An inmate who was struck over the head with a spatula while on kitchen duty was wrong to sue the state of Maryland, according to the state?s second highest court.
Judges on the Maryland Court of Special Appeals ruled Wednesday that prison inmate Dave Jennifer, who was attacked by another inmate with a spatula, was incorrect to sue the state in Baltimore City Circuit Court and should instead take his grievance to the Sundry Claims Board.
The Sundry Claims Board is a three-member panel created to hear complaints filed by any inmate injured while working a prison job in Maryland.
Jennifer, 38, of Baltimore, who was convicted of drug distribution in Baltimore County in 1998, was paid 95 cents per day to work in the Central Laundry Facility of the Maryland Division of Correction.
On Aug. 23, 2002, while working, Jennifer asked an officer for a hamburger and the officer directed fellow inmate Stanley B. Taylor, 49, of Baltimore to server Jennifer the food.
Taylor was convicted of malicious destruction of property in 2000.
Taylor refused to serve the food and stated “he would rather throw [the hamburger] on the floor than give it to [Jennifer],” and then proceeded to do precisely that, according to the judges? ruling.
The next day, the two prisoners were placed in different areas of the kitchen and given separate duties, but Taylor “approached [Jennifer] from behind, holding a large spatula used to stir large pots” and struck him in the head with it, court documents state.
Taylor was “under care by [the State] for mental health problems” but had exhausted the medication he was taking for that condition, according to Jennifer?s complaint.
Even so, the judges ruled, the proper venue for Jennifer?s grievance is the Sundry Claims Board, not the Baltimore City Circuit Court.
