Opinion ID: 392171
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Deviations from the Count Regulations

Text: 28 Prison officials count inmates several times each day to ensure that no one has escaped. 33 During such counts, inmates are required to remain stationary in certain areas of the prison, usually their cells, until all inmates are accounted for. 34 Murphy's assault occurred sometime during the mid-afternoon count. His theory of liability is that the staff prematurely released inmates from their wings into the porch and communal areas before the institutional count had been cleared, and one of the four guards assigned to guard the dormitory was consequently on the porch with several inmates rather than on patrol inside the dormitory 35 at the time of the attack. Both actions, allegedly in violation of the applicable regulations, permitted at least one of his attackers to leave his wing and cross over to Murphy's dormitory to perpetrate the assault. Such unauthorized cross-overs, a recognized security hazard, 36 were prohibited by institutional regulations. 37 29 No one disputed the fact that on November 28, 1976, the staff allowed the residents of Dormitory # 3 off their wings following the completion of the dormitory count, 38 without waiting for the institutional count to clear. 39 Considerable dispute did exist at trial, however, as to whether this procedure violated the applicable standard of care. The inmate handbook containing the Youth Center's official regulations said merely that (a)ll residents must stay in their rooms until the count is cleared by the Dormitory Officer. (Emphasis in original.) 40 The appellant's expert witness testified that this meant, or should have meant, that inmates were to remain in their rooms until the institutional count cleared. 41 The officers on duty testified variously that the expert's interpretation of the regulation was correct and that the regulation meant only that residents were to stay in their rooms until the dormitory count cleared; after that they could go into the dormitory's communal rooms or on the porch 42 until the institutional count cleared. 30 There was also contradictory testimony over whether the officer who went out on the porch after calling in the count violated his duty to stay inside the dormitory and ensure that inmates also stayed on their wings. According to the appellant's expert, each officer should have been patrolling one wing of the dormitory to ensure that no inmate left his wing during the count. 43 The Youth Center officers testified, on the other hand, that placing an officer on the porch was the appropriate security technique for ensuring that youths, allowed in the common areas of the dormitory following completion of the dormitory count, did not leave the dormitory prematurely. 44 31 There was thus no question, and the trial judge did not conclude otherwise, that sufficient evidence existed to go to the jury on the issue of whether it was a negligent deviation from the prevailing standard of care 45 to conduct the count as the staff at Lorton admittedly did on the day of Murphy's assault. The judge granted the judgment n. o. v. because he found as a matter of law that the failure to prevent movement of inmates off the wings during the count could not be considered a proximate cause of Murphy's injury given the fact that a few minutes later, when the count was completed, the inmates were legitimately allowed to move around in communal areas of the dormitory and outside in the Youth Center compound. In other words, he appeared to conclude that because the attack could as easily have taken place later when movement was freer, any negligence in allowing out of wing movement before the count procedures were completed merely accelerated the timing of, rather than caused, the attack. 32 However, we do not find this reasoning satisfactory as a justification for overturning the jury's finding of negligent liability. There was testimony that the placement of both the officers 46 and inmates 47 was different during count and non-count periods. Thus, even if Murphy's assailants could have illegitimately entered into his wing during free time, a jury could nonetheless have inferred that the attack would have been more difficult to perpetrate when Murphy was not as likely to be in his room and when dormitory guards were not occupied with the count. The possibility that an attack might have taken place later under different circumstances does not excuse officers' irregular actions during the count which may have created an unreasonable danger of attack during that period of time and therefore proximately caused the attack. 48