Wilkins v. Dist. of Columbia

• Decision Date: 24 July 2012
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 06–384(RC).
• Citation: 879 F.Supp.2d 35
• Parties: Antoine L. WILKINS, Plaintiff, v. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Columbia

879 F.Supp.2d 35

Antoine L. WILKINS, Plaintiff,

v.DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, Defendant.

Civil Action No. 06–384(RC).

United States District Court, District of Columbia.

July 24, 2012.

Donald M. Temple, Donald M. Temple, P.C., Washington, DC, for Plaintiff.

Eric Sebastian Glover, Phillip A. Lattimore, III, Tasha Monique Hardy, Office of the Attorney General, Washington, DC, for Defendant.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

RUDOLPH CONTRERAS, District Judge.

While being held at the District of Columbia Central Detention Facility (“D.C. Jail”), Plaintiff Antoine Wilkins was stabbed by another detainee. He brought this action against the District of Columbia, asserting (among other claims) that the stabbing resulted from the District's negligence. On July 26 and 27, 2010 the Honorable Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. presided over a trial in this case. The following day, pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a), Judge Kennedy entered judgment as a matter of law in favor of the District. Mr. Wilkins now moves for reconsideration of that ruling as to his negligence claim.¹

I. BACKGROUND

Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to Mr. Wilkins, Judge Kennedy summarized the facts of this case as follows:

[A]t 9:15 a.m. on the morning of June 14th, 2005, George Foreman, an inmate at the D.C. Jail held on charges of first-degree murder, received a pass to go to the jail's law library unaccompanied. The pass Foreman received ... has no signature indicating that Foreman arrived at the library. No one from the library called Foreman's housing unit to report that he had not arrived. So no corrections officer[s] were alerted [that] they should search for him.

According to plaintiff's expert witness, this failure to monitor inmate movements violated national standards for the operation of jails.

At 11:18 the same morning, the plaintiff received a pass to go to the jail's mental health unit. After exiting his housing unit, he saw Foreman talking to a corrections officer. Wilkins kept walking, but by turning he was able to see Foreman enter a mop closet. He also thereafter saw Foreman shake hands with another inmate. As the two men approached an area at the top of an escalator, Foreman stabbed Wilkins nine times with a knife.

During the presentation of the evidence there was testimony about mop closets like the one Foreman entered into prior to stabbing Wilkins. These closets are for storage of cleaning supplies. There was testimony that inmates had hidden contraband—that is, items that are not permitted at the jail—in the mop closets.

These closets are supposed to be locked at all times, other than when the jail is being cleaned each afternoon. But there was evidence from which the jury could infer that all inmates except those who did not have jobs cleaning in the jail had access to them.

According to the plaintiff's expert witness, keeping mop closets locked at times when the general inmate population is permitted to be in the vicinity of the closets is in accordance with national standards of care for the operation of detention facilities.

Trial Tr. at 4–5, July 28, 2010.²

Based on this evidence and pursuant to Rule 50(a), which permits a court to grant judgment against a party if “the court finds that a reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on” the issue in question, Fed.R.Civ.P. 50(a)(1), Judge Kennedy granted judgment to the District. Assessing Mr. Wilkins's negligence claim—the only claim at issue on this motion—Judge Kennedy concluded that Mr. Wilkins had failed to present sufficient evidence to allow a jury to conclude that the District could have foreseen Mr. Foreman's violent attack. Mr. Wilkins now seeks the court's reconsideration.

II. LEGAL STANDARD

Mr. Wilkins moves under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 59(a) and 59(e). The court will consider this motion under the latter rule, because “[r]egardless of the way a party characterizes a motion, a post-judgment filing challenging the correctness of the judgment falls within the perimeterof Rule 59(e).” Nyman v. FDIC, 967 F.Supp. 1562, 1569 (D.D.C.1997).

Rule 59(e) permits a court to alter or amend a judgment. Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). “A Rule 59(e) motion is discretionary and need not be granted unless the district court finds that there is an intervening change of controlling law, the availability of new evidence, or the need to correct a clear error or prevent manifest injustice.” Firestone v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C.Cir.1996) (per curiam) (internal quotation marks omitted).

