Williams v. State

310 Neb. 588

967 N.W.2d 677

Cameron WILLIAMS, appellant,

v.STATE of Nebraska et al., appellees.

No. S-20-604.

Supreme Court of Nebraska.

Filed December 17, 2021

Joshua D. Barber, Lincoln, of Barber & Barber, P.C., L.L.O., for appellant.

Douglas J. Peterson, Attorney General, and James A. Campbell, Solicitor General, for appellees.

Heavican, C.J., Miller-Lerman, Cassel, Stacy, Funke, Papik, and Freudenberg, JJ.

Per Curiam

NATURE OF CASE

Cameron Williams appeals the dismissal of this negligence action by the district court for Lancaster County. The claim was brought against the State pursuant to Nebraska's State Tort Claims Act (STCA), Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 81-8,209 to 81-8,235 (Reissue 2014 & Cum. Supp. 2020). Williams is an inmate in the custody of the Nebraska Department of Correctional Services (DCS). Williams claims the State was negligent in its handling of security when, despite requirements of a " ‘keep separate’ " list, the State placed inmate Jonathan Armendariz, who had killed Williams’ brother, in Williams’ housing unit. Fearing for his safety, Williams assaulted Armendariz, and in retaliation, Williams was later stabbed in his cell.

Applying the intentional tort exception to the STCA, the district court concluded that the State was immune and granted the State's motion to dismiss Williams’ negligence claim based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The district court further found that amendment would be futile because the claims are inextricably linked to "at least one assault and/or battery" and therefore denied Williams’ motion to amend his complaint. Williams appeals.

Under settled precedent interpreting the intentional tort exception of the STCA, the State is immune from Williams’ claims because they arise out of an assault. We affirm the judgment of the district court.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

For purposes of this appeal from the granting of a motion to dismiss, our factual record consists only of the allegations in the complaint, which at this stage of the proceedings are accepted as true.¹

Williams’ complaint alleges he was an inmate in DCS custody when Armendariz was placed in DCS custody. Armendariz had murdered Williams’ brother, and when Armendariz began serving a sentence in 2011, Williams’ mother was assured that in order to ensure Williams’ safety, Armendariz would not be placed in the same facility as Williams. DCS was aware that Armendariz and other prisoners associated with him, or acting on his behalf, including one or more " ‘safety threat groups’ " or " ‘gangs,’ " posed a threat to Williams’ safety. DCS placed Armendariz on Williams’ central-monitoring list, which designated the inmates whom DCS should "keep separate" from him.

Williams was housed at Tecumseh State Correctional Institution (TSCI) from 2013 until 2018. During the summer of 2017, despite the identified risks to Williams, Armendariz was transferred to TSCI's restrictive housing unit, otherwise referred to as the "Special Management Unit" (SMU). Neither Williams nor his mother was informed until October 2017 of Armendariz’ presence at TSCI. When they learned that Armendariz was at TSCI, Williams and his mother warned the State and requested protection and a transfer of Williams from TSCI. Williams’ mother requested that TSCI separate Armendariz and Williams immediately. The warden of TSCI told Williams’ mother that Williams was at no risk because Armendariz was being housed in the SMU for disciplinary reasons and was separate from Williams, who was in the general population unit.

Williams then contacted Scott Frakes, the director of DCS, to alert him that the central monitoring "keep separate" restriction was being violated. Williams also requested a transfer from his unit manager. Over the next several months, Williams made repeated attempts to warn DCS and request a transfer, but no action was taken to separate or protect Williams.

Williams again requested a transfer during his reclassification in March 2018. After several weeks, Williams was notified that he had been approved to be transferred to the Nebraska State Penitentiary (NSP). On May 10, Williams’ mother wrote to Frakes to remind him of the danger Armendariz posed to Williams, and she requested that the pending transfer be expedited.

On May 25, 2018, Armendariz was released from the SMU and moved to the same housing unit at TSCI where Williams was being housed. The inmates in the housing unit were free to move around. Williams knew he would be in frequent direct contact with Armendariz and feared being assaulted or killed.

According to Williams, he had "no choice but to protect himself," so Williams assaulted Armendariz, after which Williams was placed in the SMU for 5 days. When Williams’ mother learned of the incident, she left messages with officials at TSCI to try to expedite Williams’ transfer. She eventually spoke by phone with a deputy warden, who apologized for the incident and assured her that Williams would be transferred to NSP as soon as possible. Williams was eventually transferred to NSP and placed in the general population.

