IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 14-1165

Filed October 14, 2015

MARY MORRIS,

Applicant-Appellee,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Eliza J. Ovrom, 

Judge.

The State appeals from a district court ruling awarding Mary Morris 

damages. AFFIRMED.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, William A. Hill, Special Litigation 

Division, Assistant Attorney General, for appellant State.

Ward A. Rouse of Rouse Law PC, West Des Moines, and Van M. Plumb, 

Des Moines, for appellee.

Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Potterfield and McDonald, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Presiding Judge.

Bobby Morris was serving a life sentence at the Iowa State Penitentiary 

when he attempted to murder his wife Mary Morris during a prison visit. Mary 

sued the State for negligently operating the visiting room. Following a bench 

trial, the district court awarded her damages of $174,000.

On appeal, the State argues “the trial court erred in determining [it] 

negligently supervised the visiting room at the Iowa State Penitentiary.” The 

State raises a three-pronged attack on the trial court decision: (1) it was entitled 

to “discretionary function” immunity under Iowa Code section 669.14(1) (2009);

(2) the negligence claim was “barred by the public duty doctrine; and (3) “the 

claim should [have been] denied as Mary did not anticipate or believe that she 

would be assaulted prior to the visit.”

(1) Discretionary Function Immunity

The State is immune from tort liability for “[a]ny claim . . . based upon the 

exercise or performance or the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary 

function or duty on the part of a state agency or an employee of the state, 

whether or not the discretion be abused.” Iowa Code § 669.14(1). Assuming 

without deciding that the discretionary-function question was preserved for our 

review,1 we are persuaded it is inapplicable.

In Walker v. State, 801 N.W.2d 548, 554-55 (Iowa 2011), the Iowa 

Supreme Court concluded the exception did not insulate the State from suit by an 

inmate who was assaulted by another inmate. The court reasoned, “the 

 

1

In its ruling on the State’s judgment notwithstanding the verdict, the district court stated 

it “did not reach the discretionary function issue.” 
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decisions by prison staff in the supervision of the inmates did not involve the 

evaluation of broad public policy factors.” Walker, 801 N.W.2d at 561. The 

decisions made, the court said, “were ad hoc decisions” and there was “nothing 

in the record to suggest that in performing their duties, the correctional staff could 

have weighed competing ideals in order to determine how to supervise the 

inmates.” Id. at 563. 

The same is true here. At the time of the assault, one of the officers was 

providing inmates “dress out” clothing to wear during their visits and the other 

was assigned to observe the video monitors from within an enclosed area 

adjacent to the visiting room. These duties implicated no broad public policy 

factors. See Doe v. Cedar Rapids Cmty. Sch. Dist., 652 N.W.2d 439, 445 (Iowa 

2002) (“Only decisions grounded in economic, political, or social policy 

considerations are exempt from liability.”).

(2) Public Duty Doctrine

The State claims “if a duty is owed to the public generally, there is no 

liability to an individual member of that group.” See Kolbe v. State, 625 N.W.2d 

721, 729 (Iowa 2001) (ruling State owed no duty to plaintiff bicyclist when it 

issued a driver’s license to third party whose vehicle struck plaintiff). This is 

known as the public duty doctrine.

In Raas v. State, 729 N.W.2d 444, 449-50 (Iowa 2007), the court 

recognized the public duty doctrine was still viable following the enactment of the 

State Tort Claims Act. However, the court declined to apply it under 

circumstances virtually identical to this case. There, a visitor in the parking lot of 

a prison facility was attacked by an escaped inmate. Raas, 729 N.W.2d at 448-
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49. Citing precedent finding a special relationship between a State hospital 

patient and the treating State physician, the court reaffirmed a State duty to 

protect “reasonably foreseeable” victims from injury inflicted by escaped inmates. 

Id. at 449-50.

As in Raas, Mary was not a member of the public at large; she was a 

prison visitor. This status afforded her a special relationship with the State, 

triggering a State duty to control the prisoner’s conduct. The duty owed to her 

was arguably greater than the duty recognized in Raas because she was inside 

the walls of the penitentiary in a designated visiting area. The public duty 

doctrine was in applicable.

(3) Foreseeability

The State asserts Mary Morris failed to foresee any danger from her visit

and, accordingly, prison officials could not have “anticipated such violence or 

ha[ve] reason to suspect that an assault was likely to take place.” As the district 

court stated, this argument “miss[es] the mark.” 

Our precedent does not require foreseeability by the victim but 

foreseeability by the State. See Raas, 729 N.W.2d at 450 (“[T]he State’s duty to 

protect victims from injury inflicted by escaped patients or prisoners extends only 

to those persons who are reasonably foreseeable as victims.”). “The 

assessment of the foreseeability of a risk is allocated . . . to the fact finder . . . .” 

Thompson v. Kaczinski, 774 N.W.2d 829, 835 (Iowa 2009); see also Raas, 729 

N.W.2d at 450 (finding sufficient facts alleged to withstand motion to dismiss).

The district court as fact finder made detailed findings, as follows:
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[T]he State, through the prison guards employed by the Department 

of Corrections, was negligent in supervising the visiting room at the 

ISP . . . . This is the State’s highest security institution, with the 

most high-risk offenders. Inmate Bobby Morris was allowed to 

stand and move about the visiting room for approximately three and 

a half minutes prior to the assault. This violates visitation 

policy. . . . Bobby Morris also crossed the yellow line into the 

restricted area near the visitors’ bathroom. He was in violation of 

the rules when he did this. The guards admitted he should not 

have done this. This behavior was unobserved by . . . the guard on 

duty at that time.

Finally, a loud assault occurred in the visitors’ bathroom. 

This lasted five to seven minutes. There was screaming and 

banging. Neither guard heard this commotion. The surveillance 

videos show a number of people in the visiting room looking toward 

the restroom area in reaction to the screams. [A woman] got up 

and tried to get the attention of a guard. She knocked on the 

windows of the guard stations. No guard responded. [One officer] 

was doing dress-out in the dress-out room. [The other officer] was 

supposed to be observing the visiting room at this time. He could 

not explain why he did not observe these events—except that he 

must have been distracted. Even if he could not hear the screams 

from inside his “bubble,” he should have noticed the reaction of the 

inmates and visitors in the visiting room, and [the woman’s] 

attempts to get a guard’s attention. The length of time that no one 

was observing the visiting room—before the attack and during the 

attack—shows that the guard on duty failed to exercise ordinary 

care.

The State does not challenge the evidence underlying these fact findings. Under 

our existing law, the findings support the court’s determination that the State 

failed to exercise ordinary care. We discern no error in the district court’s 

conclusions. The judgment in favor of Mary Morris is affirmed.

AFFIRMED.