So here’s an unusual prisoner lawsuit. Facts: Inmate escapes from jail, is caught, and is returned to jail. Inmate then tries to escape from jail again and falls 40 feet while scaling down the wall of the jail, sustaining injuries. Legal claim (drafted by an attorney, not the inmate): The people running the jail and the county are liable because their negligence caused the injury. They should have known the inmate would try to escape again and would injure himself, and they didn’t exercise their duty of care to make sufficiently sure he couldn’t escape.
There are other claims in the complaint alleging police brutality, and I don’t mean to make light of those claims if true. But the negligence argument is just precious. Maybe the answer is for prisons to be designed without walls, so inmates won’t hurt themselves falling from them during escapes? Or at least the prison could put up a bunch of signs saying, “CAUTION: Do Not Scale Down Prison Wall. Injuries May Result.” Thanks to Howard for the link.