WPI 343.07 Conditions of Confinement/Failure to Protect—Fourteenth Amendment—Burden of Proof on...
6A WAPRAC WPI 343.07Washington Practice Series TMWashington Pattern Jury Instructions--Civil
6A Wash. Prac., Wash. Pattern Jury Instr. Civ. WPI 343.07 (7th ed.)
Washington Practice Series TM
Washington Pattern Jury Instructions--Civil
April 2022 Update
Part XVII. Civil Rights
Chapter 343. Civil Rights—Conditions of Confinement
WPI 343.07 Conditions of Confinement/Failure to Protect—Fourteenth Amendment—Burden of Proof on the Issues
(Name of plaintiff)claims that(name of defendant)subjected(name of plaintiff)to a deprivation of [his] [her] Fourteenth Amendment constitutional right to be reasonably protected from substantial risk of serious harm while confined.
(Name of plaintiff)has the burden of proving each of the following propositions:
(1) That(name of defendant)made an intentional decision with respect to the conditions under which the plaintiff was confined;
(2) That those conditions put the plaintiff at substantial risk of suffering serious harm;
(3) That(name of defendant)did not take reasonably available measures to [abate] [reduce or eliminate] that risk, even though a reasonable officer in the circumstances would have appreciated the high degree of risk involved—making the(name of defendant)'s conduct objectively unreasonable and the consequences of that conduct obvious;
(4) That(name of defendant)was acting under color of law; and
(5) That(name of defendant)'s actions or failure to take action [proximately] caused injury or damage to(name of plaintiff).
If you find from your consideration of all the evidence that each of these propositions has been proved, then your verdict should be for(name of plaintiff)[on this claim]. On the other hand, if any of these propositions has not been proved, then your verdict should be for(name of defendant)[on this claim].
NOTE ON USE
If the trial court has decided to apply the Ninth Circuit objective intent standard, use this instruction for Fourteenth Amendment claims involving safety needs of incarcerated persons who have not yet been convicted and sentenced of a crime.
For Eighth Amendment failure to protect claims and when the trial court has decided to apply the subjective deliberate indifference standard to a Fourteenth Amendment failure to protect claim, use WPI 343.05 (Conditions of Confinement/Failure to Protect—Eighth Amendment—Burden of Proof on the Issues) instead of this instruction.
Use one of the two bracketed alternatives in subdivision (3). The WPI Committee believes that the two alternatives have the same meaning.
Use this instruction with WPI 340.01 (Claims Instruction for Section 1983 Cases) and WPI 340.03 (Civil Rights—“Under Color of Law”—Definition). Use this instruction in place of WPI 340.02 (Civil Rights—Individual Defendant—Burden of Proof on the Issues).
For discussions of causation and the bracketed word “proximately,” see the Comments to WPI 340.02 (Civil Rights—Individual Defendant—Burden of Proof on the Issues), WPI 340.04 (Civil Rights—“Subjects” and “Causes to be Subjected”—Definition), and WPI 340.06 (Causation—Comment Only).
Use this instruction with WPI 21.01 (Meaning of Burden of Proof—Preponderance of the Evidence).
For general conditions of confinement claims brought under the Eighth Amendment, use WPI 343.01 (General Conditions of Confinement—Eighth Amendment—Burden of Proof on the Issues) instead of this instruction. For general conditions of confinement claims brought under the Fourteenth Amendment, see the Comment to WPI 343.00 (Introduction—Conditions of Confinement—Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment).
For medical claims brought under the Eighth Amendment, use WPI 343.03 (Conditions of Confinement/Medical Care—Eighth Amendment—Burden of Proof on the Issues) instead of this instruction. For medical claims brought under the Fourteenth Amendment, see the Comment to WPI 343.00 (Introduction—Conditions of Confinement—Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment).
COMMENT
This instruction is new for this edition. See the Comment to WPI 343.00 (Introduction—Conditions of Confinement—Eighth Amendment and Fourteenth Amendment) for a discussion of this and other Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment conditions of confinement claims.
When a “failure to protect” claim is based on events that happen after arrest but before conviction and sentencing, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has adopted a purely objective deliberate indifference standard. Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d 1060, 1068–71 (9th Cir. 2016), cert. denied 137 S.Ct. 831 (2017) (overruling Clouthier v. County of Contra Costa, 591 F.3d 1232, 1241–44 (9th Cir. 2010)). See also Darnell v. Piniero, 849 F.3d 17, 35–36 (2nd Cir. 2017) (applying the objective standard of intent to all pretrial detainee conditions of confinement claims). The Fifth Circuit, however, continues to apply a subjective deliberate indifference to Fourteenth Amendment pretrial detainee failure to protect claims. Alderson v. Concordia Parish Correctional Facility, 848 F.3d 415, 419–20 (5th Cir. 2017).
This instruction is drawn directly from Castro. Under the Castro objective standard, the issue for the jury is “[w]as there a substantial risk of serious harm to the plaintiff that could have been eliminated through reasonable and available measures that the officer did not take, thus causing the injury that the plaintiff suffered?” Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d at 1070. A pretrial detainee need not prove subjective elements about the officer's actual awareness of the level of risk. Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d at 1071. At the same time, however, the Supreme Court has instructed that “mere lack of due care by a state official” does not “deprive an individual of life, liberty, or property under the Fourteenth Amendment.” Castro v. County of Los Angeles, 833 F.3d at 1071, quoting Daniels v. Williams, 474 U.S. 327, 330–31, 106 S.Ct. 662, 88 L.Ed.2d 662 (1986).
[Current as of September 2018.]
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