On January 23, 1985, four patients at the Napa State Hospital (NSH) in Napa Valley, California filed a lawsuit against the hospital and the Department of Mental Health for the State of California (DMH) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated by conditions at the hospital. This lawsuit drew the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, who initiated an investigation into the conditions at the hospital on June 25, 1985, pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1997, the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA).

On September, 13, 1990, the Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against the State of California in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The DOJ alleged that the defendants had violated the constitutional rights of NSH patients by failing to provide adequate medical and psychiatric care, inadequate staffing levels and staff training, inadequate status review for patients, inadequate record-keeping, inadequate procedures for administration of medicine, and misuse of bodily restraints.

On September 17, 1990, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (Judge Eugene F. Lynch) issued a consent decree in the case. We have no information on the content of this decree. On June 2, 1995, the defendants asked the court to find them compliant with the court's orders and terminate the consent decree. The plaintiffs did not object to this motion, and on June 8, 1995, the court (Judge Lynch) terminated the decree and dismissed the case with prejudice.

Kristen Sagar - 07/18/2006


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