Opinion ID: 557349
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure-to-train liability as a matter of law

Text: 44 The jury instructions on this issue were nevertheless harmless because Mason County's failure to adequately train its deputies constituted deliberate indifference as a matter of law. 45 The training that the deputies received was woefully inadequate, if it can be said to have existed at all. Sheriff Stairs himself never attended the State Training Academy and Undersheriff Harry Bud Hays had neither training nor experience. Although Washington law requires all police officers to complete academy training within fifteen months of hire, 2 Deputy Sowers did not complete the academy until sixteen months after he was hired. 46 Instead of academy training, the Sheriff's Department devised a field training program for the officers. While this program may have seemed adequate on paper, in practice it was never followed. Indeed, one of the Department's two original field training officers, both of whom quit, called the program a joke. The field training program was supposed to include tests, reports, and reviews by the field training officer and supervising sergeant on a periodic basis, yet there is no evidence that this was ever done. Although the program was supposed to last twelve months, in actuality it lasted only for a small fraction of that time. 3 One of plaintiffs' experts testified that as a result of the inadequacy of the field training program, the Department sent officers out on the street to perform police services without any training whatsoever. The officers involved in these four incidents had received minimal or no training. 47 At the time of the Durbin incident (June 29, 1985), Sowers had not attended the State Academy. His only training besides minimal field training, which was cut short, consisted of the explorer cadets, a program in which teenagers with interest in law enforcement rode with officers. Deputy Quantz had received no training whatsoever prior to the Taylor incident (July 20, 1985). 4 Although Deputies Gardner and Ohlde had attended the State Academy prior to the Davis incident (July 28, 1985), Deputy Cribben had not. He had only received minimal police-type training in other contexts, such as a private security guard. 48 The issue is not whether the officers had received any training--most of the deputies involved had some training, even if it was minimal at best--rather the issue is the adequacy of that training. City of Canton, 489 U.S. at 390, 109 S.Ct. at 1205. More importantly, while they may have had some training in the use of force, they received no training in the constitutional limits of the use of force. The Supreme Court in City of Canton declared: if the need for more or different training is so obvious, and the inadequacy so likely to result in the violation of constitutional rights, ... the policymakers of the city can reasonably be said to have been deliberately indifferent to the need. Id. The Court went on to say in a footnote that the need to train officers in the constitutional limitations on the use of deadly force can be said to be 'so obvious,' that failure to do so could properly be characterized as 'deliberate indifference' to constitutional rights. Id. at 390 n. 10, 109 S.Ct. at 1205 n. 10 (citation omitted). 49 In the case at bar, the deprivation of plaintiffs' Fourth Amendment rights was a direct consequence of the inadequacy of the training the deputies received. Mason County's failure to train its officers in the legal limits of the use of force constituted deliberate indifference to the safety of its inhabitants as a matter of law. 5 Moreover, there was certainly more than enough evidence presented regarding the inadequacy of training in order to survive Mason County's motion for a directed verdict on the issue of municipal liability. 50