New York Ordered to Pay Prisoner $25,000 for Failing to Protect Him from Attack
by Chuck Sharman
New York was ordered to pay $25,000 to state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) prisoner Patricio Nunez on July 1, 2026, on his claim that guards failed to protect him from a violent attack-from-behind by an unknown fellow prisoner at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in June 2022. The decision by the state Court of Claims also awarded Nunez statutory interest and said that he was entitled to recover any filing fees paid.
The prisoner’s claim recalled that tensions began to rise between him and others incarcerated on his gallery in the prison not long after he arrived in December 2021. Apparently they belonged to the Bloods and suspected that he was a member of the rival Latin Kings. Nunez reported this verbally to a guard and then in writing to the prison’s superintendent on February 21, 2022, asking that guards “be more alert.” Alternatively, he asked to be moved “the next chance you get.”
In a subsequent plea to the superintendent on May 14, Nunez said he was “pretty worried for [his] safety,” citing “extreme tension” with fellow prisoners who made “crazy threats.” Again he had verbally reported as much to guards, he said, but they told him to “grow-up, be a man, go fight!” and “made fun of him.” Then they laughed and walked away.
Nunez said there was no reply to either letter before the assault, which left him with cuts on his face, back and neck that took 34 stiches and 14 staples to close. Two months later, he served notice of his intent to sue with the state Attorney General on August 12. Five months after that, on March 6, 2023, he filed his claim with the Clerk of the Court, including a copy of the notice of intent to sue.
During an extended back-and-forth, the state claimed that the notice was defective for failure to include the date the incident occurred and the claim accrued. However, the copy of the notice attached to that response contained the date, and so did the copy that Nunez filed—and then refiled by certified mail in order to provide a receipt.
The state finally answered the claim on January 4, 2024. Among its 11 defenses was that the notice was defective for not being filed within 90 days of the date the claim accrued. The state explained that a copy of the wrong notice had been attached to its previous responses, and the one initially received from Nunez in August lacked the date that was later added outside the 90-day window. Since this could potentially rob the Court of jurisdiction to hear the case, it took time to resolve this matter first.
What it found was that the state was the party with a timeliness problem—its answer to the claim was filed outside even the most generous reading of the statutory time limit that the Court could manage. Therefore, the affirmative defense as to the timeliness of Nunez’s notice was waived, the Court declared.
At trial, the state offered no additional evidence. Nunez, proceeding pro se, testified to the facts that he had presented and offered in evidence the notice of claim (with the incident date noted), along with copies of his correspondence to the warden and prison medical records of his injuries and treatment. The scars left after his injuries healed—especially those on his face—caused him emotional pain, as well, he testified.
The Court then concluded that he had met his burden to establish by preponderance of the evidence that the attack was reasonably foreseeable, yet DOCCS officials failed to intervene to protect him. Accordingly, the state was found 100% liable for the injuries inflicted on Nunez. After an examination of similar cases, the Court then awarded him $25,000 in damages. See: Nunez v. State of N.Y., 2026 N.Y. Misc. LEXIS 9473 (N.Y. Ct. of Claims).
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