Sparks v. Kim

• Decision Date: 13 November 1997
• Docket Number: No. 94-CA-00948-SCT,94-CA-00948-SCT
• Citation: 701 So.2d 1113
• Parties: Pat SPARKS, individually and on behalf of The Heirs at Law and Wrongful Death Beneficiaries of Will Holmes, Deceased, and Kimberly Taylor, a minor, by and Through Cathy Taylor, her natural Mother and Guardian v. Myung KIM, Juan Santos, John Dial, John Berry, William Tumlinson, Medical Doctors; John Doe, Betty Doe, Richard Roe, Unknown Medical Doctors, Nurses, Officers and/or Employees of Mississippi Department of Corrections; Leroy Black, Commissioner of Mississippi Department Of Corrections; and Steve Puckett, individually and a Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary.
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court

Page 1113

701 So.2d 1113

Pat SPARKS, individually and on behalf of The Heirs at Law and Wrongful Death Beneficiaries of Will Holmes, Deceased and Kimberly Taylor, a minor, by and Through Cathy Taylor her natural Mother and Guardian v. Myung KIM, Juan Santos, John Dial, John Berry, William Tumlinson, Medical Doctors; John Doe, Betty Doe, Richard Roe, Unknown Medical Doctors, Nurses, Officers and/or Employees of Mississippi Department of Corrections; Leroy Black, Commissioner of Mississippi Department Of Corrections; and Steve Puckett, individually and a Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

No. 94-CA-00948-SCT.

Supreme Court of Mississippi.

Nov. 13, 1997.

Ellis Turnage, Cleveland, for Appellants.

Michael C. Moore, Attorney General, John L. Clay, Special Asst. Atty. Gen., Jackson, for Appellees.

En Banc.

PRATHER, Presiding Justice, for the Court:

I. STATEMENT OF THE FACTS AND CASE

¶1 Will Holmes, an inmate in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, died of meningitis at Parchman Hospital on November 18, 1991. He became ill on November 7, 1991 and was allowed by the prison doctors to absent himself from work. Holmes was given Tylenol and other relatively minor treatments, which failed to improve his condition. Holmes was taken to Parchman hospital on November 15, 1991 and again on November 18, 1991, where he died that evening.

¶2 Holmes' wrongful death beneficiaries and heirs at law, Pat Sparks, individually and on behalf of the heirs at law and wrongful death beneficiaries of Will Holmes, deceased and Kimberly Taylor, a minor, by and through Cathy Taylor, her natural mother and guardian, filed suit in the Sunflower County Circuit Court on November 18, 1993. The suit sought both compensatory and punitive damages against Myung Kim, Juan Santos, John Dial, John Berry, William Tumlinson, medical doctors; John Doe, Betty Doe, Richard Roe, unknown medical doctors, nurses, officers and/or employees of Mississippi Department of Corrections; Leroy Black, Commissioner of Mississippi Department of Corrections; and Steve Puckett, Individually and a Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary who were prison doctors and other prison medical personnel and also named as defendants Leroy Black, Commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, and Steve Puckett, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary. ¹

¶3 On July 18, 1994, Myung Kim, Juan Santos, John Dial, John Berry, and Steve Puckett filed a motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, a motion for summary judgment, raising the defenses of "qualified, absolute, official and sovereign immunities." The Circuit Judge, finding that Miss.Code Ann. § 11-46-9 provided immunity to the defendants, granted the motion to dismiss on August 23, 1994. Sparks timely filed an appeal from said ruling.

II. LAW

¶4 Will Holmes died in 1991. Sparks' beneficiaries therefore assert that the circuit court erred in basing its order of dismissal upon the 1993 amendments to Miss.Code Ann. Section 11-46-1 et. seq., most particularly those made to § 11-46-9(1)(m). Section 11-46-9(1)(m) effectively cuts off a prison inmate's right to bring a negligence or wrongful death action against the State or its employees, but no such statute was in effect at the time the present cause of action arose.

¶5 Kim and the other appellees argue, however, that the Legislature has expressed an intent that the 1993 amendments to this State's sovereign immunity statutes be applied retroactively. Specifically, Kim cites Miss.Code Ann. § 11-46-3(1), which provides in part that:

(1) The Legislature of the State of Mississippi finds and determines as a matter of public policy and does hereby declare, provide, enact, and reenact that the "state" and its "political subdivisions," as such terms are defined in Section 11-46-1, are not now, have never been and shall not be liable, and are, always have been and shall continue to be immune from suit at law or in equity....

