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Sloas v. Rowan County9/19/2003
AFFIRMING IN PART, REVERSING IN PART AND REMANDING
William Sloas has appealed from a summary judgment entered by the Rowan Circuit Court on December 6, 1999, which granted the appellees' (Rowan County, Don Hall, and Paul Henderson) motion for summary judgment on the grounds that the doctrines of sovereign immunity and/or official immunity barred Sloas's negligence claims against them. We affirm the summary judgment granted to Rowan County and the summary judgment granted to Hall and Henderson on the claims against them in their official capacity; but having concluded in light of Yanero v. Davis, that summary judgment was improper with respect to the negligence claims against Hall and Henderson in their individual capacities, we reverse in part and remand for further proceedings.
Pursuant to authority granted by KRS 441.125, the Rowan County Jail operated a "Class D Work Program." This program allowed eligible inmates to leave the jail facility to perform community service work for various government agencies. Rowan County Jailer Don Hall and Deputy Jailer Paul Henderson were in charge of supervising the work program. Hall and Henderson determined which inmates were allowed to work for which agencies based on factors such as the inmate's work experience, physical and mental ability, and the needs of the particular agency. Henderson was in charge of transporting the inmates to the various work locations, where he would then assign specific tasks. Hall did not normally decide which task any particular inmate would perform on any given day and rarely visited the work sites.
While Sloas was serving a sentence in the Rowan County Jail for driving under the influence , fourth offense, and possession of a controlled substance in the first degree, he volunteered to participate in the work program. On January 21, 1998, while under the supervision of Henderson, Sloas and other inmates were assigned the task of clearing brush that had grown along side a county road. This particular project involved cutting trees with chain saws and processing the brush through a chipper machine. Sloas suffered a broken leg when a tree which had been cut by Carl Lewis, a fellow inmate, fell on him. Sloas was taken from the work site and treated for his injuries. His medical bills were paid by the Rowan County Fiscal Court until April 21, 1998, when Sloas was last seen by his doctors. Sloas was released from the Rowan County Jail on February 28, 1998.
On January 20, 1999, Sloas filed a complaint in Rowan Circuit Court, naming as defendants Rowan County; Jailer Hall, both individually and in his official capacity as jailer; and Deputy Jailer Henderson, both individually and in his official capacity as deputy jailer. In his complaint, Sloas claimed (1) that Hall and Henderson were negligent by failing to ensure that the inmates were properly qualified to perform the tasks they were assigned, properly instructed in how to perform the tasks, and properly supervised while performing the work; (2) that both Hall and Rowan County were vicariously liable for Henderson's negligent supervision of the inmates at the work site; and (3) that all of the named defendants were vicariously liable for the negligence of inmate Carl Lewis. Sloas sought both compensatory and punitive damages.
In addition to denying any negligence on their part, Rowan County, Hall, and Henderson filed a motion for summary judgment on August 2, 1999, arguing that all of Sloas's claims were barred by the doctrines of sovereign and/or official immunity. On December 6, 1999, the trial court granted the motion for summary judgment, stating that sovereign and/or official immunity served as a complete bar to Sloas's claim
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