Opinion ID: 389247
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Does Lorton Fall Within the Contractor Exception?

Text: 19 Applying this control test to the facts in Logue, the Court held that the Nueces County jail was a contractor with the federal government within the exception to the FTCA. It cited to the fact that the Nueces County jail was a contract jail; the Bureau had entered into a contractual relationship with the county whereby the United States Treasury paid the county for housing federal prisoners. The contractual relationship was authorized by 18 U.S.C. § 4002, which provides: 20 For the purpose of providing suitable quarters for the safekeeping, care, and subsistence of all persons held under authority of any enactment of Congress, the Director of the Bureau of Prisons may contract, for a period not exceeding three years, with the proper authorities of any State, Territory, or political subdivision thereof, for the imprisonment, subsistence, care, and proper employment of such persons. 19 21 The contract incorporated by reference the various standards of care contained in the statute and regulations of the Bureau of Prisons. 20 412 U.S. at 523 n.2, 93 S.Ct. at 2217 n.2. However, it did not give the United States the authority to physically supervise the conduct of the jail's employees; it merely reserved to the United States  'the right to enter the institution ... at reasonable hours for the purpose of inspecting the same and determining the conditions under which federal offenders are housed.'  Id. at 530, 93 S.Ct. at 222. 22 The Court found on the basis of these facts that this contract reflected a division of responsibility which clearly contemplated that the day-to-day operations of the contractor's facilities were to be in the hands of the contractor with the Government's role limited to the payment of sufficiently high rates to induce the contractor to do a good job. Id. at 529, 93 S.Ct. at 2220. This division of responsibility demonstrated that the Nueces County jail employees were employees of an independent contractor and not employees of the United States within the meaning of the FTCA. 21 23 Lorton, however, is not a state or local institution; it is an integral part of the District of Columbia correctional system. 22 Two lines of inquiry must be pursued, therefore, before we conclude that Lorton, like the Nueces County jail, falls under the same reasoning the Court employed in construing the contractor exception in Logue. First, we will analyze the legal relationship between Lorton and the United States Government to insure that Lorton is not in fact acting as an agency of the United States or its employees acting on behalf of the United States. Second, we will examine the actual division of responsibility between the Bureau and the Department as it affects the care and treatment of federal prisoners housed in Lorton to see if apart from statute or regulation there are practical accommodations that evidence federal control over the institution so as to make it appropriate that the United States be held liable under the FTCA for the negligence of Lorton employees. 24
25 In 1909, Congress passed a special act 23 ordering the construction of Lorton Reformatory on federally owned property in Virginia. However, in 1946, Congress enacted a statute granting the governing body of the District of Columbia effective control over the Reformatory. 24 D.C.Code § 442, the 1946 Act, gives the Major and Council of the District of Columbia 26 charge of the management and regulation of the Workhouse at Occoquan in the State of Virginia, the Reformatory at Lorton in the State of Virginia, and the Washington Asylum and Jail, and (the) ... responsib(ility) for the safekeeping, care, protection, instruction and discipline of all persons committed to such institutions. 24 27 (Emphasis supplied.) The same statute explicitly delegates to the District of Columbia Council the power to promulgate rules and regulations for the government of such institutions, and to the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, the power to establish and conduct industries, farms, and other activities, to classify the inmates, and to provide for their proper treatment, care, rehabilitation, and reformation. Id. 28 More recent legislative events confirm Congress' continued intention to let the District control the operation of Lorton. In 1970 and 1973, while considering passage of the Court Reform Act 25 and the Home Rule Act, 26 Congress debated whether to reassert federal control over Lorton. On both occasions, efforts spearheaded by Senator Scott of Virginia 27 to transfer its operational control to the Bureau of Prisons failed. 29 The Reformatory is currently, and was at the time of Cannon's injury, staffed exclusively by employees of the Department. 28 These employees were hired, trained by and responsible to the officials of that Department, not the Bureau. 29 As the district court in Curry-Bey v. Jackson, 422 F.Supp. 926 (D.D.C.1976), 30 recognized, the officials of the Department have the power to formulate the regulations and policies under which their employees operate, and are not bound by those formulated by the Bureau. 