Garrett v. Department of Corrections

589 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 2007 WL 5844121
CourtDistrict Court, M.D. Florida
DecidedJune 20, 2007
Docket5:06-cv-00400
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 589 F. Supp. 2d 1289 (Garrett v. Department of Corrections) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, M.D. Florida primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Garrett v. Department of Corrections, 589 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 2007 WL 5844121 (M.D. Fla. 2007).

Opinion

ORDER

WM. TERRELL HODGES, District Judge.

This gender discrimination hostile work environment action, brought under Title VII and the Florida Civil Rights Act, is before the Court for consideration of the Defendants’ Amended Motion for Summary Judgment. (Doc. 12). The Plaintiff has filed a response in opposition, (Doc. 18), and the motion is now ripe for disposition. The Court concludes that the Defendant’s motion is due to be granted as to the Plaintiffs request for injunctive, declaratory, and other equitable relief, and denied in all other respects.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

The pleadings, memoranda, affidavits and other evidence in the record, construed in the manner most favorable to the Plaintiff, disclose the following material, undisputed facts. 1

I. The Parties

The Defendant, Florida Department of Corrections, (“DOC”), is an agency of the State of Florida which operates approximately 68 prison facilities throughout the state. The DOC is responsible for all aspects of inmate supervision and care, including the provision of medical, dental and mental health services to inmates. The Office of Health Services, an agency within the DOC, supervises approximately 1,950 caregivers, including physicians, nurses, mental health professionals, pharmacists and dentists.

Several of the 68 prison facilities house close management custody inmates. Close management custody is used by the DOC as a security and management technique. It involves the confinement of an inmate apart from the general inmate population “where the inmate, through his or her behavior, has demonstrated an inability to live in the general population without abusing the rights and privileges of others.” Chapter 33-601.800, Florida Administrative Code. This designation is for the most difficult, incorrigible, and unmanageable inmates in DOC custody. Privileges and freedom of movement are severely limited; close management inmates spend almost the entirety of each day in solitary confinement, with only a very limited time for exercise outside their cells.

The Plaintiff, Jean Garrett, is a female who currently resides in Lake County, Florida. Garrett was employed by the *1292 DOC as a Registered Nurse Specialist, (“RN”), at the Lake Correctional Institution (“Lake Correctional”) in Lake County, Florida, from January 4, 2002 through her resignation in September 2002. Following her resignation, Garrett would periodically work shifts at LCI as a temporary employee until May 2005. As an RN at Lake Correctional, Garrett worked primarily as a psychiatric nurse in Lake Correctional’s psychiatric/mental health facility. Her duties included providing health care services to inmates throughout the facility, including those in close management custody. 2 More specifically, she assessed patients and made daily rounds, responded to medical and psychiatric emergencies, and dispensed medications to inmates. She was in regular contact with close management custody inmates.

II. Garrett’s Employment

Beginning within the first two weeks of her employment at Lake Correctional in early 2002, Garrett was subjected to male inmates regularly exposing their genitals to her and openly masturbating at her. The male inmates engaged in such conduct with respect to almost all female nurses. This conduct occurred at almost every prison facility within the supervision of the DOC, and was so commonplace that it became known within the DOC as “gunning.” 3

In addition to gunning Garrett, the male inmates would also make sexually degrading and demeaning comments, including describing Garrett’s genitalia in crude terms, and crudely stating the various sex acts they wanted to perform on Garrett. Inmates in all areas of Lake Correctional engaged in this behavior, even when Garrett was escorted by a male or female correctional officer. Close management inmates, however, engaged in the most frequent and most severe types of this conduct, usually during shifts when less experienced security officers were on duty. According to Garrett, approximately 90 percent of the close management inmates intentionally masturbated at nurses.

In an attempt to curtail this behavior, Garrett complained to a co-worker and supervisor. At first, there was no response, then her supervisors at Lake Correctional permitted her to form a committee to develop a protocol for dealing with offensive and obscene inmate comments and gunning. The committee determined that nurses such as Garrett should be authorized to write up inmate disciplinary reports when inmates engaged in gunning and obscene comments. Prior to this time, nurses were not authorized to write disciplinary reports; such reports were solely within the province of correctional officers.

The committee also determined that screens like those used to divide hospital beds could be installed in front of isolation cells and at times in front of the crisis stabilization unit in the psychiatric/mental health facility. The thinking was that if *1293 the inmates could not see the nurses, they would not “gun” for them. The screens were not perfect, however; inmates would instead stand on their commodes, sinks, and mattresses in order to be seen over the screens by the nurses while they masturbated. Other than permitting Garrett to form this committee, there is no evidence that any supervisor or official with the DOC investigated any of her complaints or made any further attempts to prevent inmate gunning until after Garrett’s employment ended.

Although Garrett completed and filed numerous disciplinary reports, they did not have any effect. Garrett was frequently told that the reports were useless and would be disregarded, and at times the corrections officers she gave them to would not even file them in the computer system. Garrett and other female nurses at Lake Correctional and other DOC facilities also raised other options in the hopes of stopping the gunning and other obscene behavior. They repeatedly asked the management at Lake Correctional to install one-way screens and one-way mirrors around the nurses station and medication room so that close management inmates in isolation could not see Garrett and the other nurses. Management refused then-requests, citing budgetary constraints. Garrett also requested that inmates in close management custody be fully dressed when she dispensed their medication or evaluated them. Her request was also denied.

Although some corrections officers were sympathetic to Garrett’s situation, most were not. Several corrections officers made comments to Garrett to the effect that she knew she was working in a all male prison when she was hired, and would have to just deal with the gunning, and that the female nurses deserved whatever treatment they received. Other correctional officers have made statements to Garrett to the effect that “women shouldn’t be here in the first place,” and “some women ask for it.” Many other corrections officers just ignored the inmates’ behavior, or refused to deal with it in any way. Garrett worked in this environment for approximately eight months.

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Bluebook (online)
589 F. Supp. 2d 1289, 2007 WL 5844121, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/garrett-v-department-of-corrections-flmd-2007.