PROVIDENCE, R.I. (Legal Newsline) - The Rhode Island Supreme Court struck down a statute that treated prisoners sentenced to life in jail as the equivalent of being dead, reviving negligence lawsuits by a murderer and a man convicted of multiple sexual assaults. The decision drew a dissent from one justice who said it will “open the floodgates to frivolous inmate claims.”
Cody-Allen Zab and Jose R. Rivera sued the Rhode Island Department of Corrections Global Tel*Link and others for injuries they received while serving life sentences. Zab claimed he burned his arm on a hot pipe that was too close to the prison telephones, while Rivera said he injured his ankle slipping on ice. Zab was convicted of first-degree murder and arson in the killing of a 90-year-old man; Rivera was convicted of sexually assaulting three developmentally disabled women.
A trial court dismissed both men’s lawsuits, citing Rhode Island’s Civil Death Statute, which says life prisoners are “deemed to be dead in all respects, as if his or her natural death had taken place at the time of conviction.” The Rhode Island Supreme Court as recently as 2018 decided unanimously that law prohibits life prisoners from filing ordinary negligence lawsuits.
Zab and Rivera appealed, with the support of the American Civil Liberties Union. They argued the civil death statute violated Article I of the Rhode Island Constitution, which guarantees the right to access the courts.
Rhode Island argued the statute didn’t impinge on prisoners’ rights since it only restricted their “ability to pursue a negligence claim for damages,” a power the state legislature has over all citizens. The Rhode Island Supreme Court disagreed, ruling in a March 2 opinion by Justice Erin Lynch Prata that the law violated the state Constitution.
Article I isn’t absolute, Justice Lynch Prata noted, since the state legislature can pass laws limiting the right to file civil suits. But those limits must be reasonable and can’t completely deny access to the courts, the she went on.
“It is clear to us that the right infringed upon by the civil death statute is the right to seek redress for any type of injury or complaint, thereby unconstitutionally denying the plaintiffs the very right to gain access to the courts,” the majority concluded.
Justice Maureen McKenna Goldberg dissented, writing that there was no need to invalidate the statute on constitutional grounds. If the statute truly violates prisoners’ rights, the Rhode Island General Assembly could repeal it.
“It is my belief that the majority’s opinion will unnecessarily open the floodgates to frivolous inmate claims,” he wrote. “For this reason alone, this court should have declared an intermission, rather than rush to judgment and interfere with the General Assembly’s role.”