Kim argues that "the language of this statute is clear that legislative sovereign immunity shielded these Defendants from tort liability for negligent acts committed even before the passage date of this act."

¶6 This Court agrees with Sparks that the trial judge erred in dismissing the lawsuit based on a retroactive application of Miss.Code Ann. § 11-46-9(1)(m). Section 11-46-9 clearly states that it is effective from and after its passage, and the statute indicates that paragraph (m) was rewritten in 1994. It is also clear that state prison doctors and other prison medical personnel were not protected by the doctrine of sovereign immunity as it existed in 1991 because, at that time, sovereign immunity did not provide protection to individuals, but rather to the State and its political subdivisions. ² The statement of legislative intent in Miss.Code Ann. § 11-46-3(1) is thus inapplicable to the present suit against doctors and other medical personnel, none of whom are properly considered to constitute the "state" or its "political subdivisions."

¶7 After careful consideration, however, this Court concludes that prison doctors and other prison medical personnel such as those involved in the present suit should be protected by qualified public official immunity and that this Court's decision in Womble v. Singing River Hospital, 618 So.2d 1252 (Miss.1993) should not be extended to situations involving medical treatment decisions made by doctors working in the jails and prisons of this State. In Womble, this Court overruled then-existing Mississippi law which held that physicians engaged in the public service are qualifiedly immune from suit for medical treatment decisions made during the course of that service. Thus, prior to Womble, the plaintiffs in the present case would have been barred from suing the defendants herein under state law based upon authority such as Marshall v. Chawla, 520 So.2d 1374 (Miss.1988) and Hudson v. Rausa, 462 So.2d 689 (Miss.1984), both of which were overruled by this Court in Womble. ³

¶8 A review of the rationale for this Court's holding in Womble indicates that said rationale is not applicable to doctors working in prisons and jails. The first rationale offered by this Court in support of the holding in Womble is that:

None of these considerations undergirding common law qualified immunity are applicable to medical treatment decisions. First of all, there is nothing inherently governmental about decisions regarding individual medical treatment. They do not involve the formulation of public policy in any respect. Therefore, the notion of promoting governmental decisions that are in the public good is completely inapplicable.

Womble at 1263. The medical treatment afforded to prisoners involves governmental and public policy considerations to a greater degree than similar treatment issues involving non-inmates. Doctors working in state hospitals are not able to view their inmate patients as mere medical patients, but they must also view them as security risks whose treatment also involves considerations unrelated to medical necessities. The medical needs of prisoners must inevitably be weighed in the context of concerns regarding security, the sound and orderly administration of the prison, and the funding for said services provided by the government. This Court is aware that prisoners are entitled to adequate medical treatment, but the providing of this treatment involves additional considerations in the prison context.

¶9 The second rationale advanced by this Court in Womble is that:

The fact that a physician or other medical provider is employed by the State does not expose that physician to any greater threat of suit than he would otherwise face in private practice. He therefore will be no more discouraged by the threat of suit from taking actions he thinks are prudent, than he ordinarily would be as a private physician. Furthermore, the threat of suit will not discourage physicians from seeking and accepting government employment, because they will face the exact same potential exposure to liability that they would as private physicians.

Id. at 1263-64. It is likely that permitting lawsuits against prison doctors and other prison medical personnel would adversely affect the ability of prisons to hire competent personnel, and that the prisoners themselves would suffer from such a development. It is clear that the immunity granted to doctors working in public hospitals prior to Womble was based in large measure upon public policy, including the policy in favor of encouraging doctors and other medical personnel to work in public facilities which traditionally found it difficult to hire competent personnel. This Court considers this consideration to be an important one in the context of the prison, which clearly does not offer the most desirable working environment for a doctor.

¶10 This consideration is closely related to the third and final rationale advanced by this Court in Womble:

Finally, the judicial system is perfectly capable of adjudicating the reasonableness of medical treatment decisions. Our courts do it every day in medical malpractice actions across this state. The medical treatment decisions made by medical personnel at state health institutions are no different from the private medical care decisions that are currently being judged.

Id. at 1264. It should be apparent that there are serious public policy arguments against granting inmates access to yet another outlet for the exercise of creative litigation. The members of this Court need not be reminded of the number of lawsuits filed by prisoners every day and it can not be validly argued that a prison doctor would be at no greater risk of having to defend against lawsuits than one working in the private sector.

¶11 Granting qualified immunity to prison doctors and other medical personnel may bar some meritorious non-federal ⁴ lawsuits on the part of prisoners, but this Court...