Employees from the Stone County (Missouri) jail transported Penny Whitson and four men in the same van to the state Department of Corrections. The van consisted of three section. In the first section were two employees of the jail, one of whom drove the van. In the first caged section behind the driver were three men. In the back caged section was one man, Richard Leach, and Whitson.

The van was dark and noisy. The officers were playing loud music. Whitson alleged that Leach raped her. She did not immediately complain but she complained when the van stopped at a rest stop and when they got to the prison. A rape test at the prison showed mobile sperm.

She sued the deputies in the van for failure to protect her. She also alleged that the jail and supervising officers failed to properly train and supervise the officers.

The District Court granted the defendants motion for summary judgment but the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the trial court decision finding that triable facts exist. On a motion for summary judgment the question is whether as a matter of law one party wins and that there are no facts which need to be decided by a jury.

The Eighth Amendment’s prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment places a duty of prison authorities to protect prisoners from injury caused by other prisoners.

In order to prevail in a civil rights suits for damages resulting from injury caused by another inmate a two part test must be proved. First, objectively the inmate must prove that “the deprivation of rights was sufficiently serious; i.e., whether the inmate “is
incarcerated under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm. . . The second requirement is subjective and requires that the inmate prove that the prison official had a sufficiently culpable state of mind.”

The defendants wrongly claim that since the officers did not have specific information that Leach, the alleged rapist, was a danger to Whitson that summary judgment was appropriate. But as the Court points out that a substantial risk of injury can exist without the officers knowing specific information about Leach’s dangerousness. For example other officers may have received complaints or jail regulations may require particular steps be followed when transporting male and female inmates together. None of these issues were raised on summary judgment and therefore triable facts remain to be determined at trial.