On May 23, 2013, prisoners and recently released prisoners from Monterey County Jail filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs sued the County of Monterey and the California Forensic Medical Group (CFMG) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and state law. The plaintiffs, represented by attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California, the ACLU National Prison Project, the Monterey Public Defender, and private attorneys, asked for declaratory and injunctive relief. Specifically, the plaintiffs claimed that the conditions in the Monterey County Jail (the "Jail") violated federal and state law due to failures to protect prisoners from violence, provide adequate medical and mental health care, and provide reasonable accommodations to prisoners with disabilities.
On April 25, 2015, the County and Sheriff's Office filed a motion to dismiss, and the CFMG filed a motion to dismiss on May 2, 2014. The District Court (Magistrate Judge Paul Singh Grewal) denied both motions on September 29, 2014. 2014 WL 4843945 (N.D. Cal. 2014). First, the Court found that the plaintiffs had standing even if they were no longer incarcerated, due to the short average length of stay of prisoners in the putative class and the slow speed of legal action. Second, the Court addressed the issue of whether a private provider of jail medical facilities are "services" that can face scrutiny under Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The Court found that the plaintiffs sufficiently pleaded that CFMG was subject to Title III of the ADA because it operates a "professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or other service establishment" within the jail. The Court further explained that, although the "place" of a jail fell under Title II of the ADA as a public entity, courts had consistently found that Title III applied to "places of public accommodation" within places that normally don't fit under Title III either because they are owned by or operated for other purposes by a public entity.
On April 29, 2014, the plaintiffs filed a motion seeking certification of a prisoner class consisting of all current and future prisoners in the jail, and a subclass of prisoners with disabilities, consisting of all current and future prisoners who have a qualifying disability. Then, on August 26, 2014, the plaintiffs filed a motion for preliminary injunction, requesting that the Court order defendants to fix six of the conditions at the Jail that placed the plaintiffs and class members at risk of serious injury and death.
On January 29, 2015, Magistrate Judge Grewal certified the class. 2015 WL 399975 (N.D. Cal. 2015). Then on April 14, 2015, Magistrate Judge Grewal also granted the plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction.
On May 11, 2015, the parties settled the case. The jail agreed to set new standards for the medical and mental health care provided to inmates and to expand accessibility for prisoners with disabilities. The parties agreed to retain experts as neutral monitors for a limited term of oversight. The parties planned for the jail to come into compliance with the Settlement Agreement within five years, unless they moved for an extension. The court was to retain jurisdiction over the settlement for this five year period.
On August 18, 2015, Magistrate Judge Grewal approved the settlement. Litigation continued over attorneys' fees as the settlement agreement only set upper limits for attorneys' fees of $4.8 million. On November 6, the parties stipulated to an agreement of how they would address the issue of interest on attorneys' fees.
The parties then litigated the implementation plan. After briefing and hearings, the court approved an implementation plan on May 27, 2016.
On June 6, 2016, the case was reassigned to Judge Beth Labson Freeman.
In 2017 and 2018, there was some litigation over compliance issues. On March 19, 2018, the plaintiffs proposed an order regarding the use of telepsychiatry by the defendants, as per the settlement agreement. The court had instructed the parties that the defendants needed to have standards for when they could deviate from the typical in-person encounter and instead use “telemedicine or telepsychiatry.” After counsel met and decided on these issues, plaintiffs’ proposed order was signed and ordered by the judge on March 22, 2018. (ECF 632). Over the following months, parties handled various settlement agreement enforcement issues, such as attorneys fees and costs, the production of medical records, and neutral monitors. The docket remains active with these issues as of March 6, 2020.
Samantha Kirby - 10/05/2014
Jessica Kincaid - 10/15/2015
Virginia Weeks - 03/24/2018
Christiana Johnson - 03/20/2020
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