State’s highest court weighs question of sovereign immunity in prisoner’s injury suit

Did a lower court err in refusing to issue sanctions against the state in a former prisoner’s lawsuit? And is the state protected from the suit based on sovereign immunity? These are two of the questions before the Missouri Supreme Court.

Plaintiff Trent Berhow, who at the time was a prisoner at the Western Missouri Correctional Center, is suing the state in a personal injury action after he fell almost 8 feet off a ladder while performing an assignment as an electrician and maintenance worker at the facility in 2017.

In his brief before the court, Berhow argues he “was directed by a State of Missouri employee to place and position the ladder in a specific way at location that was unreasonably dangerous, especially considering the substandard and ill-suited tools provided to Plaintiff by his employer to perform the electrical work.”

Berhow had previously voiced his concerns over the tools and dangerous ladder placement, but these went unaddressed. As a result of the fall, he “suffered serious injuries to his left arm, left elbow, left wrist, hip and pelvis area and his back,” according to the brief.

Berhow brought the suit in 2019 initially against the Missouri Department of Corrections, but he later dropped MDOC as a defendant, naming only the state. Instead of timely responding to the amended petition, the state waited 60 days instead of the required 45 to issue a response.

The delays that followed led Berhow’s legal team to seek sanctions against the state.

“At the time the trial court entered judgment, this matter was over 1,400 days old,” Berhow’s brief said. “By the end of 2019, the WMCC had been shuttered, with inmates being consolidated into the Crossroads Correctional Center. Between the date of the original filing and ultimate judgment, no fewer than 10 Assistant Attorneys General entered their appearance on behalf of the State.”

Berhow issued a request for discovery in 2020 and after what his legal team refers to as several informal extensions, the state claimed it would turn over discovery by June 2021.

“Instead of responding, however, the State threatened to file a motion for judgment on the pleadings. When Plaintiff informed the State that Plaintiff would file a motion to compel, the State agreed to respond to discovery before filing the motion for judgment on the pleadings,” according to the brief. “Roughly six months later and over two years after receiving Plaintiff’s initial discovery requests, the State filed its first Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings.”

The state served no discovery responses and the same day, Berhow filed a motion seeking to compel the discovery.

“In its first Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings, the State argued that Plaintiff’s claim was barred by the statute of limitations, that Plaintiff failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted and that Plaintiff had failed to exhaust his administrative remedies,” according to the brief. “The trial court denied the State’s first Motion for Judgment on the Pleadings; granted Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel; and ordered the State to provide ‘full responses to outstanding discovery on or before July 1, 2022.’”

The state ignored this order, Berhow’s attorney said.

The state only supplied the discovery after Berhow sought sanctions, according to the brief. After more back and forth regarding discovery and the state’s behavior in litigation, the state renewed a motion for judgment on the proceedings — arguing it had sovereign immunity from Berhow’s claims.

The DeKalb County Circuit Court ruled in favor of the state and this appeal follows.

Berhow’s points relied upon argue the trial court erred in refusing to grant sanctions against the state, erred in granting judgement in the state’s favor because it is not entitled to “judgment as a matter of law on the basis of sovereign immunity” and that the “State was not entitled to judgment as a matter of law on Plaintiff’s dangerous-condition-of-property claim based on the statute of limitations.”

The state claims in its brief “sovereign immunity bars Berhow’s claims against the State,” and Berhow “cannot establish that the term ‘public entity,’ as used in Section 537.600.1, is an unequivocal and clear statement by the General Assembly waiving sovereign immunity for the State itself. Additionally, it claims Berhow’s suit is barred by the statute of limitations.

“Separately, Berhow cannot overcome the high bar of establishing that the circuit court abused its discretion in refusing to grant Berhow’s motion for sanctions,” the state said in its brief. “Specifically, Berhow has not established that the alleged delays resulted in fundamental unfairness or substantively altered the outcome of the case and careful deliberation of the circuit court over several hearings and briefings is antithetical to any notion of abuse of discretion.”

“The trial court should have punished and not rewarded the state of Missouri for its years long discovery delays, culminating in the production of an altered document that was misrepresented to the plaintiffs,” said Gabriel Harris of Carson & Coil in Jefferson City who represented Berhow during oral arguments. “Second as written, the statute of limitations in 516.145, applies only to claims against the Department of Corrections and the department’s divisions thereof and employees of the DOC, and those claims must be direct. This claim, however, is not directly against the DOC or any employee. It is against the state of Missouri and the state alone.”

The case is: Trent Berhow v. State of Missouri, Case No. SC100809.