BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (Legal Newsline) - An Alabama city and its employees are immune from a lawsuit over the death of a man who was found by his police unconscious in a running automobile, fell asleep during an alcohol breath test in jail and was found dead in his cell the next morning from what doctors described as heart trouble.
Carlos Lens Fernandez was picked up by Chickasaw police in 2016 after they found him passed out in his car on the shoulder of a highway on-ramp. After he failed field-sobriety tests, they took him to the Chickasaw jail, where he repeatedly fell asleep while they tried to determine his alcohol level. A breath test eventually revealed a blood-alcohol level of 0.12%, significantly above Alabama’s limit of 0.8%.
Arellia Taylor was the jailer on duty when Lens was booked and Cynthia Robinson Burt took over at 6 a.m. the next day. She checked on Lens when she began her shift, then monitored him on video. But when Lens didn’t respond to verbal commands she summoned another officer who found him cold and dead. His autopsy listed cause of death as "hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease."
Lens’s estate sued the city and a number of named and unnamed defendants on federal and state claims and the city removed the case to federal court. A judge there dismissed the case without prejudice and in December 2019 the estate filed a second wrongful-death lawsuit in state court in Mobile. This time, the plaintiff named Taylor and her husband, a police officer. The plaintiff also asked the court to reinstate the first lawsuit and substitute the Taylors for two unnamed defendants.
The trial court dismissed all the claims in January 2022 and the plaintiff appealed. But the the Alabama Supreme Court, in a March 17 decision, upheld the dismissal.
The plaintiff’s attempt to substitute the Taylors in the first lawsuit failed because the federal judge never remanded the case to state court, the Supreme Court ruled. That stripped the state court of jurisdiction under federal law. The second case against the Taylors failed because it was filed after the two-year statute of limitations for wrongful-death claims, the court ruled.
As for the other defendants, the Supreme Court agreed that they were protected under the doctrine of sovereign immunity. Jailer Burt was in charge of the facility when Lens died and as such was exercising her judgment in the discharge of official duties, the court ruled. Other named defendants also were protected, the court ruled. Since any liability to the city would flow from the actions of employees, the city was also immune from suit.