Court Opinion

ID: 9786956
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:06:33.374701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:50.562013
License: Public Domain

FABE, Justice,
with whom CARPENETI, Justice, joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I agree with the court’s conclusion that B.R. should be permitted to bring a claim based on the State’s breach of its “special protective duty” to inmates, and that a claim sounding in this duty is distinguishable from the one rejected in Kinegak v. State, Department of Corrections.1 I write separately, however, to point out two additional reasons for allowing B.R.’s negligent hiring and supervision claim to proceed. First, unlike the conduct at issue in Kinegak, the conduct at issue here is unrelated to the core functions of DOC. A second basis for distinguishing this case is that Kinegak should be interpreted as narrowly as possible on public policy grounds.
I. Relation Between the Conduct at Issue and Core Governmental Functions
One of the primary goals of sovereign immunity is to prevent litigation from impeding the essential functions of state government.2 For example, arrest decisions are generally given a wide degree of latitude because permitting plaintiffs to sue the government for good-faith arrest decisions that later prove to be incorrect could endanger public safety by deterring police from making proper arrests.
The conduct at issue in Kinegak — keeping records of prisoners’ release dates — was clearly an essential function of DOC. But no such argument can be made for the conduct at issue here. Although providing medical care to inmates is indeed an essential function, the specific conduct at issue here is DOC’s unnecessary placement of B.R. in a situation in which she was likely to be sexually assaulted, even after she had reported a previous assault by the same perpetrator.3 Knowingly exposing an inmate to the likelihood of sexual assault is not required by the State’s duty to provide medical care to inmates, and is not related to any other legitimate function of DOC. Moreover, it runs contrary to the requirement that DOC administer prisons in a fair and humane manner.4 Lawsuits that tend to interfere with or prevent such conduct simply do not pose the *439same sort of threat to DOC’s continued performance of its duties as lawsuits that potentially impair its core functions. Therefore, the policy justification for granting sovereign immunity in Kinegak, to the extent that there was one, is absent here.
II. Kinegak Should Be Interpreted as Narrowly as Possible.
A second reason for making a distinction is to limit the harmful effects of the court’s decision in Kinegak. By adopting an expansive reading of this state’s sovereign immunity statute, Kinegak eliminates a major incentive for the government to perform essential functions, such as record keeping, correctly.5 As noted in the dissent, such a ruling “invites more misconduct,” and its “most likely practical consequence ... is ... an increase in negligence on the part of the DOC.”6 The most effective way to avoid these consequences is to overturn Kinegak.7 If the court does not overturn Kinegak, however, it should at least minimize the harm done by this unfortunate precedent by interpreting it as narrowly as possible.
III. Conclusion
For the reasons stated above, as well as those given by the court, I would permit B.R.’s negligent hiring and supervision claim to proceed.

. 129 P.3d 887 (Alaska 2006) (holding that AS 09.50.250(3) barred an action against DOC for negligent record keeping that resulted in the plaintiff's imprisonment for a week beyond the end of his sentence).

. See Lauren Villa, Public Service, Private Entity: Should the Nature of the Service or Entity Be Controlling on Issues of Sovereign Immunity?, 78 St. John’s L.Rev. 1257, 1257-58 (2004) (arguing that the "principal justification for sovereign immunity” is that "the public's interest in the continued delivery of essential services far outweighs their interest in redressibility,” and advocating the expansion of sovereign immunity to certain private entities); but see Barker v. City of Santa Fe, 47 N.M. 85, 136 P.2d 480, 482 (1943) (quoting 75 A.L.R. 1196):
It is almost incredible that in this modern age ... and in a republic, the medieval absolutism supposed to be implicit in the maxim, "the King can do no wrong,” should exempt the various branches of the government from liability for their torts, and that the entire burden of damage resulting from the wrongful acts of the government should be imposed upon the single individual who suffers the injury, rather than distributed among the entire community constituting the government, where it could be borne without hardship upon any individual, and where it justly belongs.

. DOC could have easily performed this function without exposing B.R. to sexual assault by entrusting her treatment to a different medical technician.

. Cf. McGinnis v. Stevens, 543 P.2d 1221, 1237 (Alaska 1975) (“As an extension of the state, the [DOC] must administer Alaska's prisons in a manner which is neither arbitrary nor vindictive."); Cheryl Bell et al., Rape and Sexual Misconduct in the Prison System: Analyzing America’s Most "Open" Secret, 18 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 195, 195-96 (1999) (noting that "[i]n many American prisons, rape and sexual misconduct are often ignored by prison administrators,” and that "[t]he scars such trauma leaves behind dramatically alter the lives of scores of women and men, and, once outside prison, they can also negatively affect the public at-large”).

. See Kinegak, 129 P.3d at 898 (Fabe, J., dissenting); cf. Erwin Chemerinsky, Against Sovereign Immunity, 53 Stan L.Rev. 1201, 1222-24 (2001) (noting that "[t]here unquestionably is a cost to sovereign immunity in terms of accountability: Government can violate the law and avoid liability” and expressing the hope that "someday the Supreme Court will change course and abolish the doctrine of sovereign immunity from American law”); Lauren K. Robel, Sovereignty and Democracy: The States’ Obligations to Their Citizens Under Federal Statutory Law, 78 Ind. L.J. 543, 553-55 (2003) (maintaining that sovereign immunity is both "anachronistic” and hostile to "traditional concepts of democratic government,” and observing that "states have largely disavowed the idea[ ] ... that there is something unseemly about citizens requiring states to respond through lawsuits for the injuries they inflict”).

. Kinegak, 129 P.3d at 898 (Fabe, J., dissenting).

. This court's rule of stare decisis requires adherence to precedent unless the court is clearly convinced that (1) a decision is no longer sound, and (2) more good than harm would result from overruling it. State v. Fremgen, 914 P.2d 1244, 1245-46 (Alaska 1996). For the reasons stated in the dissent, X believe that Kinegak easily meets this test. Kinegak, 129 P.3d at 894-98 (Fabe, J., dissenting).