406
Opinion of the Court
gang-related death of husband); Dahlheim v. Lemon, 45 F. 225, 228-230 (1891) (contractor liable for convict injuries); Tillar v. Reynolds, 96 Ark. 358, 360-361, 365-366, 131 S. W. 969, 970, 971-972 (1910) (work farm owner liable for inmate beating death); Weigel v. Brown, 194 F. 652 (CA8 1912) (prison contractor liable for unlawful whipping); see also Edwards v. Pocahontas, 47 F. 268 (CC Va. 1891) (inmate can recover from municipal corporation for injuries caused by poor jail conditions); Hall v. O'Neil Turpentine Co., 56 Fla. 324, 47 So. 609 (1908) (private prison contractor and sub-contractor liable to municipality for escaped prisoner under lease agreement); see generally Mancini, supra (discussing abuses of 19th-century private lease system). Yet, we have found no evidence that the law gave purely private companies or their employees any special immunity from such suits. Cf. Almango v. Board of Supervisors of Albany County, 32 N. Y. Sup. Ct. 551 (1881) (no cause of action against private contractor where contractor designated state instrumentality by statute). The case on which the dissent rests its argument, Williams v. Adams, 85 Mass. 171 (1861) (which could not—without more—prove the existence of such a tradition and does not, moreover, clearly involve a private prison operator) actually supports our point. It suggests that no immunity from suit would exist for the type of intentional conduct at issue in this case. See ibid. (were "battery" at issue, the case would be of a different "character" and "the defendant might be responsible"); see id., at 176 (making clear that case only involves claim of ordinary negligence for lack of heat and other items, not "gross negligence," "implied malice," or "intention to do the prisoner any bodily injury"); cf. Tower v. Glover, 467 U. S. 914, 921 (1984) (concluding that state public defenders do not enjoy immunity from suit where conduct intentional and no history of immunity for intentional conduct was established).
Correctional functions in England have been more consistently public, see generally 22 Encyclopedia Brittanica,
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