On September 22, 2018, two inmates entered Williams’ cell at NSP and assaulted him. Williams was stabbed multiple times. DCS told Williams that its " ‘Gang Intel’ " believed the assault was in retaliation for Williams’ attack on Armendariz at TSCI.

Williams filed a negligence claim under the STCA, naming as defendants the State, DCS, Frakes, and other State actors. Williams’ complaint alleged that the defendants knew Armendariz posed a foreseeable risk of physical harm to Williams and negligently failed to protect Williams from that harm. Williams alleged that as a result, he suffered "physical, emotional, mental, and psychological injuries" and sought to recover damages for future medical treatment, past and future pain and suffering, past lost wages and future loss of earning capacity, and past and future disability.

The State moved to dismiss Williams’ complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. Before the hearing, Williams requested leave to amend the complaint to "allege additional facts further establishing ... subject matter" jurisdiction of his claims and to "articulate additional facts establishing the elements of [Williams’] negligence claim in greater detail."

In its written order, referring to the intentional tort exception in the STCA, § 81-8,219(4), the district court determined that Williams’ negligence claim was barred by sovereign immunity because it arose from "multiple layers of assault/battery." Next, the district court denied Williams’ motion for leave to amend his complaint because it concluded that allowing Williams to amend would be futile, as all claims would be "clearly inextricably linked to at least one assault and/or battery" and "thus ‘arise out of’ an assault or battery and are barred by sovereign immunity."

Williams appeals.

ASSIGNMENTS OF ERROR

Williams assigns, summarized and restated, that the district court erred when it found that (1) Williams’ claim arises from an assault or battery and is barred by sovereign immunity and (2) amendment of the complaint would be futile.

STANDARD OF REVIEW

A district court's grant of a motion to dismiss on the pleadings is reviewed de novo, accepting the allegations in the complaint as true and drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party.² Whether the allegations made by a plaintiff constitute a cause of action under the STCA or whether the allegations set forth claims which are precluded by the exemptions set forth in the act is a question of law, for which an appellate court has a duty to reach its conclusions independent of the conclusions reached by the district court.³

An appellate court reviews a district court's denial of a motion to amend under Neb. Ct. R. Pldg. § 6-1115(a) for an abuse of discretion. However, we review de novo any underlying legal conclusion that the proposed amendments would be futile.⁴

ANALYSIS

Williams contends the district court erred when it granted the State's motion to dismiss and denied his motion for leave to amend his complaint. We find no merit to Williams’ assignments of error.

Motion to Dismiss.

The first issue presented is whether the intentional tort exception to the State's waiver of sovereign immunity under § 81-8,219(4) barred Williams’ claim. Because this presents a question of subject matter jurisdiction, we address it as a threshold issue.⁵

Through the STCA, the Nebraska Legislature has enacted a limited waiver of the State's sovereign immunity with respect to some, but not all, types of tort claims.⁶ The STCA contains specific exceptions to the waiver of sovereign immunity. As relevant here, the intentional tort exception in § 81-8,219(4) provides that sovereign immunity is not waived for "[a]ny claim arising out of assault, battery, false imprisonment, false arrest, malicious prosecution, abuse of process, libel, slander, or interference with contract rights ...." Because the language of this exception is nearly identical under both Neb. Rev. Stat. § 13-910(7) (Cum. Supp. 2020) of the Political Subdivisions Tort Claims Act (PSTCA) and § 81-8,219(4) of the STCA, we have applied cases construing the exception under the PSTCA to cases under the STCA, and vice versa.⁷

Our cases construing and applying the intentional tort exception have consistently barred claims like the one alleged by Williams. In Moser v. State ,⁸ we applied the intentional tort exception to bar a negligence claim brought by the estate of a man who was fatally assaulted by a cellmate. We concluded that the claim that prison officials had negligently double-bunked the two inmates arose out of the assault and thus fell within the STCA's exception in § 81-8,219(4) for "[a]ny claim arising out of assault."

In Edwards v. Douglas County ,⁹ we applied that same exception to bar a claim brought by a woman who was held hostage and sexually assaulted by a former boyfriend. The woman alleged that the county was negligent in its handling of...