Stalter v. State

We granted review of a Court of Appeals decision reversing summary judgments in two Pierce County Superior Court cases. In each case, a person who was held in the Pierce County Jail under an arrest warrant issued for another person brought suit against Pierce County claiming damages for the detention. The principal issue before us in these consolidated cases is whether the Court of Appeals wrongly concluded that jail personnel have a duty to investigate the identity of a jail detainee once they have been put on notice that they may be holding the wrong individual.

We hold that the Court of…