On May 20, 2015, prisoners incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary filed this class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana (Baton Rouge). The plaintiffs sued the Louisiana State Penitentiary and the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections under the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Rehabilitation Act, and 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs, represented by the ACLU and private counsel, asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief. The plaintiffs claimed to have serious medical needs that went untreated, undertreated, or mistreated by the defendants in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs claimed that defendants engaged in systemic practices that exposed the plaintiffs to unacceptable risks to their health. These practices included routinely delaying specialty care, declining to provide medically necessary treatment, discouraging plaintiffs from requesting medical assistance, punishing plaintiffs who seek medical treatment, and maintaining an insufficient number of qualified medical personnel. The case was assigned to Judge Brian A. Jackson.

On December 14, 2015, the plaintiffs filed a motion for Entry of Protective Order Governing Protected and Individually Identifiable Health Information (PHI/IIHI). The order was granted on December 16, 2015 and the terms will survive through the end of litigation, and continue to fully apply to all materials containing PHI/IIHI. Further, the court will retain jurisdiction over all parties and persons who received access to such materials, indefinitely.

Plaintiffs moved for class certification on October 14, 2016. Plaintiffs moved for partial summary judgment on their ADA and Eighth Amendment claims on January 6, 2017. Defendants moved to disqualify the judge on February 28, 2017. The court (Judge Brian A. Jackson) granted defendants' motion to disqualify the judge on April 20, 2017, and the case was reassigned to Judge Shelly D. Dick. Defendants filed a sealed motion for summary judgment on May 12, 2017. The court denied both parties' motions for summary judgment on September 21, 2017, but granted parties to re-urge the motions, without being required to refile them, following the hearing on the class action certification.

The court granted class action certification on February 26, 2018 as "all inmates who now, or will be in the future, incarcerated at LSP" and a granted a subclass of "all qualified individuals with a disability, as defined by the ADA/RA, who are now, or will be in the future, incarcerated at LSP." Defendants subsequently moved to re-urge their motion for summary judgment on July 11, 2018. A bench trial was held between October 11 and October 25, 2018. The court has not yet reached a decision as of October 28, 2018.

Lakshmi Gopal - 10/17/2015
Elizabeth Heise - 10/28/2018


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