Court Opinion

ID: 9649051
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 14:41:11.506501+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:07.289985
License: Public Domain

CONCURRING AND DISSENTING OPINION BY
SENIOR JUDGE KELLEY.
In regards to the majority’s holding that the Klimeks’ complaint does not fall within the personal property exception to sovereign immunity articulated in Section 8522(b)(3) of the Judicial Code,11 respectfully dissent.
The exception of Section 8522(b)(3), by its express terms, applies to the personal property of persons that is held within the “cai'e, custody or control” of a commonwealth agency. It is beyond dispute that the shoelaces in question were the personal property of the Deceased held by the Pennsylvania State Police pursuant to a State Police directive that specifically mandates that a prisoner’s shoelaces must be in the care, custody and control of the State Police at all times. State Police Troop Order Number 92-10 provides the governing regulation for prisoners who are temporarily incarcerated in the holding cells of the Troop R Barracks. That Order provides, in relevant part:
A.) All prisoners will be completely searched before being placed into the holding cell. Items such as belts, ties, shoelaces, lighters, matches, eyeglasses, any other item which, in the opinion of the Member, may be dangerous to the Member or the Prisoner shall be removed ...
Reproduced Record (R.R.) at 157a. I consider Troop Order Number 92-10, under the facts of this case, prima facia evidence that the shoelaces with which the Deceased hanged himself were in fact to be considered exclusively within the State Police’s care under Section 8522(b)(3), notwithstanding the State Police’s absolute failure to maintain custody and control thereof.2 In addition to the General Assembly’s clear intent to waive sovereign immunity in cases where Section 8522’s requirements are met, I further emphasize that it has long been axiomatic in Pennsylvania that there is a common law duty on the part of any governmental authority to provide reasonable safety and protection to individuals taken into custody. See, e.g., Department of Public Welfare v. Kallinger, 134 Pa.Cmwlth. 415, 580 A.2d 887 (1990), petition for allowance of appeal denied, 532 Pa. 292, 615 A.2d 730 (1992). That duty, and Section 8522(b)(3)’s application, is thrown into sharp relief in the instant matter, especially when viewed in *1178the context of the State Police’s failure to fulfill its express duty under Troop Order 92-10 and the Deceased’s known expressed suicidal intentions. R.R. at 87a-89a.
I find no persuasive value in the majority’s citation to Department of Environmental Resources v. Myers, 135 Pa.Cmwlth. 526, 581 A.2d 696 (1990),3 in regards to the facts of the matter sub jüdice. The balloons and map cited as the personal property directly causing the plaintiffs injuries in Myers bear no logical relation to the causal connection between the Deceased’s shoelaces and his use of those shoelaces to hang himself. Simply put, under the facts at bar, the Deceased’s shoelaces were inarguably and directly involved in the chain of causation that led to the Deceased’s suicide, which satisfies our requirements for the application of the personal property exception of Section 8522(b)(3) under our precedents.
In Bufford v. Department of Transportation, 670 A.2d 751 (Pa.Cmwlth.1996), cited by the majority in support of its reasoning that the Deceased’s shoelaces merely facilitated, but did not cause, his death, the personal property at issue were Bufford’s driver’s license records, which Bufford alleged were improperly maintained and ultimately resulted in his detention and arrest as a result thereof. In Bujford, we held that those inaccurately maintained administrative records did not directly cause Bufford’s injury — his eventual arrest and detention — but merely facilitated that injury, thereby removing those records from the purview of Section 8522(b)(3)’s exception. While the exact facts of Bujford do not parallel those of the instant matter, our articulation of the necessary level of causation between the personal property at issue, and the resultant harm, is quite instructive to this case. In Bufford, we emphasized that “the personal property waiver only applies in cases where the personal property itself causes the plaintiffs injury; the personal property must be involved in the chain of causation.” Bufford, 670 A.2d at 753 (emphasis provided). The majority fails to address Buf-ford’s causation language, and further fails to address the shoelaces’ unquestionable direct involvement within the chain of causation of the Deceased’s hanging.
I disagree with the majority’s assertion that the Deceased’s shoelace in the instant matter merely facilitated his death, such as the facilitation of the map and balloons cited in Myers, or the facilitation of the driver records in Bufford. Accord Dean v. Department of Transportation, 561 Pa. 503, 751 A.2d 1130 (2000), (in construing the exceptions to sovereign immunity under Section 8522, reliance on the “facilitation of the injury” language of prior cases was misplaced where a claim is one of concurrent causation). The Deceased’s shoelaces, as tragically used in the instant matter by the Deceased to place around his neck and to asphyxiate himself, were directly and unarguably “involved in the chain of causation” of his death while in the State Police’s custody. As such, I would hold that the State Police’s failure to fulfill its duty to maintain custody and control of those shoelaces falls squarely within the personal property exception to sovereign immunity as embodied in Section 8522(b)(3), and I would accordingly affirm the trial court on this issue.
I concur with the majority’s disposition in relation to the real estate exception articulated in Section 8522(b)(4) of the Judicial Code.

. 42 Pa.C.S. § 8522(b)(3).

. I note that the State Police’s argument to this Court that, once Klimek retrieved his shoelaces from where the State Police had placed them directly next to his holding cell, those shoelaces were no longer within the State Police's custody or control, is illogical, disingenuous, and meritless. The State Police’s argument ignores the fact that, on this issue, the above referenced Troop Order mandates that the State Police maintain the care, custody and control of the shoelaces in anticipation of self-injury to a prisoner within its custody, and it is the State Police's failure to so maintain custody and control thereof while those laces were inarguably within its care that forms the very basis of the Klimeks’ argument on this point. In fact, the State Police’s argument on this issue actually reinforces the fact that the State Police failed to maintain custody and control of the shoelaces while they were in its care, in direct contradiction of its duty as defined in Troop Order 92-10.

. Petition for allowance of appeal denied, 527 Pa. 595, 588 A.2d 915 (1991).