31 Department officials, in turn, are responsible to the Council and Mayor of the District of Columbia. According to the undisputed affidavit of Clair Cripe, Acting Director of the Bureau, the D.C. Department of Corrections is an independent entity of the D.C. Government subject only to the supervision and control of the Mayor and Council of the District of Columbia. R. 10 (Defendant's Exhibit No. 9 at 2). He further stated that 24 D.C.Code §§ 441-42 precludes this office or the Attorney General from exercising any management control over the actions of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections as it regards the operation, classification and treatment of offenders contained within the penal facilities of that entity. Id. 30 As far as fiscal control over Lorton is concerned, the federal government exercises no greater leverage over it than over any other District of Columbia facility or agency. Although Congress must still approve the District budget, 32 it is the District government which proposes the allocations of money in that budget for the various departments and agencies and, conversely, decides which agencies must undergo reductions in personnel and funds. Thus in 1980, District officials proposed the personnel cuts in Lorton operations. 33 When they testified in support of those cuts, they compared their situation specifically to that of state correctional administrators. 34 It bears remembering that levels of inmate supervision in correctional facilities like Lorton are largely dependent on ratios of guards to inmates and the budget authority to hire such guards. 31 In sum, we have not been presented with, nor have we been able to find, any evidence that Lorton's statutory or legal relationship to the federal government differs from that of other District of Columbia agencies. In the absence of such a distinction, we would be hard-pressed to deviate from the general rule that the District of Columbia and its agencies are not federal agencies for the purposes of the FTCA. 35 32
33 In Logue, a contract defined the division of responsibility between the state and federal jailers. By contrast, no contract between Lorton or the Department and the Bureau or other federal agency acting on behalf of the Attorney General exists regarding the care of federal prisoners housed at Lorton. The appellant argues that this difference forecloses a holding that Lorton, like the Nueces County jail, is an independent contractor with the United States for the purposes of the FTCA. We find this argument meritless because the statutory and regulatory restraints on federal control over Lorton are the functional equivalent of the contract in Logue. The statutory authority for sending prisoners to state or local-run and District-run institutions is identical; 36 financial arrangements for the care of the United States Code offenders housed there are similar; 37 and federal requirements as to the care and treatment of federal prisoners at Lorton are, if anything, less intrusive. 38 34 Lorton houses three classes of prisoners: those sentenced by the District of Columbia courts for District of Columbia Code offenses, a group with which we are not concerned here; those sentenced by the United States District Court for District of Columbia Code offenses, such as Cannon; 39 and those sentenced by the United States District Court for general federal crimes. Although 24 D.C.Code § 425 commit(s) ... to the custody of the Attorney General all three types of prisoners, and additionally gives him the power to transfer these prisoners to other available, suitable, and appropriate institutions, the federal government differentiates between the latter two groups of prisoners for fiscal purposes. Lorton receives a per diem allowance, based upon an allocation of the facility's actual operating costs, 40 for each federal prisoner charged or convicted of a general federal offense that it houses. No difference appears to exist between this arrangement and those the Bureau makes for the care of federal prisoners in state-run institutions. The District is financially responsible for the upkeep of all District of Columbia Code offenders, including Cannon; a statute assesses the District in a similar fashion for costs incurred by the federal government in housing District of Columbia Code offenders in federal penal institutions. 41 35 The same regulations govern the commitment of federal prisoners to Lorton as to contract facilities. The applicable regulations require the Bureau to provide suitable quarters for, and safekeeping, care and subsistence of, as well as protection, instruction, and discipline of all persons charged with or convicted of offenses against the United States. (Emphasis supplied.) 42 The Bureau conducts periodic examinations of state and local facilities to ensure that they meet the Bureau's standards for suitability, although neither their regulations, contracts, nor internal policies provide for Bureau monitoring of the day-to-day programs and activities of these non-federal facilities. 43 The Bureau, on the other hand, does not conduct any inspections of Lorton, on the basis of its belief that even this minimal intrusion would interfere with the power of supervision delegated by statute to the Mayor of the District of Columbia. 44 Thus, the Bureau of Prisons' and the Attorney General's control of Cannon's jailers is even more attenuated than that found insufficient to establish federal liability under the FTCA by the Court in Logue. 36 That this division of responsibility is established by statute rather than contract is irrelevant, insofar as liability under the FTCA is concerned. It effectively ensures that Lorton is no more under the day-to-day control of the federal government than are contracting state and local facilities. 45 37
