Johnson v. Detroit

In Johnson v. Detroit, 457 Mich 695, 705; 579 NW2d 895 (1998), the decedent was arrested and placed in a felony cell which had exposed overhead bars. He was later discovered standing on the sink, making a noose out of his socks and was apparently preparing to hang himself. He was taken to the crisis center for a psychiatric evaluation and was diagnosed as having an adjustment disorder with depressed mood and opiate dependence. He was returned to jail with the psychiatrist's written and oral admonition that he be kept under suicide watch. Upon his return, he was placed in another felony cell that had exposed overhead bars. That afternoon Jackson was found hanging from a noose which was tied to the exposed overhead bars of his cell. In Jackson the Court held that Jackson's suicide attempt did not fall within the narrow confines of the public building exception to governmental immunity because it did not relate to the maintenance of a safe public building for the specific use and purpose for which it was assigned but, rather, related to safety in public buildings. Id. at 429. The Court reasoned as follows. "To suggest that any physical feature of a jail cell, otherwise benign, that can conceivably become a part of a plan of one who is desperately driven to self destruction can become a 'dangerous or defective condition' under the public building exception statute, simply crosses the outer limits of any reasonable reading of the intent of that statute when considered in the context of its history, purpose, and wording." Id.