On February 16, 2000, private attorneys, a public defender, and counsel from the D.C. Prisoners' Legal Services Project filed this § 1983 class action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on behalf of incarcerated persons, their family members, legal counsel, and other recipients of telephone calls from prisoners housed in prison facilities operated by the defendant private corporation, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA -- the largest operator of private prison facilities). The ACLU and the Washington Lawyers Committee represented the plaintiffs. The case was assigned to District Judge Gladys Kessler. The affected facilities were in numerous locations around the U.S., including in the District of Columbia. Other named defendants were companies providing telephone services to these facilities.
The telephone service companies had entered into "exclusive dealing contracts" with the prison corporation. In return for granting this exclusivity, CCA received a commission for each call made. Under the contracts, only one company per prison provided telephone service for its prisoners, and the only service provided was to allow collect outgoing calls. Alleging that the collect calls resulted in the highest charges and that the represented class members were unable to choose any different, less-expensive service, the plaintiffs alleged they were entitled to damages and injunctive relief under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1, the Communications Act, 47 U.S.C. § 151, and District of Columbia law.
On August 22, 2001, Judge Kessler granted the defendants' motion to dismiss the complaint, relying upon the doctrine of primary jurisdiction, and directed the parties to file pleadings raising the case's issues with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Later, the judge stayed the dismissal, pending the outcome of the FCC proceedings which ensued.
On October 8, 2003, the case returned to Judge Kessler, although the FCC proceedings had not concluded. On that day, she issued her memorandum opinion granting a defendant telephone company's motion to dismiss the complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction over the company, which had no presence in the District of Columbia nor substantial business or other ties to it. On July 7, 2004, another telephone company defendant was dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction. The docket notes a termination date for the case of January 31, 2005 without further explanation.
The FCC proceedings, docketed as 96-128 and 12-375, continued and on August 19, 2013, the FCC issued an order requiring interstate inmate calling service rates to be capped. See
PC-DC-0027 and
PC-DC-0028, in this collection.
On October 27, 2014, plaintiffs moved to reopen the case and Judge Kessler granted the motion on April 30, 2015. On May 15, 2015, plaintiffs moved to amend the initial complaint, as it was limited to those CCA facilities to which Securus provided ICS. The new complaint expanded the scope to all correctional facilities in the country served by Securus. In an opinion granting the motion issued January 21, 2016, Judge Kessler held that, while the new complaint greatly increased the proposed class size, a mere increase in class size is neither complex nor inherently prejudicial, and that the amendment would neither cause undue delay nor is prejudicial. 2016 WL 264907, at *3. The court again stayed the case as of January 21, because the stay was lifted temporarily for the purpose of amending the complaint.
On Sept. 14, 2017, the case was reassigned to Judge Timothy J. Kelly.
The case remains stayed as of April 2021.
Mike Fagan - 04/10/2008
David Cho - 11/24/2014
Soojin Cha - 06/12/2016
Virginia Weeks - 12/06/2017
Rachel Harrington - 04/15/2021
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