TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) - New Jersey’s highest court upheld a $1.6 million verdict in a lawsuit against a county jail over arguments the jury awarded damages partially based on conduct – including failure to identify the man as a suicide risk -- entitled to absolute immunity under state law.
Saying Ocean County’s lawyers pursued the wrong post-trial strategy for reversing the verdict, the New Jersey Supreme Court upheld the judgment in favor of the family of Kenneth Conforti, who hanged himself in the Ocean County Jail in 2010.
Two dissenting justices said Ocean County was denied a fair trial because some of the claims should have been dismissed before the jury could hear evidence that correctional officers failed to assess Conforti’s psychological condition or propensity to kill himself. The New Jersey Tort Claims Act protects government officials against most claims involving the failure to perform medical diagnoses.
Conforti was arrested in September for violating a restraining order and visiting his wife’s home to see his then-nine-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, is deaf and non-verbal. He was taken to jail, where he said he was disabled due to a work accident, was drinking a half-gallon of vodka a day and feeling “helpless and hopeless” over the failure of his marriage.
He was released after 28 days in jail. A week later he returned to his wife’s home and was arrested again. This time, he told the intake nurse he hadn’t been previously incarcerated and didn’t disclose his surgical history or feeling “helpless or hopeless” and said he was only a “social” drinker. A later “Progress Note” said he had been in jail before and had a history of binge drinking, but no “current mental health issues/concerns.” He was cleared for the general population and assigned to a cell whose one bed was already occupied, so he had to sleep on the floor.
On Oct. 20 he wrote a suicide note to his parents, saying death was the only way for him to stop, otherwise he “would have continued to drink and get locked up.” He then closed the door, covered the door window with a sheet and hanged himself from a ceiling light fixture.
His widow Carol Ann sued the county and Correctional Health Services, with CHS settling before trial. Ocean County moved to dismiss the case, arguing the claims were based on conduct immunized under the TCA. The trial judge refused, and the jury awarded $150,000 in wrongful-death damages and $1.4 million for pain and suffering, assigning 60% liability to the county jail and 40% to CHS.
At trial, the plaintiffs called as an expert Martin Horn, former Secretary of Corrections for the State of Pennsylvania and former Commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction. He testified the jail was negligent for failing to properly train officers, follow the suicide policy or respond to an alarm when a cell door is closed. He also criticized jail officers for following a regular schedule to inspect the cells, which allows inmates intent upon killing themselves to time the act so it is between inspections.
The defense called Theodore Hutle, retired Ocean County Jail warden, and Jeff Eiser, the former deputy director of the Cincinnati, Ohio jail system. They testified the jail trained staff yearly on suicide prevention but relied on CHS for mental health screenings. They said health and welfare checks were performed hourly as required by state law.
On appeal, the county argued it was entitled to a new trial because there was “no way of knowing” whether the jury held them liable for immunized or non-immunized conduct. But the Supreme Court ruled the “we don’t know what was in the jury’s mind” argument fails because there were adequate evidence to support the verdict. It was up to jurors to decide which expert to believe, the majority said.
There was “voluminous testimony about the County defendants’ negligence that was unrelated to any failure to examine, failure to diagnose or treat, or failure to `confine a person for mental illness or drug dependence,’” the majority wrote, citing TCA areas of immunity.
Justices Douglas Fasciale and Anne Patterson partially dissented, saying the trial judge should have dismissed claims based upon immunized behavior, including failure to properly examine the inmate, recognize he was a suicide risk. Immunity “is the default rule” under the Tort Claims Act, the dissenters wrote.
“Courts must therefore thoroughly analyze immunity issues to ensure that only actionable conduct is raised before the jury,” they said.