Insurance Defense Blog

Liability of DC Halfway House For Acts of Former Resident

In Smith v. Hope Village, Inc., No. 05-633 (RBW)(D.D.C. Apr. 12, 2007), the district court denied the defendant's motion for summary judgment, in which the defendant had argued in part that, as a matter of law, a halfway house owes no duty to unknown parties with whom it has no relationship for harm caused by an offender previously housed at the halfway house approximately five months prior to the offender's harmful act. 

An inmate named Kelly had been released from prison into the custody of the Hope Village halfway house in December, 2001.  (Although the opinion doesn't say, the pleadings indicate that the date was Dec. 12, 2001).  On March 7, 2002, less than three months later, Kelly was discharged from Hope Village and was placed under the supervision of the DC Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency.  About five months after that, on August 6, 2002, Kelly allegedly broke into a house in Silver Spring where he shot and killed two people -- one of whom was the plaintiff's nine year old daughter.

Kelly had a long rap sheet with numerous felonies, including one involving a loaded gun.

Plaintiff brought a wrongful death and survival action against Hope Village.  The theory of liability was that Hope Village was negligent in its supervision of Kelly, and as a result, the halfway house was responsible for his improper and untimely release into the community.  Plaintiff alleged that Hope Village knew, or should have known, of Kelly's violations of the terms of his conditional release while at Hope Village, yet it never disciplined him.

In its motion for summary judgment, Hope Village argued, among other things, that it does not owe any legally cognizable duty to the plaintiff, or to any parties with whom it has no pre-existing relationship, for injuries resulting from Kelly's criminal conduct five months after he was discharged from the halfway house program.  It also argued that there was no proximate cause due to a lack of foreseeability, and due to remoteness and superseding and intervening negligence.

In a lengthy opinion, Judge Walton rejected all of Hope Village's arguments, finding that Hope Village did owe a duty to people in the local community such as the plaintiff and her daughter, and that the question of foreseeability was for the jury.  Judge Walton also reinstated plaintiff's wrongful death claim, finding that the 3 year statute of limitations under the Maryland Wrongful Death Act applied, not the shorter period of limitations under the D.C. Act.

Violation of Immigration Laws

Further to my previous post on this subject, I should note that in 1992, the D.C. Court of Appeals in Portillo v. United States, 609 A.2d 687 (D.C. 1992), considered the issue whether in a criminal case, the prosecutor committed reversible error by cross examining the defendant as to his illegal immigrtation status and for arguing that that negatively impacted defendant's credibility. The Court affirmed, as the cross examination at issue was not properly objected to at trial and it did not rise to the level of plain error. However, the Court criticized the prosecutor for improperly cross examining a witness on a prior bad act not involving a criminal conviction:

"Where the prosecutor went wrong concerning appellant's immigration status, however, was to suggest that the illegal entry itself was 'the grandest deception,' which rendered appellant's testimony incredible. This implies that anyone who -- for whatever reason -- has crossed our borders in violation of the government's immigration procedures should not be believed. Appellant, however, had not been convicted of an immigration-related offense. '[A] witness may be cross-examined on a prior bad act that has not resulted in a criminal conviction only where '(1) the examiner has a factual predicate for the question, and (2) the bad act 'bears directly upon the veracity of the witness in respect to the issues involved in the trial.' . . . Appellant's unlawful presence in this country did not bear directly upon his veracity in respect to the issue of his guilt on the charge of distributing drugs. Thus, the prosecutor could not properly use appellant's illegal status to argue against his general credibility."

Given that the U.S. Supreme Court in Hoffman has stated that illegal entry into this country amounts to criminal fraud, the argument seems stronger now that cross examination on such illegal entry goes directly to truth and veracity.

Violation of Immigration Laws

An alien's use of a false identity when working or obtaining employment in the United States is a violation of federal immigration laws, amounting to a criminal fraud. Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB, 122 S.Ct. 1275, 1283-84 (2002). Even if a claim of a plaintiff who was working in violation of federal immigration laws has merit, the immigration law violations may disqualify such a plaintiff from any recovery. Permitting such a plaintiff to recover would be contrary to federal immigrtation law because it would reward their unlawful conduct and encourage future violations of the immigration laws. Hoffman, 122 S.Ct. at 1283-84.

Later: However, that argument has not succeeded in at least one jurisdiction, Massachusetts, which has refused to deny workers' compensation benefits to an undocumented immigrant worker. See the very interesting opinion in Guillermo Medellin v. Cashman, KPA and National Union Fire Ins. Co. (Reviewing Board of the Department of Industrial Accidents of Massachusetts, Dec. 23, 2003). The latter opinion has been appealed.

The National Immigration Law Center has collected cites to decisions applying Hoffman Plastic:
Immigrants Employment Rights and Remedies