Dawson ex rel. Young v. Campbell County

894 F. Supp. 1135, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20702, 1994 WL 831333
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. Tennessee
DecidedDecember 9, 1994
DocketNo. 3:93-cv-0646
StatusPublished

This text of 894 F. Supp. 1135 (Dawson ex rel. Young v. Campbell County) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. Tennessee primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Dawson ex rel. Young v. Campbell County, 894 F. Supp. 1135, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20702, 1994 WL 831333 (E.D. Tenn. 1994).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JORDAN, District Judge.

I

This is a civil action for damages under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for an allegedly wrongful death.1 The plaintiff says that her decedent, Mr. Young, was arrested on November 2, 1992, on a charge of driving a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant; that after his arrest and a blood alcohol content test at a hospital, Mr. Young was transported to the Campbell County, Tennessee, jail and delivered over to the custody of the sheriff of the defendant county, acting through the defendant deputy, the jailer; and that while he was in the jail, Mr. Young committed suicide by hanging himself. The plaintiff asserts that the defendants deprived her decedent of his right to due process protected by the Fourteenth Amendment.2

The plaintiffs claims are best expressed by paragraph XVI of her complaint:

Acting under color of law and pursuant to official policy or custom, Defendants Sheriff Ron McClellan and Campbell County knowingly, recklessly, or with deliberate indifference and callous disregard of Plaintiffs [decedent’s] rights, failed to instruct, supervise, control and discipline on a continuing basis Defendant [Deputy Green] in his duties to:
1) Protect incarcerated prisoners from doing harm to themselves.
2) To specially or routinely protect intoxicated prisoners attempting to do harm to themselves.
3) Taking ordinary or special measures to monitor prisoners such as Walter Young.

It can be seen that her claims against all defendants depend on the existence of a duty on the part of the defendant jailer, who was an employee of the defendant county and a subordinate of the defendant sheriff, to take care to prevent the plaintiffs decedent from harming himself while in custody in the Campbell County jail.

The civil action is before the court for consideration of the defendants’ motion for summary judgment [doc. 15]. The court has considered the defendants’ brief in support of their motion [doc. 16], to which are attached an affidavit and an unsigned copy of an affidavit, a copy of the transcript of the discovery deposition of the defendant jailer, and a videotape recording of the defendant jailer interviewing the plaintiffs decedent for intake into the jail; the signed affidavit of the Tennessee Highway Patrol trooper who ar[1137]*1137rested the plaintiffs decedent [doc. 17]; and the plaintiffs response [doc. 21] to the motion for summary judgment, with a supporting brief with the plaintiffs attorney’s affidavit attached [doc. 22], and another brief in opposition to the motion for summary judgment, with several exhibits attached [doc. 23]. The court has also considered the defendants’ reply brief [doc. 24], as well as the defendants’ response to the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment [doc. 26], and the defendants’ brief in support of their response to the plaintiffs motion for summary judgment [doc. 27] .3 The court finds that oral argument would not assist it in ruling on this motion.

The undisputed evidence in this case, presented by the testimony, in the form of affidavits and a deposition, of the officers who had custody of Mr. Young before his suicide, and presented also by the videotape recording of his intake at the Campbell County jail, shows that Sergeant Don Baird of the Tennessee Highway Patrol arrested Clifford Holland Young on a charge of driving under the influence of an intoxicant, on November 2, 1992, between 3:45 and 4 o’clock in the afternoon. After Sergeant Baird caused Mr. Young to pull his automobile off the highway and onto a shoulder, and asked Mr. Young to step out of his automobile, “[t]he driver could not stand without holding onto the side of his [automobile, and his] eyes were watery, his face was flushed, his speech was slow and slurred. He was also having trouble keeping his balance.” Sergeant Baird arrested Mr. Young and placed him in the back of the highway patrol cruiser. While in the back seat of the cruiser, the plaintiffs decedent attempted to get out of the cruiser, and in doing so, bent an inside door handle.

