Court Opinion

ID: 9850872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:03:53.135139+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:44.925644
License: Public Domain

Brickley, C.J.
(concurring in part and dissenting *436in part). I agree with the majority that the individual defendants are entitled to judgment as a matter of law, and that the plaintiffs have demonstrated issues of material fact regarding the § 1983 claim against the City of Detroit. 42 USC 1983. I disagree, however, with the majority’s conclusion that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim under the public building exception.
The public building exception to the general tort liability immunity enjoyed by governmental agencies provides:
Governmental agencies have the obligation to repair and maintain public buildings under their control when open for use by members of the public. Governmental agencies are liable for bodily injury and property damage resulting from a dangerous or defective condition of a public building if the governmental agency had actual or constructive knowledge of the defect and, for a reasonable time after acquiring knowledge, failed to remedy thé condition or to take action reasonably necessary to protect the public against the condition. [MCL 691.1406; MSA 3.996(106).]
The only issue this case presents in regard to this exception is whether the condition of the cell in which Jackson was detained was dangerous or defective. The majority analyzes this issue solely by reference to Hickey v Zezulka (On Resubmission), 439 Mich 408; 487 NW2d 106 (1992), the most recent case decided by this Court to have addressed the public building exception. It is acknowledged that there are important factual differences between that case and the present one. Nevertheless, the majority concludes that Hickey should control. Ante at 429.
In Hickey, the decedent was arrested for drunk driving and placed in a. holding cell at Michigan *437State University by the Department of Public Safety. The cell had a heater, supported by four metal brackets that extended between one and two inches from the wall. The decedent hanged himself from one of the brackets.
The Court in Hickey held that the plaintiff had not stated a claim under the public building exception. The essence of that opinion is quoted by the majority:
To suggest that any physical feature of a jail cell, otherwise benign, that can conceivably become a part of a plan of one who is desperately driven to self destruction can become a "dangerous or defective condition” under the public building exception statute, simply crosses the outer limits of any reasonable reading of the intent of that statute when considered in the context of its history, purpose, and wording. [Hickey, supra at 426.]
I believe that the factual differences between Hickey and the instant case make this reasoning inapplicable here.
The cells at the MSU Department of Public Safety were specifically intended for temporary detention; no one had ever been held there for more' than a few hours. Before the decedent in Hickey, no one had ever attempted or committed suicide in any of the cells. Id. at 425.
In contrast, it is generally agreed that the purpose for which Jackson’s cell was assigned was as a detention area for Detroit’s general prearraignment detainee population. The plaintiff has argued, and I agree, that invariably among this population there are prisoners with deficiencies related to mental illness or substance abuse who will attempt suicide. This is starkly demonstrated by the statistics cited by the majority, which show that a large number of suicide attempts were *438made in detainee lockup facilities in the years before Jackson’s attempted suicide. Ante at 424-425. Unlike the cells in Hickey, an integral purpose for which these cells were used, was to house people who were mentally ill and potentially suicidal.
Whether a building is dangeroús or defective must be determined on the basis of the uses or activities for which it is specifically assigned. Hickey, supra at 425. Michigan jurisprudence provides that if a feature of a building is unsafe for the people who the building is designed to serve, that feature can be defective under the public building exception even if the injury itself was caused in part by the actions of the injured. In de Sanchez v Genoves-Andrews (On Remand), 179 Mich App 661; 446 NW2d 538 (1989), the plaintiffs’ decedent was a patient in a psychiatric hospital. The decedent hanged himself from overhead bars in a hospital bathroom. The Court stated:
Given that the rest room was assigned for use by potentially suicidal patients at a mental hospital, this condition [the dividing bars placed over the bathroom stall] was potentially dangerous in and of itself. [Id. at 669.]
The Court held that a question of fact existed regarding whether the bars were a defective condition. Id. at 670. The de Sanchez decision was cited with approval by this Court in Hickey at 423.
Similarly, in Lockaby v Wayne Co, 406 Mich 65; 276 NW2d 1 (1979), the plaintiff had been placed in a cell designated for mentally impaired individuals. He subsequently paralyzed himself by striking his head against the cell wall. Although the cell was specifically designated for mentally impaired persons, it lacked padding and other pre*439cautions tailored to the mentally unstable individuals who were incarcerated. This Court held that the plaintiff stated a valid claim under the public building exception, despite the fact that his injuries were self-inflicted. Id. at 76-77. See also Bush v Oscoda Schools, 405 Mich 716; 275 NW2d 268 (1979).
I think this case is more factually analogous to Lockaby and de Sanchez than to Hickey. In Hickey, the facilities in question were simply not meant to hold mentally unstable individuals, nor was there any reason to suspect that the cells would be used for that purpose. In this case, as in Lockaby and de Sanchez, the facility at issue was designed and intended for use by people who were potentially suicidal.
Another important factual difference between Hickey and the instant case is the method of destruction. The decedent in Hickey hanged himself from an inch-long metal extension, attaching a heater to the wall of his cell. Id. at 416. In this case, the decedent hanged himself on overhead bars in his cell, easily reachable and often used in the past for suicide attempts.
There is a paradigmatic difference between a case like Hickey, in which a person who wants to kill himself searches for and finds a way to do so, and a case in which an easy method of self-destruction is presented for an interested person to use. I submit this case is properly categorized as the latter type. With full knowledge of the mental infirmities certain to be present among those who inhabited the cells of the seventh precinct, the City of Detroit equipped the cells with overhang bars easily converted into a scaffold.
This is not, therefore, a case merely concerned with safety in public buildings, as the majority suggests. The injury to Mr. Jackson was occa*440sioned in large part by the physical condition of the building itself. See Reardon v Dep’t of Mental Health, 430 Mich 398, 413; 424 NW2d 248 (1988). A catwalk without a rail might not be a defective condition in and of itself, but no one would argue the point if it was specifically intended for use by the blind. Thus, Mr. Jackson’s cell, which was designed to hold people who might be contemplating self-destruction, was also defective. This is painfully evident from the fact that of the 128 suicide attempts in Detroit police lockups between 1978 and 1983, 86 percent occurred in lockups with exposed overhead bars.
Because Mr. Jackson’s cell presented such an obvious mode for his destruction, and because it was designed in part to hold mentally unstable people like Mr. Jackson, I would hold that the plaintiffs have at least demonstrated a question of fact in regard to whether there existed a dangerous or defective condition in the cell under the public building exception. I therefore respectfully dissent in part from the majority.
Levin, J., concurred with Brickley, C.J.