It would be a civil case. You would just have to show the prison didn't take proper care. There's no precedent for level of negligence. So, you're telling me that if the prison just left a loaded gun next to the cell and he shot himself, they wouldn't be liable in any way?

Just google: inmate's family sues prison over suicide. There's probably a thousand links.

You really don't know what you are talking about. Suicide is typically charged as a criminal offense. No self respecting lawyer would take that on, because you'd have to prove that the suicide attempt was involuntary.

Obviously blaise has never seen Shawshank

when the inmate is scheduled for execution, it would have the effect of "executing" the damages.

No doubt prisons are responsible for prisoner safety. But that doesn't mean they are liable for every suicide. In this case it looks like the man overdosed on prescription drugs. It is unclear where they came from. So I won't speculate on liability, but it isn't as open and shut as you think.

You are right that prisoners are constantly suing prisons. It is actually kind of joke in the system. Those actions are not taken particularly seriously, and the courts have been rolling back whatever rights those prisoners have had for years. It is also irrelevant to this case.

My point is, to win the plaintiffs would have to show a duty, breach of the duty, causation, and damages. What are the damages for a death row inmate scheduled to die the next day? ZERO. There is not a judge or jury in this country that would award the family any money.

Yes, I actually know exactly what I'm talking about. We were talking about families suing for damages based on a lack of supervision of the inmate. There's a history of prisoners who are held in isolation attempting suicide. The prisons know this, believe me. That's why that don't like keeping prisoners in isolation (or segregation, as some call it). The fact that the prison knows that prisoners in isolation and on death row are more prone to suicide attempts means that they need to take proper care to ensure that the inmates don't have opportunity to attempt suicide.
You're obviously the one that doesn't know what he's talking about. These cases exist, states and the federal government pay on them in and out of court. That is a fact. I really don't know how you could possibly think that saying "no lawyer would take that" means anything. I guess all the thousands of lawyers in the country are doing so well they don't need to sue the states and Fed for money. Not to mention organizations like the Lewisburg Prison Project who bring suits against the prisons all the time.

Can you give me one case study of this?

No lawyer would take THIS case because there are no ****ing damages!! Would you take the case for 30% of $1?

In some wrongful death/negligence cases there are. That is obvious. Stop changing the subject. Some of those suits are meritorious.

The government didn't want to be denied the pleasure of killing him themselves. :D

Well they spend tens of millions of dollars not taking it seriously every year.
You wouldn't have much trouble showing duty or breach of duty. The prison is responsible for the inmate, they allowed him the drugs knowing he was at risk for suicide.
There are plenty of juries that would award money, Would it be tens of millions? No. But there's plenty of cases of juries awarding money for cases that don't seem to warrant it. You can't just say, "No jury would award damages." The prison would probably settle without even going to trial. You'd probably have the prison attorney having to investigate, prepare paperwork, get statements, etc. and they're probably not even the ones that would argue in court. They would probably hand the case to someone else. That's a lot of time and money. If this guy had died, and his family sued, they would get something, and it would be more than $1. The prison would most likely cut them a check. You can't just say, "He was going to die. His life wasn't worth anything" in court. It would sound too callous.

That an inmates family sued for damages?

How am I changing the subject? I initially said the prison would be sued over suicide. They most likely would if his family cared at all. It happens all the time.

One of us was in courtroom 101 today. One of us is just typing some shit into google and mixing that with some seriously skewed pre-conceived notions of the justice system. You seriously don't get it.

Assuming (and this is a very large assumption), that the family could get a lawyer to take the case, and then manage to prove liability. The damages would literally be that the man died one day before he was going to die anyway. If they somehow managed to win a verdict, it would be of the symbolic variety. $1 verdicts happen all the time. And you have a much bigger problem on liability than you think. It isn't worth breaking it down.

Its the same reason that its hard to win medical malpractice cases when the patient was terminally ill. Even when you win, its pyrrhic.

Actually, one of us has quite a bit of knowledge about the legal system inside prisons and knows that these cases happen all the time. I didn't google anything that I wrote. Great, you were in courtroom 101. If you don't think prisons get sued for this regularly, you're wrong, and I don't see any way you can deny that. Like I said, the damages probably wouldn't be great, but it probably wouldn't go to court. I'm almost positive the state would cut his family a check.

Bingo.