Court Opinion

ID: 9474839
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:10:22.114542+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:22.188838
License: Public Domain

HOLLOWAY, Chief Judge,
concurring in the result:
The majority opinion outlines the nature of the complaint and the challenge to it by the Government under 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). However, a more detailed focus on the complaint will help to explain my concerns about the case.
The complaint states, among other things, the following allegations. Plaintiff Diane Hoot was not an employee or agent of the Government. The defendant through its agents and employees in 1979 and 1980 negligently failed and refused to provide medical and mental treatment to Kevin Firth, a soldier at Ft. Carson, Colorado, who on or about October 25, 1980, committed assault and battery against plaintiff. Sgt. Wilhite, Lt. Ronningen, and Platoon Sgt. Lang, Firth’s immediate supervisors, were employees of the Government stationed at Fort Carson.
In 1979, well prior to the October 1980 assault on Diane Hoot, Firth knew he was mentally unbalanced as a result of suicidal ideations, inter alia, and sought mental health treatment at a health center in Colorado Springs. He was refused treatment because of his military status and encouraged to seek help through the Army.
Firth then asked for help through his immediate supervisor, Sgt. Ray, who took the necessary steps to obtain an appointment for Firth with the Army Community Services (ACS). Firth understood he needed an appointment to go to the ACS, open only during duty hours, and an appointment had to be arranged through his supervisors. When Firth appeared for his appointment he was screened by an unknown *840private, “Jane Doe,” and was refused access to a doctor.
Paragraph 12 of the complaint avers that “Firth’s mental problems worsened; he irrationally fired a pistol round through the floor of a friends automobile; in the field he pulled a grease gun (automatic rifle) on a fellow soldier, and supervisors limited his access to weapons; and he was taking hallucenogenic drugs.” In September or early October 1980, Firth knew he needed psychological or psychiatric help and approached his squad leader, Wilhite, who refused to allow him to leave duty to go to the ACS. Firth spoke to his commander, Lt. Ronningen, who advised Firth that he had a “short-timer’s” problem, i.e., he was on orders for Germany, and was shirking duty until he left. Finally, Firth approached Sgt. Lang, who also refused his request for mental health treatment and stated he would be “written up” if he went to the mental health facility. The private, “Jane Doe” who refused him access to a doctor, Wilhite, Lang and Ronningen were not qualified mental health professionals and it was negligence, the complaint avers, for them to refuse Firth access to professionals.
Further, it was alleged that on October 25, 1980, Firth entered the apartment of Diane Hoot in Colorado Springs while she was out. When she returned, she was physically assaulted by Firth, threatened with a deadly weapon, bound, held captive, eventually strangled into unconsciousness and left for dead. Among other things, the injuries alleged were bruises, a stroke, severe hemorrhaging in the eyes, ruptured vessels in the face area, permanent psychological injuries, loss of earnings and permanent impairment of earning ability, and physical and mental pain and suffering.
Paragraph 18 of the complaint alleges that the “occurrence was a direct and proximate result of the wrongful and negligent conduct of Defendant’s employees in their failure and refusal to allow Kevin Firth access to mental health treatment.” Further, paragraph 19 alleges that the injuries suffered were “a direct and proximate result of the negligence of the Defendant, through its agents and employees____” I R. 3.
As the Supreme Court has made clear, we must follow “the accepted rule that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-56, 78 S.Ct. 99, 102, 2 L.Ed.2d 80. In light of this fundamental rule and the compelling factual circumstances averred, I am most reluctant to agree that this complaint should be dismissed as inevitably barred by § 2680(h) as one arising out of assault and battery. The complaint details repeated rejections of Firth’s efforts to obtain psychiatric assistance and the rifle incident revealing his dangerous condition to his superiors before the attack and injuries occurred. This is a most convincing factual basis, as alleged, for the claim that the occurrence instead was a direct and proximate result of the wrongful and negligent conduct of the Government’s employees. Moreover this is a case where a dismissal on motion should not be granted on the basis that the case arose out of an assault and battery. The facts that might be proved and the findings that might be made could most reasonably be found instead to actually arise out of the negligence of Firth’s supervisors as a matter of actual fact and not merely of pleading, thus not being within the exception provided in § 2680(h).1
I am not sure that Naisbitt v. United States, 611 F.2d 1350 (10th Cir.1980), is distinguishable as the trial judge concluded.2 In any event, however, I must agree *841with the majority opinion in the instant case that Wine v. United States, 705 F.2d 366 (10th Cir.1983), does compel a reversal here. That opinion states that the Government admitted that the Air Force, through the airman’s supervisors, had failed to provide psychiatric care to the off-duty airman involved in the incident and had placed unreasonable pressure and stress on him. I am unable to distinguish the instant case from Wine.
Accordingly, although I think that Wine was wrongly decided itself, and that the compelling allegations of the instant complaint should not be dismissed on motion, this panel is bound by Wine and I therefore reluctantly concur in the result.

. I am In accord with the persuasive dissent of Judge Pratt in Johnson v. United States, 788 F.2d 845, 855 (2d Cir.1986).

. I note that the Naisbitt opinion stated in part:
Finally, the particular facts of this case lead to the conclusion that the tort which is the basis of the lawsuit was intentional and subject to § 2680(h) because it was, as a matter of law, an intervening force of such great *841magnitude that it rendered the negligence of the government in failing to control the assailants insignificant in comparison. The character of the act is so predominantly intentional that the negligence as a causal force is virtually nonexistent.
On the facts alleged in the instant case, the predominant cause might reasonably be shown to have been the repeated acts of negligence in denying Firth mental treatment.