Opinion ID: 854151
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Instruction on the Relevance of Audio-Video Monitoring Equipment

Text: Finally, Sauders alleges that the following jury instruction was too broad. I instruct you that none of the Defendants owed any duty to Mark Sowles to purchase or install audio-video monitoring equipment.... Absence of audio-video monitoring equipment ... at the Steuben County Jail shall not be considered by you in determining whether or not any of the Defendants are liable to Mark Sowles. We agree. Sauders objected that the instruction was not an accurate statement of the law. The court responded that the instruction was based on the law of the case, as established by the 1989 judgment. See supra note 5 and accompanying text. However, rules that became the law of the caseno duty to purchase the monitoring equipment, and immunity for the decision not to purchase the equipmentare distinct from the question of what constitutes reasonable care under the circumstances, one of which was the known absence of the equipment. The jury should have been able to consider whether, without the equipment, the County should have been more vigilant in making personal checks on Sowles. As the court correctly concluded, there is no duty to provide the equipment and its absence is not evidence of negligence. However, its absence is one of the circumstances together with all others that are relevant to the issue of the defendant's conduct. The instruction that the absence of the equipment shall not be considered in determining the County's liability, went too far in precluding the jury from considering all relevant circumstances.