## Facts

- The South Dakota Department of Corrections (the State) contracted with Catering by Marlins, Inc. (CBM) to provide food services for inmates at the South Dakota State Penitentiary.
- The CBM–State contract included provisions addressing prison security and the State’s responsibilities for maintaining order and providing correctional staff support in areas where CBM employees worked.
- Randall Masad was employed by CBM and worked in the penitentiary in connection with the food-service operation.
- While Masad was working, an inmate attacked him and caused severe injuries.
- Masad and his wife sued the State and numerous Department of Corrections officials and employees (collectively treated as the State defendants).
- The complaint asserted (1) a negligence theory based on inadequate supervision/security that allegedly allowed the attack to occur and (2) a contract theory alleging the State breached security-related provisions of the CBM–State contract.
- Masad claimed he could sue on the contract as an intended third-party beneficiary of the security provisions.
- The circuit court granted summary judgment to the State defendants.
- Masad appealed to the South Dakota Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether SDCL 3-21-8 and SDCL 3-21-9(5) barred Masad’s negligence claim arising from an inmate’s attack, and whether applying those statutory liability limits violated the South Dakota Constitution.
2. Whether Masad, as an employee of CBM, was an intended third-party beneficiary entitled to enforce the CBM–State contract’s security provisions against the State.

## Decision

- The South Dakota Supreme Court affirmed summary judgment against Masad on the negligence claim, holding it was barred by SDCL 3-21-8 and SDCL 3-21-9(5), and rejected Masad’s constitutional challenge to applying those statutes to his claim.
- The court also affirmed summary judgment against Masad on the contract claim, holding he was not an intended third-party beneficiary of the CBM–State contract.
- The court’s mandate was “reversed in part and affirmed in part,” but the outcome left Masad without recovery against the State defendants on the pleaded theories.

## Legal Principles

- When the Legislature has limited public-entity tort liability by statute, claims that fall within those statutory limits are barred even if the plaintiff alleges negligent prison-security supervision connected to inmate conduct.
- A constitutional challenge to statutory limits on suits against the State fails where the statutory scheme permissibly defines the scope of governmental liability and does not exceed the Legislature’s authority to set conditions on actions against the State.
- A nonparty may enforce a contract only if the contracting parties intended the contract to directly benefit that person or class; it is not enough that the person would foreseeably benefit from performance.
- Contract provisions that improve workplace safety (including security-related provisions in a services contract) do not create third-party enforcement rights for contractor employees absent clear contractual intent to confer such rights.
- When a contract’s main object is to obtain services for the government (here, inmate food service), contractor employees who benefit from related operational terms are typically incidental beneficiaries, not intended beneficiaries.

## Conclusion

Masad, a food-service contractor’s employee injured by an inmate at the state penitentiary, could not recover from the State defendants because statutory limits on governmental liability barred his negligence claim, and the security provisions in the State’s contract with his employer did not show an intent to grant CBM employees enforceable third-party beneficiary rights.


Masad v. Weber, 772 N.W.2d 144 (2009)