Sergeant Baird called for assistance in taking Mr. Young for a blood alcohol content test while Sergeant Baird waited on a tow truck. In summarizing his experience with Mr. Young, Sergeant Baird describes the plaintiffs decedent’s conduct as “uncooperative but not combative,” and states that he did not perceive the plaintiffs decedent to be depressed. He states that the decedent did not give any indication of a suicidal intention. For this reason, the sergeant did not advise Trooper Bobby Smith, into whose custody he delivered Mr. Young, that he believed that Mr. Young needed to be watched as a potential suicide threat.

Sergeant Baird does state in his affidavit that Mr. Young, while in the back of the sergeant’s cruiser, bent a door handle, and beat his head against the window glass. According to Sergeant Baird, “This is not unusual for an intoxicated person to do. I have had many intoxicated arrestees hit their heads on the door window.”

In Trooper Smith’s affidavit, he states that he arrived with Mr. Young at the hospital for the blood alcohol content test at 4:38 p.m., and that

[w]hile I was attempting to park my patrol unit, Mr. Young, sitting in the rear of my vehicle, began hitting himself in the face. I asked Mr. Young what he was doing, and he stated that he was trying to make his nose bleed. I thought Mr. Young was hitting himself in an attempt to set me up for a lawsuit. Therefore, I asked him to stop, and he began laughing and said, ‘You’re pretty smart.” He then stopped hitting himself in the face. I noticed no injury to Mr. Young as a result of his actions.

Trooper Smith, like Sergeant Baird, saw nothing in the plaintiffs decedent’s conduct which indicated that Mr. Young wished to take his own life. Trooper Smith therefore did not advise the jailer, Deputy Green, that Mr. Young needed to be watched. Trooper Smith describes his reaction to the news that Mr. Young had killed himself as being “shocked.”

The videotape recording of Mr. Young’s intake at the Campbell County jail shows nothing of a suicidal intention. While Mr. Young appears obviously intoxicated in the film, he is careful to check that the jailer counts his money accurately. In the film, [1138]*1138Mr. Young gives some money so that another can purchase a pack of cigarettes for him, and he specifies that he wants unfiltered cigarettes. He twice asks for matches, and is twice told that he cannot smoke in the drunk tank. He smokes two cigarettes, one after the other, while waiting, seated, at the desk. There is no hint in his behavior or speech of any violent intent towards himself or others.

The jailer, Deputy Green, testified that he perceived nothing in accepting Mr. Young into custody to warn of a risk of suicide. When Mr. Young was first placed in the drunk tank, he kicked and beat on the door, but the jailer did not find this unusual, given his prior experience with occupants of the tank.

In opposing the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, the plaintiff attacks the veracity of the log of drunk tank inspections, and points to inconsistencies between the log and the deposition testimony of the jailer, Deputy Green.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

United Mine Workers of America v. Gibbs
383 U.S. 715 (Supreme Court, 1966)
Bell v. Wolfish
441 U.S. 520 (Supreme Court, 1979)
John Doe v. Sullivan County, Tennessee
956 F.2d 545 (Sixth Circuit, 1992)
Horn v. Madison County Fiscal Court
22 F.3d 653 (Sixth Circuit, 1994)
Ray v. Thomas
232 S.W.2d 32 (Tennessee Supreme Court, 1950)
R.J. Betterton Management Services, Inc. v. Whittemore
733 S.W.2d 880 (Court of Appeals of Tennessee, 1987)
Roberts v. City of Troy
773 F.2d 720 (Sixth Circuit, 1985)
Danese v. Asman
875 F.2d 1239 (Sixth Circuit, 1989)
Xemas, Inc. v. United States
494 U.S. 1027 (Supreme Court, 1990)
Lubrizol Corp. v. Exxon Corp.
506 U.S. 864 (Supreme Court, 1992)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
894 F. Supp. 1135, 1994 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 20702, 1994 WL 831333, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/dawson-ex-rel-young-v-campbell-county-tned-1994.