Court Opinion

ID: 9573350
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:53:15.054447+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:35:01.793203
License: Public Domain

SUMMERS, Justice,
dissenting, with whom WILSON, C.J., and KAUGER, V.C.J., and LAVENDER, J., join.
The trial court granted the State’s motion for summary judgment, finding immunity under 51 O.S.1991 § 155(6) — method of providing fire protection. Plaintiff appealed and the State in its brief urged the correctness of the trial court’s application of § 155(6)— method of providing fire protection. The Court of Appeals affirmed, relying on § 155(6) — it was the State’s method of providing fire protection. Plaintiff sought cer-tiorari and the State responded, arguing the State was doing nothing but providing fire protection.
*355Today is the first time a court of this state has applied to the facts of this case 51 O.S. 1991 § 155(22), the subdivision granting state immunity for any “Department of Corrections approved work release program.” The Court, on its own motion, finds immunity from suit in District Court1 in those words of that statute. Let us review the facts.
Thomas Horton was painting a cabin that day in Lake Murray State Park under a prisoner work release program. At no time prior to then had his assignments ever included firefighting, nor had he or the other inmates in the program ever received any firefighting training.
A grass fire broke out in the Park. Trained, municipal firefighters were summoned and had arrived on the scene. Horton’s work supervisor took him and his work crew to a site near the fire, where they were given shovels and toe sacks and told to help put it out. A flatbed truck driven by a State Tourism employee (not a firefighter) pulled up for them, and the inmates jumped on board. Neither Horton nor the other inmates had any protective gear for firefighting. The truck then drove into the grass fire, the driver’s idea being to get to the other side of the flames. Horton, perhaps in a panic, perhaps in a reasoned decision not to be on the truck when the gas tank exploded, jumped off and ran.2 In the process he was seriously burned. He sued the State, alleging negligence on the part of the Tourism employee. The State wins without a trial.
Are we, then, to take it from this Court that the Department of Corrections of this State approved a work release program which was to impress into firefighting duty inmates who have had no firefighting training, who have been furnished no fire-protective equipment, and who are told to get on a truck which promptly drives into the fire? I doubt we could find a DOC representative who would confess to “approval” of that sort of work release program. The Eighth Amendment would come to mind.3 The implications would be vast, especially in a nation widely regarded as the leader in protection of human rights.
The Plaintiffs brief before the Court of Appeals used the dictionary to define “method” as a systematic procedure for attaining an objective, the issue being whether this bizarre episode was the state’s “method” of providing fire protection. He argued by way of example, that if fire broke out in the classroom, and the teacher, instead of shepherding the first graders to safety, instructed them to fight the fire with their coats, that probably would not have amounted to the school district’s method of providing fire protection. His argument finds support in State v. Terrell, 588 S.W.2d 784 (Tex.1979), and Jackson v. Kansas City, 235 Kan. 278, 680 P.2d 877 (1984).
His analogy applies well to the thought that this incident was part of a Department-approved work release program. Absent express testimony that it was so approved I would neither assume nor infer Departmental approval. I would consider this episode an adventuristic aberration, just as it would have been had the teacher fought the fire with her first graders. I would not find immunity for the State in either § 155(6) or (22), but would let a jury determine who should be accountable for Horton’s burns.

.Department of Corrections inmates are not “employees”, and thus do not have access to the Workers' Compensation Court when they are injured on their jobs. In re Kroth, 408 P.2d 335 (Okla.1965); Clinton v. Crow, 488 P.2d 1232 (Okla.1971).

. As far as we can tell the gas tank did not explode.

. The Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits cruel and unusual punishments.