Spann v. State, Dept. of Corrections

• Citation: 421 So.2d 1090
• Decision Date: 06 October 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81-954,81-954
• Parties: Percy Lee SPANN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS and Glades Correctional Institute, Appellees.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Florida (US)

Page 1090

421 So.2d 1090

Percy Lee SPANN, Appellant, v. STATE of Florida, DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS and Glades Correctional Institute, Appellees.

No. 81-954.

District Court of Appeal of Florida,

Fourth District.

Oct. 6, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 8, 1982.

Raymond G. Ingalsbe and David Wiitala of Ingalsbe, McManus & Wiitala, P.A., North Palm Beach, for appellant.

Jim Smith, Atty. Gen., and Joe Belitzky, Asst. Atty. Gen., Tallahassee, for appellees.

HERSEY, Judge.

Percy Lee Spann, while an inmate at the Glades Correctional Institute, suffered burns when another inmate covered him with flammable liquid and ignited it. Spann filed suit against appellees based upon negligent failure to control the offending inmate. After a jury trial, the trial court directed a verdict for appellees. Spann appeals on the theory that the trial court utilized an improper test, more stringent than reasonable care, in concluding that as a matter of law no liability existed. We affirm.

The incident occurred shortly after 7:00 a.m. on the morning of July 8, 1976. At that time of day inmates are permitted to go to breakfast and to visit dormitories other than the one to which they may be assigned. A guard sits at the entrance to each dormitory in a structure somewhat like an iron cage. It was necessary for the inmate carrying a can of flammable liquid to pass within two or three feet of the guard, who was apparently inattentive at the time of the incident. The issue is whether the inattention of the guard is related to the ultimate injury in such a manner as to permit liability to attach.

A summary of the general law applicable in situations involving injury to an inmate is contained in 41 A.L.R.3d 1021 (1972) at 1025:

The prison environment has been a fertile ground for assaults, as it normally consists of confinement in close quarters and under unpleasant conditions of large numbers of persons, many of whom are predisposed to violence and frequently, to grudges, racial hatred, and homosexual jealousy. To these factors may be added the frequent impossibility of maintaining the desirable degree of isolation of the prisoners from each other, and the extreme difficulty of preventing them from fashioning weapons out of articles at hand, in which respect prisoners have demonstrated considerable ingenuity.

... A few principles have been universally applied or recognized as applicable in cases by injured prisoners against prison authorities or the like for injuries inflicted on them incident to assaults by fellow prisoners. Thus, many of the cases ... recognize or imply, and none deny, that in the absence of a statute to the contrary, the duty of care owed by prison officials and governmental units to prisoners in their charge is the duty of reasonable care. Similarly, many of the cases recognize expressly or impliedly, and none deny, that there is no liability on the part of a prison official or governmental unit in the absence of knowledge of the danger of an assault, or at least of reason to anticipate such danger.

In the case relied upon by the trial court, Parker v. State, 282 So.2d 483, 486 (La.1973), cert. den., 414 U.S. 1093, 94 S.Ct. 724, 38 L.Ed.2d 550 (1973), the court addressed the problem as follows:

The applicable rule has been frequently stated. A penal institution is not an insurer of an inmate against attacks by other inmates. The standard is that of reasonable or ordinary care. The majority rule is that in order to hold the penal authorities liable for an injury inflicted upon an inmate by another inmate, the authorities must know or have reason to anticipate that harm will ensue and fail to use reasonable care in preventing the harm....

... Scores of reports of this kind are received weekly in the prison environment. For liability, the law requires at least adequate reason to anticipate harm and failure to take reasonable action to avert it.

Thus, "[a] jailer must exercise reasonable and ordinary care and diligence to prevent unlawful injury to a prisoner placed in his custody, but he cannot be charged with negligence in failing to prevent what he could not reasonably anticipate." 60 Am.Jur.2d, Penal & Correctional Institutions, Section 23.

The final judgment specifies the basis for the directed verdict:

At the close of plaintiff's case in chief the defendants motioned the court for a directed verdict relying on Parker v. State, 261 So.2d 364 (La.App.1972), affirmed, 282 So.2d 483 (La.1973), and its progeny. The court is unaware of any similar Florida cases that interpret the duty of reasonable care in a prison setting. The court therefore declines the test for ordinary negligence as reflected in Florida Standard Jury Instruction 4.1, and instead adopts the holding in Parker v. State, supra, which requires the plaintiff to prove that the prison authorities must have known or had reason to anticipate that a harm would ensue and failed to use reasonable care in preventing that harm. The court is of the opinion that plaintiff's case was deficient only in that he failed to prove the defendants had reason to anticipate the conduct on the part of the assailant which resulted in the injuries complained of, i.e., there was no substantial competent evidence that any defendant knew or had reason to anticipate this particular course of conduct by this particular inmate.

Thus the trial court declined the test reflected in Florida Standard Jury Instruction 4.1...