Torres v. Department of Correction, CV-01 0819015S.

• Decision Date: 22 February 2006
• Docket Number: No. CV-01 0819015S.,CV-01 0819015S.
• Citation: 50 Conn.Sup. 72,912 A.2d 1132
• Court: Connecticut Superior Court
• Parties: Maria TORRES et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION.

Page 1132

912 A.2d 1132

50 Conn.Sup. 72

Maria TORRES et al. v. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION.

No. CV-01 0819015S.

Superior Court of Connecticut, Judicial District of Hartford.

February 22, 2006.

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Gersten, Clifford & Rome, LLP, Hartford, for the plaintiffs.

Lynn D. Wittenbrink, assistant attorney general, for the defendant.

Hon. SAMUEL FREED, Judge Trial Referee.

I FACTS

The present case arises from the tragic and horrific murder of a one year old child that occurred in the state of Florida in 1990. The facts¹ related to the child's death are largely undisputed. On March 31, 1987, Alcides Quiles was arrested in Connecticut and, in May, 1988, was convicted on criminal charges, including more than one count of sexual assault, a count of robbery and more than one count of assault. One incident of sexual assault allegedly involved a minor. While Quiles was awaiting sentencing, he received four disciplinary reports; one for assault, two for fighting and one for self-mutilation. Quiles was convicted on the disciplinary report for armed assault on another inmate. On May 5, 1988, Quiles was sentenced to eighteen years of imprisonment for his crimes, to be suspended after twelve years. Initially, the state department of correction, the defendant, committed Quiles to a maximum security prison, Somers correctional institution (Somers), based on Quiles' risk classification.²

On May 31, 1990, the defendant reduced Quiles' risk classification. Quiles was then moved to the Carl Robinson correctional institution (Carl Robinson), a facility with a lower degree of security,³ on June 7, 1990. During the evening of August 31, 1990, Quiles allegedly gave away his personal belongings to other inmates in the presence of guards and undisputedly escaped from the prison by scaling its fence. Approximately two months later, on October 28, 1990, in Miami, Florida, Quiles abducted a one year old child, Yoanna Noda (the decedent), whom he raped and murdered.⁴

The decedent's mother, the plaintiff, then sought the permission of the claims commissioner to sue the defendant. From approximately the fall of 1999 to the spring of 2001, the claims commissioner conducted a hearing and testimony was heard from several witnesses.⁵ Ultimately, the claims commissioner denied the plaintiff permission to sue. Nevertheless, pursuant to General Statutes § 4-159,⁶ the state legislature issued a resolution giving the plaintiff permission to sue the defendant. Substitute House Joint Resolution No. 154 (2002).

On August 20, 2002, the plaintiff, individually and as administratrix of the decedent's estate, commenced an action for wrongful death against the defendant pursuant to General Statutes § 52-555. The plaintiff, in her first amended complaint, alleges that the defendant failed to exercise reasonable care by not maintaining custody, charge and control of Quiles, by failing to classify Quiles properly and by not apprehending Quiles after the escape. The plaintiff further alleges that the defendant's failure to exercise reasonable care caused the decedent's death and that the defendant knew or should have known that if Quiles escaped he might harm others, including children.

The defendant moved for summary judgment and filed a memorandum of law in support of its motion on November 15, 2004. As the grounds for its motion, the defendant claims that it owed no duty to the plaintiff or the decedent, that the injury to the decedent was not legally foreseeable, that no sufficient causal nexus exists in the present case, and that the public duty doctrine precludes recovery in the present action. On December 17, 2004, the plaintiff filed a cross motion for summary judgment, asserting a lack of triable issues of fact, and a memorandum of law in support of its motion that included a memorandum of law in opposition to the defendant's motion.⁷ The defendant replied to the plaintiff's memorandum of law in opposition to the defendant's motion for summary judgment on January 11, 2005. In the same document, the defendant also filed a memorandum of law in opposition to the plaintiffs cross motion for summary judgment, arguing that there are genuine issues of material fact. Oral arguments on the motions were heard on October 28, 2005.

