Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons

222 F. Supp. 3d 959, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148803, 2015 WL 13264094
CourtDistrict Court, D. Colorado
DecidedNovember 3, 2015
DocketCivil Action No. 12-CV-01570-RPM
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 222 F. Supp. 3d 959 (Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Cunningham v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, 222 F. Supp. 3d 959, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148803, 2015 WL 13264094 (D. Colo. 2015).

Opinion

ORDER ON CLA STANDING

Richard P. Matseh, Senior District Judge

The Center for Legal Advocacy, d.b.a The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People (“CLA”) is one of the plaintiffs in the Second Amended Complaint, filed on June 15, 2015 (Doc. 274). It sues as an association on behalf of prisoners with mental illness housed in the United States Penitentiary Administrative Maximum facility in Florence, Colorado, (“ADX”) operated by the defendant Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”). The defendant has challenged CLA’s standing to pursue the claims for declaratory and injunctive relief sought by it and the individual plaintiffs. That challenge has been briefed and argued as a motion for partial summary judgment.

The CLA is a non-profit corporation designated by the State of Colorado to receive allotments pursuant to the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Act (“PAIMI”). The relevant allegations of the Second Amended Complaint are set out in the attached Appendix.

The purposes of the PAMII are set out in 42 U.S.C. § 10801(b) as follows:

(1) to ensure that the rights of individuals with mental illness are protected; and
(2) to assist States to establish and operate a protection and advocacy system for individuals with mental illness which will—
(A) protect and advocate the rights of such individuals through activities to ensure the enforcement of the Constitution and Federal and State statutes; and
(B) investigate incidents of abuse and neglect of mentally ill individuals if the incidents are reported to the system or if there is probable cause to believe that the incidents occurred.

The allegations about the creation, structure, operations and actions of the CLA relevant to its joinder in this lawsuit are not disputed.

Prisons are included in the definition of “facilities” in § 10802(3), as one rendering care or treatment of mentally ill persons subject to the protections of the statute. The CLA meets the eligible system requirements in § 10805 and therefore has authority to pursue legal remedies “to ensure the protection of individuals with mental illness who are receiving care or treatment in the State,” § 10805(1)(B).

The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects inmates at ADX from injury caused by deliberate indifference to the need for treatment of their mental health needs. This civil action seeks to ensure that protection.

[961]*961The BOP asserts that the CLA does not have Article III standing for a case or controversy because it has not shown that its litigating position is supported by the inmates it seeks to represent, and it does not show that it has its own injury in fact. The defendant also claims that there is no associational standing because the CLA may not represent inmates who have not requested representation as required by § 10804(c).

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has definitively decided that a PAMII organization has both Constitutional and prudential standing to seek declaratory and in-junctive relief for mentally incapacitated persons being held without treatment in county jails. The opinion deciding that appeal is adopted as decisional for this case. Oregon Advocacy Center v. Mink, 322 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. 2003).

The BOP rejects its applicability to this action against a federal facility because of the language in § 10804(c). That is a subsection of § 10804, which is entitled “Use of Allotments.” Read in context, the requirement of a request for representation is only a restriction on the use of allotted federal funds. Because the CLA is not using federal funds to support this litigation, this subsection is not a limitation on its capacity to represent all inmates with mental illness at the ADX affected by the alleged unconstitutional practices of the BOP.1

The defendant claims that in this case the requested equitable relief requires the participation of individual inmates, contrary to the third prong of Hunt v. Wash. State Apple Adver. Comm’n, 432 U.S. 333, 334, 97 S.Ct. 2434, 53 L.Ed.2d 383 (1977). The Ninth Circuit rejected that argument for the same reason it must be rejected here. The CLA and the individual plaintiffs are claiming systemic violations of the Eighth Amendment. Proof of those claims may make some testimony from individual inmates necessary but it does not require the participation of all inmates affected by those practices.

The CLA has established standing to pursue claims for declaratory and injunc-tive relief for prisoners with mental illness housed at ADX.

It is SO ORDERED.

APPENDIX

IX. ALLEGATIONS RELATING TO THE CENTER FOR LEGAL ADVOCACY

489. The Center for Legal Advocacy d.b.a. Disability Law Colorado (“CLA”), is a non-profit corporation headquartered in Denver, Colorado. Plaintiff was designated in 1977 by Governor Richard Lamm as Colorado’s protection and advocacy system (P & A System) to protect and advocate for the rights of persons with developmental disabilities under subtitle C of the Developmental Disabilities Assistance and Bill of Rights Act of 2000, 42 U.S.C. §§ 15041 et seq. Since 1986, CLA has received federal allotments-grants on an annual basis, and has established and administered a P & A System in Colorado for individuals with mental illness pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §§ 10803 and 10805 of the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness Act, (PAIMI Act). Since 1986, CLA has been and is currently the eligible P & A System for individuals with [962]*962mental illness in Colorado as defined at 42 U.S.C. § 10802(2).

490. CLA has associational standing to bring this lawsuit. CLA is the functional equivalent of a voluntary membership organization that was created by Congress to protect and advocate for its Colorado Constituents, which include ADX prisoners with significant mental illness or emotional impairment who are being abused, neglected and subject to civil rights violations by being denied Constitutionally guaranteed necessary and appropriate mental health treatment. CLA’s Colorado Constituents possess many indicia of membership, to include influencing what issues CLA takes on in the performance of its federal mandate, some of which are alleged in the following paragraphs.

491. CLA publishes the annual PAIMI Program Priorities and Objectives on its website inviting Constituents to comment on their relative importance to CLA’s statutory charge to protect and advocate for individuals with mental illness.

492.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
222 F. Supp. 3d 959, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148803, 2015 WL 13264094, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/cunningham-v-federal-bureau-of-prisons-cod-2015.