On May 1, 2015, inmates of the Minnesota Department of Corrections who suffer from the serious and life-threatening disease known as Hepatitis-C filed this class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota against the Minnesota Department of Corrections. The plaintiffs sued under 42 USC § 1983 because of violations of their the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution and under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Represented by private counsel, the plaintiffs asked the court for declaratory judgment that the defendant's hepatitis C policy violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act claiming and a permanent injunction against the defendant, claiming that the defendant's actions constituted deliberate indifference to their serious medical needs as Hepatitis C (HCV) patients.

Prior to late 2013, HCV treatment consisted of injections that lasted a year and had low levels of success and serious side effects. In January 2014, the American Association for the Study of Liver Disease and Association for the Study of Infectious Disease adopted new "breakthrough" drug 12-week daily pill therapy, with a 95% cure rate as the standard of care, replacing the highly toxic and less effective injection therapy. Defendants refuse to provide the "breakthrough" drug treatment to the Plaintiffs for non-medical reasons.

On June 13, 2015, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, modifying specific complaints of the plaintiffs.

On September 16, 2015, the Court issued a notice resetting the pretrial conference in this case to October 15, 2015.

Maria Ricaurte - 10/04/2015


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