38 The affidavit of the Acting Director of the Bureau of Prisons stated unequivocally: 46 39 As the agency acting on behalf of the authority of the Attorney General with regard to the confinement of prisoners in the custody of the Attorney General this office does not exercise supervisory, management or monitoring control over the operation of the District of Columbia's Lorton Reformatory. In order to exercise a degree of power commensurate with the Attorney General's responsibility for the safekeeping of federal prisoners, whether sentenced pursuant to the D.C.Code or the U.S.Code, this office would have to conduct periodic program and management audits, direct the actions of, appoint and terminate employees, issue, and monitor implementation of such regulations deemed necessary to manage such facilities, and require the submission of continuing reports regarding the progress of individual offenders and the management of these penal facilities. It is the understanding of this office that the provisions of 24 D.C.Code 441 and 442 precludes this office or the Attorney General from exercising any management control over the actions of the District of Columbia Department of Corrections as it regards the operation, classification and treatment of offenders contained within the penal facilities of that entity. 40 The District of Columbia Department of Corrections official in charge of Lorton was equally adamant as to the lack of federal interference in Lorton's affairs. He testified at trial that the Attorney General does not supervise the day-to-day treatment of any inmates incarcerated there, and that the federal government neither issues guidelines regarding the operational management or daily activities of that institution nor even provides minimum standards that must be met in caring for federal prisoners. 47 41 In view of this record and the total lack of contrary evidence, we conclude that the actual relationship between the federal government and Lorton is as described in statute and case law: the functional equivalent of the contractor relationship that exists between the federal government and a state or county facility in which it lodges prisoners.
42 Finally, appellant relies on several statutes and prior cases dealing with various aspects of the District-federal relationship, acknowledgedly a sui generis one, to provide a basis for bringing Lorton prisoners sentenced in a federal court under the Act. The most important precedent he cites, and upon which the district court relied in denying the appellee's motion to dismiss, is this court's decision in Close v. United States, 397 F.2d 686 (D.C.Cir.1968). That case held that a federal prisoner injured through the negligence of his custodians at the District of Columbia Jail could sue the United States under the FTCA. In Close, decided both before Logue and the advent of the Home Rule legislation, 48 the court surmised, despite an affidavit from a Bureau official attesting that the District of Columbia Jail was not under the jurisdiction of the federal government, that the Attorney General's acknowledged legal custody over the prisoner meant it must be true or at least it does not appear from the record to the contrary that, as to this federal prisoner, the Attorney General had some degree of power, commensurate with his continuing responsibility, to supervise the D.C. jailer in his handling of this particular prisoner. 397 F.2d at 687 & n.2. However, the Close case was decided before the Supreme Court definitively held in Logue that the federal government must have actual control over the physical conduct of prison employees engaged in the supervision and treatment of a prisoner at the time the injury occurred, not merely the legal authority to designate the place of his confinement, in order to hold it liable under the FTCA. Logue, like Cannon, had been committed to the custody of the Attorney General; yet the Court found that legal control insufficient to invoke liability in light of the state jailer's control over the way in which the prisoner's day-to-day supervision and care were carried out. This court is no longer free, especially in view of the contrary evidence contained in this record, 49 to surmise that the legal control existing in Close and in this case necessarily gives rise to the physical control deemed essential in Logue to accrue liability under the FTCA. To the extent Close holds that an actual demonstration of federal control over day-to-day supervisory operations of the prison is unnecessary for FTCA liability for injuries to prisoners in the legal custody of the Attorney General, we believe it has been superseded by Logue. 50 43 The other cases cited by the appellant, which hold that the Attorney General has the power to determine furlough regulations for Lorton, 51 and that Lorton prisoners sentenced in United States district court have federal habeas corpus rights 52 are also inapposite, as those holdings arise from the power of a federal court to ensure that the custodians of persons it sentences are not violating their constitutional rights and from the undisputed legal custody of the Attorney General over all District of Columbia prisoners and his statutory right to transfer them at his will. 53 That legal custody, as we have said, no longer suffices as either an independent basis for jurisdiction under the FTCA or as a basis for inferring the kind of day-to-day custodial control that Logue demands for such jurisdiction.