May 1, 2014 By The 3 min read

Fayette County, its prison warden and a corrections officer should not be held liable in the death of an inmate who hanged himself in the county lockup, according to a court filing Thursday.

According to Marie M. Jones, attorney for the county, Warden Brian Miller and guard Joseph Barnes, the complaint filed on behalf of the estate of Derek Thomas “significantly over pleads the parties and the theories of liability fairly at issue in this case, and includes scandalous and impertinent matter.”

Thomas’ mother, Tonya Leigh Thomas, filed suit earlier this year in Fayette County Court claiming officials should have classified her son as suicidal and kept him on a strict watch. The suit makes various other claims, including that the county and Miller did not adequately train jail staff and that guards ignored surveillance cameras, or the cameras did not work.

The matter was transferred into federal court in Pittsburgh earlier this week.

Derek Thomas, 25, of Uniontown died on Dec. 26, four days after he was found hanging in his cell in the prison. He was being held on burglary charges, and the lawsuit filed in the case contended that he should have been identified as someone who was at risk for attempting suicide because he had addiction issues, depression and anxiety, and a family history of attempted suicides. The suit alleged that Thomas hung in his cell for 20 to 45 minutes before officers found him.

Jones argued in her filing that portions of the case should be dismissed “in order to focus on the issues in this case and to avoid unnecessary expenses in having to address matters that, at the end of the day, are incapable of imposing liability on these defendants.”

While the complaint alleged that Miller should be held liable because guards did not look at monitors or because monitors that showed Thomas’ cells were broken, Jones said that those claims aren’t supported by law. Jones cited a 2011 inmate-related case filed against Fayette County where a federal judge decided that there is no duty for the prison to have video surveillance.

“A broken video camera does not violate an inmate’s civil rights,” Jones wrote. “Nor can a county be held liable for not requiring that officers maintain a constant vigil over video monitors, particularly when, like here, the inmate is not on suicide watch.”

Jones also contended that Miller and the county cannot be held liable for the actions of people in their employ. Additionally, the county, Miller and Barnes are immune from the counts of the suit that allege wrongful death and survival actions, she argued.

Jones noted that attorney Herbert Terrell, who filed the suit, cited two other suits filed against the prison — one where a man died from medical complications while incarcerated, the other an ongoing suit that also deals with the suicide of an inmate.

Bringing up the allegations in those suits is “immaterial, impertinent and scandalous, and inaccurately suggests that there have been findings of wrongdoing against Fayette County in those cases. There has not. These scandalous, impertinent, and frankly, inaccurate allegations should be stricken from the complaint,” Jones wrote.

A judge will rule on the matter at a later date.