The federal courthouse in Sioux Falls. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
A Sioux Falls jury ordered a former state prison warden to pay $105,000 in damages to an inmate after a federal civil rights trial, but it’s unclear if the warden or state will pay the award.
Mark Christians, 45, sued a series of Department of Corrections employees in 2020, alleging that inadequate nutrition caused him to lose 90 pounds between 2017 and 2018 at Mike Durfee State Prison in Springfield. He also alleged that prison food had made him ill and left him with permanent health conditions.
In 2022, he amended his lawsuit to include allegations of cruel and unusual punishment during a 2021 stay in disciplinary housing at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls.
Christians lost weight during that two-month period, as well. He’d been sent to the penitentiary’s Special Housing Unit for fighting with another inmate, court documents say. But he alleged he was held there longer than intended because he’d gone on hunger strike to protest over his meals. He’d lost weight during his first 11 days in confinement, his lawsuit said.
U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol dismissed many of Christians’ claims and released multiple defendants from liability in the years after the inmate filed his lawsuits. Christians represented himself for most of those years.
Piersol appointed Christians two lawyers this spring to handle the trial — stretched across four days this month in Sioux Falls, with a break for the weekend — on his claims about inadequate nutrition and punishment claims.
The remaining defendants included Brent Fluke, the former warden at the Springfield prison, and Darin Young, the former penitentiary warden.
Jurors were instructed, according to court documents, that the U.S. Constitution’s Eighth Amendment “requires prison officials to provide prisoners with humane conditions of confinement, including nutritionally adequate meals to maintain health.” The Eighth Amendment bars cruel and unusual punishment.
Another jury instruction asked the panel to decide if Christians’ meals were “nutritionally inadequate,” if the defendants knew he’d likely be harmed as a result, that they showed “deliberate indifference” to that harm, and that Christians actually experienced that harm.
Jurors answered “yes” to each of those questions for both Fluke and Young. Fluke was ordered to pay $1 in “nominal” damages, meaning those directly related to Christians’ claims about his nutrition in Springfield. Fluke was not ordered to pay punitive damages, which are levied as a punishment.
Young was ordered to pay $5,000 in nominal damages and $100,000 in punitive damages.
None of the other defendants were found liable for Christians’ weight loss.
Unclear who might pay damages
The former state employees were represented by lawyers from Attorney General Marty Jackley’s office.
A spokesman for that office said the decision on whether to appeal or otherwise challenge the validity of the verdict lies with the Department of Corrections. That department’s spokesman, meanwhile, said it cannot comment on ongoing litigation.
Tyler Haigh of Sioux Falls, one of two lawyers who represented Christians, also declined to comment, citing the ongoing legal case.
Neither Haigh, nor lawyers for the state, have commented on who might ultimately be responsible to pay damages to Christians if the verdict stands.
South Dakota has an insurance pool called the Public Entity Pool for Liability that covers certain expenses related to lawsuits involving current or former employees. Under South Dakota law, though, that fund cannot be used to pay punitive damages in civil court cases.
The state also has an Extraordinary Litigation Fund, designed to cover “plaintiff attorney fee awards, retention of outside counsel, settlement costs, or other litigation expenses not otherwise eligible to be paid” by the pool.
Both funds are managed by the Bureau of Administration, whose commissioner, Darin Seeley, did not respond to a request for comment.
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