Opinion
529575
09-24-2020
Phillip CAMPBELL, Appellant, v. STATE of New York, Respondent.
Franzblau Dratch, PC, New York City (Brian M. Dratch of counsel), for appellant. Letitia James, Attorney General, Albany (Sarah L. Rosenbluth of counsel), for respondent.
Franzblau Dratch, PC, New York City (Brian M. Dratch of counsel), for appellant.
Letitia James, Attorney General, Albany (Sarah L. Rosenbluth of counsel), for respondent.
Before: Egan Jr., J.P., Clark, Mulvey, Devine and Pritzker, JJ.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
Devine, J.
Appeal from a judgment of the Court of Claims (Schaewe, J.), entered June 4, 2019, upon a decision of the court in favor of defendant.
Claimant often played basketball while incarcerated at Sullivan Correctional Facility and, in May 2015, was punched by a fellow player and inmate after one of the games. He commenced this action to recover damages for the resulting injuries, alleging that defendant failed to protect him from the assault. Following a bench trial on the issue of liability, the Court of Claims dismissed the claim. Claimant appeals.
We affirm. Defendant is obliged to safeguard inmates in its care, including from attacks by other inmates, but that "duty is limited to providing reasonable care to protect [them] from risks of harm that are reasonably foreseeable, i.e., those that defendant knew or should have known" ( Vasquez v. State of New York, 68 A.D.3d 1275, 1276, 890 N.Y.S.2d 184 [2009] ; see Sanchez v. State of New York, 99 N.Y.2d 247, 253, 255, 754 N.Y.S.2d 621, 784 N.E.2d 675 [2002] ; Wassmann v. County of Ulster, 144 A.D.3d 1470, 1471, 43 N.Y.S.3d 539 [2016] ). As a result, "[t]he mere occurrence of an inmate assault, without credible evidence that the assault was reasonably foreseeable, cannot establish the negligence of" defendant ( Sanchez v. State of New York, 99 N.Y.2d at 256, 754 N.Y.S.2d 621, 784 N.E.2d 675 ; see Vasquez v. State of New York, 68 A.D.3d at 1276, 890 N.Y.S.2d 184 ; Elnandes v. State of New York, 11 A.D.3d 828, 829, 785 N.Y.S.2d 128 [2004] ).
According deference to the credibility assessments of the Court of Claims (see Woehrel v. State of New York, 178 A.D.3d 1169, 1170, 111 N.Y.S.3d 756 [2019] ; Howell v. State of New York, 169 A.D.3d 1208, 1209, 93 N.Y.S.3d 736 [2019], lv denied 33 N.Y.3d 907, 2019 WL 2440300 [2019] ), the trial evidence shows that claimant and his assailant had no prior issues with each other. Each was displeased with the other's performance on the basketball court on the day of the assault, however, and berated each other after the game. Claimant testified that he felt threatened by one of the assailant's statements during the dispute but, given the context, that statement could have readily been a promise to beat claimant on the basketball court rather than to beat him outright. Indeed, claimant and the assailant agreed that no explicit threats of violence were made during the dispute, which a witnessing recreation program leader described as "trash talk" among players that was common and had never led to violence in the past. The program leader added that he did not see or hear anything to make him think that the dispute between claimant and the assailant was different, and a nearby correction officer testified that he had no indication that violence was brewing. The violence itself amounted to the assailant losing his temper a few minutes into the dispute and throwing a single punch at claimant, at which point both agreed that the correction officer immediately intervened. Our independent review of the foregoing proof leads us to agree with the Court of Claims that defendant neither knew nor should have known of the risk of assault and, thus, dismissal of the claim was warranted (see Vasquez v. State of New York, 68 A.D.3d at 1276–1277, 890 N.Y.S.2d 184 ; see also Barnette v. City of New York, 96 A.D.3d 700, 701–702, 945 N.Y.S.2d 749 [2012] ; Elnandes v. State of New York, 11 A.D.3d at 829, 785 N.Y.S.2d 128 ).
Egan Jr., J.P., Clark, Mulvey and Pritzker, JJ., concur.
ORDERED that the judgment is affirmed, without costs.