Wyatt v. Fetner

92 F.3d 1074
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedAugust 8, 1996
Docket95-6637
StatusPublished

This text of 92 F.3d 1074 (Wyatt v. Fetner) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wyatt v. Fetner, 92 F.3d 1074 (11th Cir. 1996).

Opinion

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

Nos. 95-6637, 95-6875

RICKY WYATT, by and through his Aunt and Legal Guardian, Mrs. W. C. Rawlins, Jr.; GLENDA BRANDNER, by and through her husband and legal guardian, Wolfgang Brandner; DAVID S. SCHOEL, by and through his father and legal guardian, J. Fred Schoel, Dr.; D. A. R. Peyman, Jr., for himself and all others similarly situated; JOSEPH L. MOUDRY, for himself and all others similarly situated; et al.,

Plaintiffs-Appellees,

DIANE MARTIN; MARY BETH PARKER; WILLIAM SMITH; ADELIA KEEBLER; MICHAEL GUINS, et al.

Plaintiffs-Intervenors-Appellees,

versus

CHARLES FETNER, as Commissioner of Mental Health and the State of Alabama Mental Health Officer; JAMES F. REDDOCH, JR., Director, Bryce Hospital; JOHN T. BARTLETT, Searcy Hospital; KAY V. GREENWOOD, North Alabama Regional Hospital; DR. LARRY L. LATHAM, Greil Memorial Psychiatric Hospital; et al.,

Defendants-Appellants,

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Amicus.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama

(August 8, 1996)

Before TJOFLAT, Chief Judge, RONEY and CAMPBELL*, Senior Circuit Judges.

*Honorable Levin H. Campbell, Senior U.S. Circuit Judge for the First Circuit, sitting by designation. TJOFLAT, Chief Judge:

I.

This case began on October 23, 1970, when patients at Bryce

Hospital, a state-run institution for the mentally ill in

Tuscaloosa, Alabama, filed suit in the United States District

Court for the Middle District of Alabama against the commissioner

and deputy commissioner of the Alabama Department of Mental

Health and Mental Retardation ("DMH/MR"), the members of the

Alabama Mental Health Board, the governor of Alabama, and

Alabama's probate judges.1 These patients alleged that the

conditions at Bryce Hospital were such that they had been

deprived of their rights under the United States Constitution.2

1 Since the beginning of the litigation, the parties and the courts have treated this case as a class action, even though the district court has failed to certify a plaintiff class. See, e.g., Wyatt v. Stickney, 325 F. Supp. 781, 782 (M.D. Ala. 1971) ("This is a class action . . . . The plaintiffs sue on behalf of themselves and on behalf of other members of their respective classes."); Wyatt v. Aderholt, 503 F.2d 1305, 1306 (5th Cir. 1974) ("The guardians of patients . . . brought this class action on behalf of their wards and other civilly committed patients."). One of the issues on appeal is the propriety of the district court's "recertification" of a plaintiff class. See infra part IV. 2 The lawsuit was filed after staff members at Bryce Hospital and other DMH/MR institutions were discharged as a result of a state "budgetary crisis." These discharged staff members joined the Bryce Hospital patients as party plaintiffs and sought reinstatement to their positions. Both groups of plaintiffs sought to

redress the deprivation, under color of laws and statutes of the State of Alabama, of rights, privileges, and immunities secured by the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, providing for equal rights of all persons within the jurisdiction of the United States.

2 On March 12, 1971, following a hearing on the plaintiffs'

The patients alleged that the staff reductions would have two harmful consequences. First, patients involuntarily committed to Bryce Hospital would not receive the care that Alabama law required that they receive. Such lack of care, it was alleged, would deprive the patients of "due process" because the patients would be subjected to what amounted to penal confinement. Second, the staff reductions and consequent lack of adequate treatment programs would have "serious and irreparable consequences" for the patients at Bryce Hospital. The patients asked the district court to enter a permanent injunction ordering the defendants to "insure and direct that no present course of mental health treatment and service now being given to plaintiffs . . . shall in any way be interrupted, changed, or interfered with." The patients also sought an injunction that would end further involuntary commitment of patients to Bryce Hospital.

The discharged staff members alleged that they had a right under Alabama law to remain in their jobs, that their discharge violated their due process right to pre-termination hearings, and that the defendants had other means of meeting the budgetary crisis aside from cutting staff. They sought an injunction that would require the defendants to "rescind" all staff terminations at Bryce Hospital. These staff members subsequently abandoned their claims and withdrew from the case, leaving the patients as the only plaintiffs. See Wyatt, 325 F. Supp. at 782 n.1.

In 1974, the former Fifth Circuit described the patients' complaint and the subsequent amendment to that pleading as follows:

The original complaint did not allege that treatment levels at Bryce had been inadequate before the [staff] terminations. For reasons not entirely clear from the record before us, however, the focus of the litigation soon shifted from the effects of the [staff] terminations to questions of the overall adequacy of the treatment afforded at the Alabama state mental hospitals. On January 4, 1971, the plaintiffs amended the complaint to add prayers that the defendants be enjoined from operating Bryce "in a manner that does not conform to constitutional standards of delivering adequate mental treatment to its patients"; that the [c]ourt order defendants to prepare a "comprehensive constitutionally acceptable plan to provide adequate treatment in any state mental health facility"; and that the court declare that patients confined to a state mental health facility are entitled to "adequate, competent treatment."

Wyatt v. Aderholt, 503 F.2d 1305, 1308 (5th Cir. 1974). 3 application for preliminary injunctive relief, the district court

found that patients at Bryce Hospital were being denied their

"constitutional right to receive such individual treatment as

will give each of them a realistic opportunity to be cured or to

improve his or her mental condition."3 Wyatt v. Stickney, 325 F.

Supp. 781, 784 (M.D. Ala. 1971). The court ordered the

defendants to devise, and to submit to the court for approval, a

plan to bring the hospital into compliance with constitutional

standards of care.

Several months after the district court's decision, the

plaintiffs were given leave to amend their complaint to include

allegations of constitutionally inadequate treatment at a second

state-run hospital for the mentally ill, Searcy Hospital, in Mt.

Vernon, Alabama, and at Partlow State School and Hospital, a

state-run institution for mentally retarded persons in Partlow,

Alabama.4 Following this amendment, the court's order of March

3 The district court did not explicitly state what constitutional provision formed the basis for its ruling. The court found that "[t]o deprive any citizen of his or her liberty upon the altruistic theory that the confinement is for humane therapeutic reasons and then fail to provide adequate treatment violates the very fundamentals of due process." Wyatt, 325 F. Supp. at 785. 4 As noted in the text, supra, when this suit was brought, the plaintiffs were patients at Bryce Hospital, not Searcy Hospital or Partlow State School and Hospital.

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