Prisoner who claims he accidentally drank human blood has lawsuit revived by Pa. court

A state prison inmate who claims he accidentally drank human blood in the jail’s cafeteria has had his lawsuit over the incident at least temporarily revived by a state appeals court.

The problem, Judge Mary P. Murray wrote in the Superior Court’s opinion, is that it’s hard to tell why Sean Burke’s suit was dismissed in the first place.

Burke, who is serving time for a 1990 murder in Philadelphia, claims he was exposed to the blood after another prisoner who was working in the kitchen of the state prison at Rockview cut himself on a chipped cup.

The other inmate’s blood contaminated cups and serving trays used by himself and other inmates, Burke contended in the suit he filed in Centre County Court. He lodged that product liability complaint against the maker of the chipped cup.

Burke, 52, claims his unintentional exposure to the other prisoner’s blood caused him “psychological injuries and emotional harm.” He appealed to Murray’s court after county Judge Jonathan D. Grine dismissed his suit in a three-page order.

The reason for that dismissal is too vague to let it stand, Murray found. “At no point does (Grine) explain why (he) dismissed the complaint,” Murray wrote. “We emphasize it is not this court’s role to guess why the trial court granted preliminary objections.”

So, she overturned the dismissal and sent the case back to Grine for further clarification.

Murray did, however, agree with the county judge’s refusal of Burke’s request for a review of the medical records of the prisoner who cut himself. She concluded there was no need for such an examination since Burke tested negative for communicable diseases after the blood incident.

“The individual (who cut himself) has a strong privacy right in his records, and (Grine) did not abuse (his) discretion in declining to violate that right,” Murray wrote.

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