recognizing that Smith stood for the proposition that a claim for damages against the state for a violation of the Michigan Constitution may be recognized in appropriate cases but holding that the plaintiff did not adequately allege which constitutional provision the government had violated
How later courts described this case
- recognizing that Smith stood for the proposition that a claim for damages against the state for a violation of the Michigan Constitution may be recognized in appropriate cases but holding that the plaintiff did not adequately allege which constitutional provision the government had violated
- recognizing due process right for damages under Michigan Constitution, but finding that factually plaintiff failed to allege discriminatory legislation
- summarily holding right of damages available for violation of search and seizure
- “The Eighth Amendment imposes duties on prison officials to provide humane conditions of confinement, ensure that inmates receive adequate food, shelter, and medical care, and take reasonable measures to guarantee the safety of the inmates.”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
D. C. Kolenda, J.
(concurring). I agree completely with Judge Jansen’s opinion and have signed it without reservation. A jury could easily conclude that locking plaintiff in a cell with a mass murderer and then, in ways that were plainly visible to plaintiff, laughing at her terror, if that happened as claimed by plaintiff, thereby communicating to her that she was at the mercy of a murderer, was behavior that is utterly intolerable in a civilized community. I write separately to respond to the dissent’s complaint that there is an inconsistency between that holding and the other holdings in Judge Jansen’s opinion. There is not. Part hi of the opinion is based on traditional tort analysis. Parts i and ii involve constitutional torts that are unique and involve standards not applicable to common-law torts. Far more needs to be *163 proved to establish the former. Accordingly, that a set of facts does not prove the former does not mean that it cannot prove the latter.