Hernandez v. County of Monterey

110 F. Supp. 3d 929, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49862, 2015 WL 3868036
District Court, N.D. California·Decided April 14, 2015·No. Case No. 5:13-CV-2354-PSG·Published·Cited by 12 cases

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

PAUL S. GREWAL, United States Magistrate Judge.

In the midst of this litigation over the conditions of confinement at the Monterey County Jail, the parties did something different. They did something commendable. They cooperated.

Their cooperation took the form of an agreement to retain four neutral experts.1 The experts were asked to evaluate whether jail inmates are adequately protected from injury and violence, and whether the jail’s system of medical care is adequate.2 The experts identified a variety of deficiencies and hazards, including: an inadequate tuberculosis screening program; inadequate policies and practices for continuing prescription medication for newly-booked inmates; substandard policies and practices for identifying and treating newly-booked inmates for drug and alcohol withdrawal; administrative segregation unit conditions that put inmates at unacceptable risk of suicide and self-harm; exclusion of inmates from exercise, religious, rehabilitative and educational programs based on physical disability and failure to provide inmates with any sign-language interpreters.3

[934]*934The cooperation ended, however, when it came to implementing the experts’ proposed solutions. Representing a class of pretrial detainees and sentenced inmates in the jail and a subclass with disabilities, Plaintiffs now move for a preliminary injunction.4 The injunction they seek targets the discrete conditions identified above as deliberate indifference in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments and failure to accommodate in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

' Despite its reluctance to inject itself into decisions made in running a public facility that has served the people of Monterey County for decades, the court cannot deny that Plaintiffs have shown that (1) they are “likely to succeed on the merits,” (2) they are “likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief,” (3) “the balance of equities tips in [their] favor” and (4) “an injunction is in the public interest.”5 Under such circumstances, the court has little choice but to GRANT Plaintiffs’ motion, as set forth below.

I.

The United States Constitution affords pretrial detainees greater protection from dangerous conditions of confinement than those sentenced after conviction.6 Courts evaluating the claims of pretrial detainees under the Fourteenth Amendment may nevertheless rely on the same analytical framework for those sentenced under the Eighth Amendment.7 A jail violates both Amendments if it incarcerates inmates under conditions posing a substantial risk of serious harm to their health or safety (the objective prong), and if Defendants acted with deliberate indifference, that is, with conscious disregard for that risk (the subjective prong).8 Unsafe conditions that “pose an unreasonable risk of serious damage to [an inmate’s] future health” may satisfy this objective prong, even if the damage has not yet occurred and may not affect every inmate exposed to the conditions.9 Inmates have a right to adequate care for serious medical and mental health needs.10 Conditions that significantly affect an inmate’s daily activities or cause chronic and substantial pain constitute serious medical needs, even if they are not life-threatening.11

Pursuant to Title II of the ADA, a “qualified individual with a disability” cannot, “by reason of such disability, be [935]*935excluded from participation in or be denied the benefits of the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to discrimination by any such entity.”12 The Department of Justice has promulgated regulations to enforce this general mandate.13 “To prevail under Title II [of the ADA], [a] plaintiff must show that: (1) he is a qualified individual with a disability; (2) he was either excluded from participation in or denied the benefits of a public entity’s services, programs, or activities, or was otherwise discriminated against by the public entity; and (3) this exclusion, denial, or discrimination was by reason of his disability.”14 Violations of Title II are largely defined by its impleménting regulations, which “flesh out public entities’ statutory obligations with more specificity,” and are controlling authority “ ‘unless they are arbitrary, capricious, or manifestly contrary to the statute.’ ”15 A public entity must “make reasonable modifications in policies, practices, or procedures when the modifications are necessary to avoid discrimination on the basis of disability, unless the public entity can demonstrate that making the modifications would fundamentally alter the nature of the service, program, or activity.”16

The Title II regulations also include specific requirements for correctional facilities.17 Among other requirements, jails must “ensure that qualified inmates or detainees with disabilities shall not, because a facility is inaccessible to or unusable, by individuals with disabilities, be excluded from participation in, or be denied the benefits of, the services, programs, or activities of a public entity, or be subjected to, discrimination by any public entity.”18 Jails also must “ensure that each inmate with a disability is housed in a cell with the accessible elements necessary to afford the inmate access to safe, appropriate housing.” 19 Correctional facilities also must implement “some form of [disability] tracking system ... to enable [them] to comply with the [ADA].”20 Public entities must make changes necessary to provide programmatic access, including structural modifications and reasonable accommodations.21 Because of the unique nature of correctional facilities, in which jail staff control nearly all aspects of inmates’ daily lives, most everything provided to inmates [936]*936is a public service, program or activity, including sleeping, eating, showering, toileting, communicating with those outside the jail by mail and telephone, exercising, entertainment, safety and security, the jail’s administrative, disciplinary, and classification proceedings, medical, mental health and dental services, the library, educational, vocational, substance abuse and anger management classes and discharge services.22

As this court has previously noted, Defendant the County of Monterey has promulgated extensive policies governing inmates’ health care and conditions of confinement.23 These policies apply to all inmates in its custody and all staff throughout its main jail in Salinas.24, Since 1984, the County has contracted with Defendant California Forensics Medical Group, Inc., a private health care provider, to provide medical, dental and mental-health care services to inmates.25 Under the terms of its contract, CFMG agreed to follow all County policies and to work with the County to implement additional policies governing such matters as health care staffing, access to prescriptions, emergency care and mental health services.26

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Hernandez v. County of Monterey, 110 F. Supp. 3d 929, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49862, 2015 WL 3868036 (N.D. Cal. 2015).

110 F. Supp. 3d 929 (Hernandez v. County of Monterey) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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