Prison Officer Gets ‘Assault Pay’ Where Injury Was Not Caused by Direct Violence

A Massachusetts appeals court has ruled that a prison employee is entitled to “assault pay” for an injury even though his injury was not the result of a direct assault by an inmate.

The court backed a bid for the extra pay by prison officer Jeffrey Howell who sustained a shoulder injury while carrying equipment for an ongoing prisoner hostage situation.

His employer, the Essex County Sheriff, contended that the officer was not entitled to the extra pay because the injury did not result from an assault by a prisoner.

However, the Massachusetts Court of Appeals in Essex County has ruled that the officer did not need to be in the presence of the violent inmate when his injury occurred, and that the inmate need not have directed his violent act at him for the injury to have “resulted from” the inmate’s act of violence.

The state’s “assault pay” or “violence pay” provision entitles correctional employees who, “while in the performance of duty, receive bodily injuries resulting from acts of violence of patients or prisoners in [their] custody” to payments equal to their full salaries.

On January 2, 2018, Howell was working in one of the buildings within the Essex County correctional facility when, in a different building, one inmate took another hostage by holding a razor blade to his neck. Another officer asked Howell to help carry a metal footlocker downstairs so its contents could be used to address the hostage situation. In carrying the locker, Howell injured his shoulder.

As a result of his shoulder injury, Howell was unable to work. He began receiving bi-weekly workers’ compensation benefits. By July, he was supplementing his workers’ compensation benefits with his sick leave pay until that was depleted. He did not receive assault pay, which is supposed to be the difference between the weekly cash workers’ compensation benefits and his regular salary, without this amount being charged against available sick leave credits. He redeemed a total of $14,899.79 in sick leave; for the same period, his assault pay would have been $49,780.84.

The sheriff maintained that a lower court judge erred in siding with Howell because his injury did not result from an act of violence by a prisoner.

However, the appeals court said Howell’s injury was the result of an act of inmate violence because it happened while he was carrying equipment needed to address the hostage situation.

“Because of the inmate’s violent act of taking a hostage, the plaintiff carried the footlocker down the stairs. Because he carried the footlocker down the stairs, he suffered a shoulder injury. Thus, the plaintiff sustained an injury resulting from an act of inmate violence,” the court stated.

Howell was “responding urgently, in real time, to the immediate need caused by a prisoner holding another hostage with a razor at his throat, linkage well within the ambit of the statute,” the court wrote, adding that the workers’ compensation act is “a remedial statute and should be given a broad interpretation.”