Request By:
Mr. Gary C. Johnson
Pike County Attorney
P.O. Box 231
Pikeville, Kentucky 41501-0231
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Charles W. Runyan, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
In view of jail legislation in the 1982 session, you ask whether employees of the county jail are now entitled to the same privileges and rights as county employees. "Jail personnel" means deputy jailers, matrons, cooks and other food service personnel and other jail employees involved in the supervision, custody, care or treatment of prisoners in jails, but does not include maintenance or clerical personnel. KRS 441.005 (H.B. 440, Ch. 385, 1982 Acts).
The county jail, under H.B. 440, is a responsibility of the county, i.e., the fiscal court. See KRS 441.006. Under that statute the fiscal court must provide a jail in the county or provide for incarceration of the county's prisoners in a jail in another county or in a city. The jailer is the custodial officer immediately in charge of the local jail. The state's contribution for jail operations goes into the county treasury. KRS 441.007. The fiscal court is responsible for providing an operating budget for the jail operation. KRS 441.008. The jailer is paid a salary by the county. KRS 441.009.
Thus the jail employees are for general purposes county employees. On that basis we believe such employees are subject generally to various statutes relating to "county employees" as such.
However, KRS 71.060, as amended in 1982, provides in part that the jailer shall be liable on his bond for the conduct of his deputies. See KRS 71.010, relating to the jailer's bond. The jailer is liable on his bond for all "deputy personnel. " Under KRS 71.060 the jailer may appoint not more than two deputies, and, with fiscal court approval, additional deputies at any time during his term. See Lamb v. Clark, 282 Ky. 167, 138 S.W.2d 350 (1940). There is potential liability as concerns the jailer and his bond for the acts of his deputies. It seems reasonable to assume that the liability burden rests with the jailer and his bondsmen. The fiscal court members (not the county under sovereign immunity) might be liable for certain tortious acts of jail nondeputy personnel.
Under KRS 71.060, as amended in 1982, deputy jailers may be removed any time by the jailer. As you suggest, that strengthens the position that the liability for unlawful acts of deputies rests with the jailer and his bond. Nondeputy jail personnel would be subject to dismissal under the procedure of KRS 67.710(7).