III. ANALYSIS

A. Heightened Foreseeability and Ordinary Negligence Under D.C. Law

“ ‘To establish negligence’ under D.C. law, ‘a plaintiff must prove a duty of care owed by the defendant to the plaintiff, a breach of that duty by the defendant, and damage to the interests of the plaintiff, proximately caused by the breach.’ ” Sigmund v. Starwood Urban Retail VI, LLC, 617 F.3d 512, 514 (D.C.Cir.2010) (quoting District of Columbia v. Beretta, U.S.A., Corp., 872 A.2d 633, 641 (D.C.2005) (en banc) (quoting Potts v. District of Columbia, 697 A.2d 1249, 1252 (D.C.1997))). When a plaintiff seeks to hold the defendant liable for injuries caused by the intervening criminal act of a third party, District of Columbia courts generally apply a “heightened foreseeability standard,” Bd. of Tr. of the Univ. of D.C. v. DiSalvo, 974 A.2d 868, 871 (D.C.2009); Bruno v. W. Union Fin. Servs., Inc., 973 A.2d 713, 719 (D.C.2009) (per curiam), asking whether “the criminal act was so foreseeable that a duty arises to guard against it.” Sigmund, 617 F.3d at 514 (quoting Beretta, 872 A.2d at 641 (quoting Potts, 697 A.2d at 1252 (D.C.1997) (emphasis deleted))). Although courts usually consider “foreseeability ... important to issues of proximate causation and conformity to the standard of care, issues that arise only after a duty has been found,” the D.C. Court of Appeals has “repeatedly spoken of the heightened foreseeability requirement in terms of duty.” Workman v. United Methodist Comm. on Relief, 320 F.3d 259, 265 (D.C.Cir.2003) (citing Graham v. M. & J. Corp., 424 A.2d 103, 105 (D.C.1980); Potts, 697 A.2d at 1252);see also McKethean v. Wash. Metro. Area Transit Auth., 588 A.2d 708, 717 (D.C.1991); District of Columbia v. Doe, 524 A.2d 30, 33 (D.C.1987); Lacy v. District of Columbia, 424 A.2d 317, 323 (D.C.1980); Cook v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 354 A.2d 507, 509–10 (D.C.1976). This court will not “attempt to resolve, as surrogate for the D.C. Court of Appeals, the analytical framework under which foreseeability is considered,” Doe v. Dominion Bank, 963 F.2d 1552, 1560 (D.C.Cir.1992), especially when the en banc Court of Appeals has said that it sees “no need to reconsider that framework of analysis,” Beretta, 872 A.2d at 641 n. 4, and subsequently reaffirmed it. See DiSalvo, 974 A.2d at 871–72 (stating that “heightened foreseeability factors directly into the duty analysis” and that “consideration of whether a duty exists to protect another from intervening criminal acts includes consideration of heightened foreseeability”); Bruno, 973 A.2d at 719 (noting that, when considering cases involving liability for intervening criminal acts, D.C. courts “apply a heightened foreseeability standard in determining whether [the defendant] had a duty of care”); id. at 720 (discussing several cases involving liability for intervening criminal conduct where “liability was rejected as a matter of law because ‘foreseeability (hence duty)’ ” was not established (quoting Beretta, 872 A.2d at 642)). Rather, when exercising pendent jurisdiction over claims brought under D.C. law, this court's task is “to apply the law of the District of Columbia as its own courts would apply it.” Workman, 320 F.3d at 265;see Dimond v. District of Columbia, 792 F.2d 179, 188 n. 6 (D.C.Cir.1986) (“Although the District of Columbia is not a state, this court has treated it as such for purposes of applying the doctrine of pendent jurisdiction.”). Those courts plainly understand the heightened foreseeability standard to be an element of the duty analysis in most cases involving allegations of liability for negligent failure to prevent the criminal conduct of others.³

One prisoner's attack on another is certainly criminal conduct. But in cases alleging government liability for jailhouse assaults, the existence of a duty is obvious: “In the District of Columbia, and in every other jurisdiction of which we are aware, penal authorities are under a duty to protect and safeguard the prisoners entrusted to their custody.” Haith v. District of Columbia, 526 A.2d 17, 19 (D.C.1987); see also District of Columbia v. Moreno, 647 A.2d 396, 398 (D.C.1994) (quoting Haith ); District of Columbia v. Carmichael, 577 A.2d 312, 314 (D.C.1990) (discussing the District's “duty to protect [prisoners] from harm”). And so the D.C. Court of Appeals does not employ the heightened foreseeability standard when analyzing the government's duty to protect inmates from assault. Instead, that court applies “an ordinary negligence standard,” ⁴ under which an assaulted prisoner must establish an applicable standard of care, deviation from that standard, and injury proximately caused by the deviation. Hughes v. District of Columbia, 425 A.2d 1299, 1302 (D.C.1981) (“[T]he fact that an inmate is assaulted and sustains injuries, does not, by itself, establish liability. The plaintiff must establish by competent evidence a standard of care; that the defendant violated that standard; and that such violation proximately caused injury to the plaintiff.” (citation omitted)); see also Moreno, 647 A.2d at 398;Carmichael, 577 A.2d at 314;Haith, 526 A.2d at 19. Applying D.C. law, this Circuit does the same. Daskalea v. District of Columbia, 227 F.3d 433, 444–45 (D.C.Cir.2000) ( “Under District of Columbia law, prison authorities have ‘a duty to exercise reasonable care under the circumstances in the protection and safekeeping of prisoners'.... ...