II ISSUES AND DISCUSSION

"The motion for summary judgment is designed to eliminate the delay and expense of litigating an issue when there is no real issue to be tried." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Navin v. Essex Savings Bank, 82 Conn.App. 255, 258, 843 A.2d 679, cert. denied, 271 Conn. 902, 859 A.2d 563 (2004). "Practice Book [§ 17-49] provides that summary judgment shall be rendered . . . if the pleadings, affidavits and any other proof submitted show that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Hanks v. Powder Ridge Restaurant Corp., 276 Conn. 314, 321, 885 A.2d 734 (2005). "In deciding a motion for summary judgment, the trial court must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. . . . The party moving for summary judgment has the burden of showing the absence of any genuine issue of material fact and that the party is, therefore, entitled to judgment as a matter of law." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Cogan v. Chase Manhattan Auto Financial Corp., 276 Conn. 1, 6, 882 A.2d 597 (2005).

The issues regarding the present motions are whether the court should grant the motion for summary judgment in favor of the defendant on the grounds that: (1) the suit against the defendant is precluded by the public duty doctrine; (2) the defendant did not owe a duty to maintain custody, charge or control or to apprehend an escaped inmate to unforeseeable plaintiffs, two citizens of Miami, Florida two months after the escape; or (3) the plaintiff cannot establish proximate cause in the present case because, even if the defendant was negligent, it was too remote temporally and geographically to the harm caused by the escapee. Alternatively, the court must determine whether the plaintiffs cross motion for summary judgment should be granted on the ground that there are no genuine issues of material fact as to the elements of negligence.⁸

A The Public Duty Doctrine⁹

The first issue is whether a state entity, such as the defendant, may use the public duty doctrine as a defense. No appellate case law discusses this issue. Connecticut courts have analyzed the public duty doctrine mostly in the context of municipalities.

"A municipality itself was generally immune from liability for its tortious acts at common law . . . but its employees faced the same personal tort liability as private individuals. It was once said that as a general rule governmental officers and employees were personally liable for their torts, more or less without exception, even where the governmental unit itself was protected by an immunity . . . . [Our Supreme Court] first adopted a version of qualified official immunity in 1920 in Wadsworth v. Middletown, 94 Conn. 435, 439, 109 A. 246 (1920), where [it] said that since certain public officials were engaged upon a governmental duty . . . so long as they act in good faith, in the exercise of an honest judgment, and not in the abuse of their discretion, or maliciously or wantonly, they cannot be held liable. Thus, an exception to liability was carved out for discretionary acts, as long as they were not performed maliciously, wantonly or in an abuse of discretion." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, 208 Conn. 161, 165-66, 544 A.2d 1185 (1988). Thereafter, in Leger v. Kelley, 142 Conn. 585, 589-90, 116 A.2d 429 (1955), the court adopted the public duty doctrine, which "provided even more immunity to public officials." Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, supra, at 166, 544 A.2d 1185. Subsequently, the public duty doctrine was reaffirmed in Shore v. Stonington, 187 Conn. 147, 152, 444 A.2d 1379 (1982), where the court said: "[I]f the duty which the official authority imposes upon an officer is a duty to the public, a failure to perform it, or an inadequate or erroneous performance, must be a public and not an individual injury, and must be redressed, if at all in some form of public prosecution. On the other hand, if the duty is a duty to the individual, then a neglect to perform it or to perform it properly, is an individual wrong, and may support an individual action for damages." (Internal quotation marks omitted.) Id.

Over the years, more than seventy Connecticut cases have addressed the public duty doctrine. Almost all of these cases involve municipalities and their officers and, therefore, the doctrine has developed almost exclusively in this context. See, e.g., Williams v. New Haven, 243 Conn. 763, 707 A.2d 1251 (1998) (suit against city); Redfearn v. Ennis, 28 Conn.App. 398, 610 A.2d 1338 (1992) (suit against city); Trezzino v. Danbury, Superior Court, judicial district of Danbury, Docket No. CV-03 0349938S (Sept. 3, 2004) (Richards, J.) (suit against town); Vilton v. Burns, Superior Court, Complex Litigation Docket at Waterbury, Docket Nos. X06 CV-00 0169481S, X06 CV-00 0169482S, X06 CV-00 0169483S (June 22, 2004) (37 Conn. L. Rptr. 425, 2004 WL 1615850) (Alander, J.) (suit against city and two of its police officers). In the municipal context, the analysis of governmental immunity has come to encompass and to abrogate the public duty doctrine. See Gordon v. Bridgeport Housing Authority, supra, 208 Conn. at 170, 544 A.2d 1185 ("although the public duty doctrine provides the starting point of the analysis, distinctions between discretionary acts and ministerial acts are often controlling without regard to whether the duty is ascertained to be public or private"); Violano v. Fernandez, 88 Conn.App. 1, 11 n. 10, 868 A.2d 69, cert. granted, 273 Conn. 936, 875...