ultimate authority. The county officials determined that the county was compelled to comply with state requests. The state officials, while overburdening the county prisons with state inmates, did nothing to assure themselves that those county facilities could handle the overload despite the fact that the same Executive Order which authorized the state officials to use county prisons also entrusted those officials with greater responsibility for those same facilities. And Ryan was gravely injured.
Ryan brings this action pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1985 alleging that numerous defendants, including Burlington County; the Burlington County Board of Chosen Freeholders ("Freeholders"); the Warden of the Burlington County Jail; other prison guards and officials; William H. Fauver, the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections; Joseph G. Call, Deputy Director, Division of Adult Institutions; the Burlington County Solicitor's Office; and Michael J. Hogan, the part-time Solicitor of Burlington County; have violated his constitutional rights under the Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.
On November 13, 1985, defendants Fauver and Call filed a motion to dismiss the complaint and all cross-claims against them or, in the alternative, for summary judgment. On December 13, 1985, I ordered that these defendants be deposed and reserved on the motion pending further discovery. In the interim, defendant Hogan moved for summary judgment. Discovery having now been completed, this opinion resolves both motions.
Essentially, the motions before me raise related questions which may be summarized as follows:
(1) What constitutional rights, if any, did plaintiff enjoy on October 4, 1983 when he was rendered quadriplegic?
(2) Are these defendants immune under Harlow v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 800, 102 S.Ct. 2727, 73 L.Ed.2d 396 (1982)?
(3) Is plaintiff's claim actionable under Davidson v. O'Lone, 752 F.2d 817 (3d Cir. 1984) (en banc), aff'd sub. nom., Davidson v. Cannon, 474 U.S. 344, 106 S.Ct. 668, 88 L.Ed.2d 677 (1986) and Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986)?
(4) If plaintiff has a claim for a violation of his constitutional rights, was plaintiff's injury proximately caused by the acts or omissions of any of these defendants?
In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to first recount in some detail the facts relating to the administration of state prisons in New Jersey, the history of the Burlington County Jail, and the role of each of these defendants.
New Jersey maintains a parallel system of incarceration. Pursuant to N.J.S.A. 2C:43-10(a), with certain exceptions not relevant here, a person sentenced to a term of one year or more is committed to the custody of the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections. A person sentenced to less than one year is committed "either to the common jail of the county, the county workhouse or the county penitentiary for the term of his sentence and until released in accordance with law." N.J.S.A. 2C:43-10(c). Responsibility for county jails is generally under the control of the county sheriff, N.J.S.A. 30:8-17, 18, unless the County Freeholders resolve to "assume and thereafter to exercise the custody, rule, keeping and charge of the county jails in their respective counties, and of the prisoners therein...." N.J.S.A. 30:8-19.
Despite this dual system of incarceration, the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections is directed to "promote a unified criminal justice system, including the integration of State and local correctional programs and probation and parole services." N.J.S.A. 30:1B-6(o). Indeed, the declared purpose of the Department of Corrections is "to protect the public and to provide for the custody, care, discipline, training and treatment of persons committed to State correctional institutions or on parole" as well as "to supervise and assist in the treatment and training of persons in local correctional and detention facilities, so that such persons may be prepared for release and reintegration into the community ..." N.J.S.A. 30:1B-3. The Legislature further declared that "the incarcerated offender should be protected from victimization within the Institution." N.J.S.A. 30:1B-3(c). It is understood that all persons sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a term of one year or more will be placed in the custody of the sheriff of the appropriate county who is obliged by law "within 15 days to transport him to the State Prison and there deliver him into the custody of the Commissioner of the Department of Corrections...." N.J.S.A. 2C:43-10(e).
Pursuant to its authority to supervise the county jails, the Department of Corrections in 1979, under the direction of defendant Fauver, promulgated a Manual of Standards for New Jersey Adult County Correctional Facilities. Exhibit P-2 to Plaintiff's Appendix in Opposition to Fauver and Call's Motion to Dismiss (the "County Manual"). See also February 26, 1986 Deposition of William H. Fauver at 49. The County Manual "defines the minimum criteria for the various functions and operations of county correctional facilities." Id. at 2. It also recites the basis for the Commissioner's authority to create these standards, N.J.S.A. 30:1B-10, which provides:
All functions, powers, and duties of the Commissioner of Institutions and Agencies and the Department of Institutions and Agencies with respect to all county and city jails or places of detention, county or city workhouses, county penitentiaries, county and municipal schools of detention, privately maintained institutions and non-institutional agencies and juvenile detention facilities for the care, treatment, government, and discipline of inmates are hereby transferred to the Department of Corrections ... The commissioner may ... promulgate such rules and regulations as he shall deem necessary to establish minimum standards for such care, treatment, government and discipline.
Of significance to this case is the requirement promulgated by the Department of Corrections and contained in the County Manual that there shall be separate management of inmates distinguishing inter alia between pretrial detainees and convicted prisoners and between aggressive inmates and passive/independent inmates. Id. at 28. Classification was a goal and obviously important. The design of facilities under construction must accomplish this goal. Id. at 2, 6.
Inexplicably, the statutory scheme does not authorize the Commissioner or the Department of Corrections to enforce these regulations. The Department does inspect county facilities, Fauver Dep. at 26, 28, but "prior to the executive order the Department would have to go to a court to enforce any recommendations that we felt were important enough that should be addressed." Id. at 28 (emphasis added).
On June 2, 1981, then Governor of New Jersey Brendan T. Byrne signed Executive Order No. 106. This order stated in relevant part:
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