Filed Date: March 22, 2012
Case Ongoing
Clearinghouse coding complete
COVID-19 Summary: In this preexisting class action addressing medical care in Arizona's prisons, the district court denied COVID-19 emergency relief on March 23, 2020. Notwithstanding the grave threats posed by congregate imprisonment during the pandemic, the court held that the emergency measures sought by the plaintiffs were outside of its authority under the settlement agreement in this case. However, the Court did (subsequently) order Arizona to disclose to class counsel who had been tested and the results.
This case is a direct descendant of Gamez v. Ryan, docket number CV-10-2070-PHX-JWS (MEA). That case was dismissed with prejudice on March 21, 2012 after the district court judge determined that the third amended complaint added additional claims and the plaintiffs that were not within the contemplation of the court at the time that it dismissed the second amended complaint.
On March 22, 2012, fourteen Arizona prisoners brought this suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against the Arizona Department of Corrections (ADOC), under § 1983. Represented by the ACLU, the Prison Law Office, and private counsel, the plaintiffs sought both declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging that the ADOC deprived them of access to adequate health care and that even when prisoners were allowed access to treatment, they did not receive adequate care. They also alleged the defendants subjected prisoners in isolation to unconstitutional conditions. The case was assigned to Judge Neil Wake.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiffs failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted, that the plaintiffs did not sufficiently exhaust administrative remedies, and that their claims were moot. The District Court denied the motion as to all three claims.
On March 6, 2013, Judge Wake granted the plaintiff's motion for class certification, finding that all the prerequisites for class certification had been met. The class included all prisoners who were subjected to any of the following practices: failure to provide timely access to health care; failure to provide timely emergency treatment; failure to provide necessary medication and medical devices; insufficient health care staffing; failure to provide care for chronic diseases and protection from infectious disease; failure to provide timely access to medically necessary specialty care; failure to provide timely access to basic dental treatment; practice of extracting teeth that could be saved by less intrusive means; failure to provide mentally ill prisoners medically necessary mental health treatment (i.e. psychotropic medication, therapy, and inpatient treatment); and/or failure to provide suicidal and self-harming prisoners basic mental health care. The class certification also included subclasses of prisoners who were held in isolation and suffered from any of the following practices: inadequate psychiatric monitoring because of chronic understaffing; use of chemical agents against inmates on psychotropic medications; lack of recreation; extreme social isolation; constant cell illumination; limited property; and/or insufficient nutrition. 289 F.R.D. 513.
On July 10, 2013, the defendants appealed the grant of class certification to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals because the class included all 33,000 prisoners in the ADOC. The following day, the defendants filed an Emergency Motion to Stay in the District Court, pending adjudication of the appeal. Judge Wake denied the defendants' emergency motion on August 9, 2013, weighing heavily the nature of the allegations and the potential risk to the plaintiffs. To mitigate the burden on the defendants and to conserve judicial resources, Judge Wake set firm parameters for the completion of discovery.
A three-judge panel in the Ninth Circuit affirmed the grant of class certification on June 5, 2014. 754 F.3d 657. The defendants petitioned for a rehearing en banc on July 3, 2014. The petition was denied on April 21, 2015.
On May 16, 2014, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment, which was denied on August 7, 2014. 2014 WL 3887867. The defendants' primary argument was that the named plaintiffs received constitutionally adequate medical and dental care and therefore lacked standing. Judge Wake denied summary judgment on this point because the plaintiffs were not challenging care on any particular occasion, but exposure to the risk of harm stemming from inadequate policies and practices. The District Court also denied summary judgment on the conditions of solitary confinement claim. While the defendants argued that each particular practice or condition challenged was constitutional, the District Court stressed that the relevant issue was whether the totality of the conditions in the isolation units exposed the prisoners to a substantial risk of serious harm (a lack of social interaction and environmental stimulation).
On October 14, 2014, the parties filed a stipulation. The defendants agreed to remedy the ADOC health care system by meeting more than 100 performance measures, including particular screenings and procedures, staffing requirements, and the provision of interpreters for health services. The agreement also required the defendants to reform policies relating to prisoners with serious mental illnesses in isolation units. Modifications included increasing access to mental health treatment, increasing time spent outside of the cell, and restricting the use of pepper spray to a last resort in preventing serious injury or escape. Finally, the settlement provided for ongoing monitoring and oversight by the plaintiffs' lawyers. The parties consented to the exercise of jurisdiction by the District Court over disputes arising out of the stipulation, and agreed not to move to terminate the stipulation for at least four years. The defendants agreed to pay $4.9 million in attorneys' fees and costs and up to $250,000 a year in reasonable fees for enforcement in the future.
On February 18, 2015, the stipulation was approved by Magistrate Judge David K. Duncan, who was assigned to oversee enforcement of the stipulation.
Between the confirmation of the stipulation in February 2015 and April 2016, there were many court-mediated discussions regarding the defendants’ fulfillment of the stipulation. On May 20, 2016, the court ordered the defendants to submit a plan detailing how they were going to comply with certain stipulation measures they had failed to address. On May 27, 2016, the plaintiffs filed a motion for criminal investigation, arguing that the failure to provide adequate medical care and the reckless tolerance of those conditions is a felony that should be investigated by the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice. This motion was denied, but was followed by another motion to enforce the stipulation on July 12, 2016.
Over the next two years, the plaintiffs filed several motions to enforce the stipulation and the defendants were ordered to submit several plans for correcting their non-compliance. Per court orders, the parties also met and conferred about once a month regarding the defendants’ compliance with the stipulation.
On July 25, 2017, the court ordered defendants to stop harassing and intimidating witnesses who provided information to the court. The plaintiffs’ counsel had previously been asked to notify the court about any allegations of retaliation that occurred in the prisons. There were several evidentiary hearings concerning these allegations.
On September 30, 2017, the court granted in part and denied in part several of the plaintiffs’ motions to enforce the stipulation. The court found the defendants to be in compliance with some of the performance measures but not with others.
On October 10, 2017, however, the court ordered that the defendants had been so substantially non-compliant that it considered imposing civil contempt. The court listed the performance measures the defendants had not properly complied with. Per the court’s instructions, by January 5, 2018 the defendants were required to file a list of instances of non-compliance during December 2017 and on January 9, 2018, the defendants had to show why the court should not impose sanctions of $1,000 per incident of non-compliance. After receiving several extensions to file this list, the defendants provided a partial list. The parties could not agree on what would qualify as “substantial noncompliance” to trigger the enforcement process. In February 2018, Judge Duncan ruled that the defendants will be “substantially non-compliant” with the stipulation whenever a performance measure falls below 85% for more than six months within any 24-month period, or if a performance measure falls below 85% for three consecutive months.
On June 22, 2018, the court issued several orders in an attempt to resolve the issues faced since the stipulation came into effect. First, the court found the defendants in civil contempt, determining 1,445 instances of violations of performance measures. The defendants were ordered to pay $1,445,000 in contempt fines. 2018 WL 3239691. Next, because there had been little progress made by the defendants’ multiple revised remediation plans, the court used its authority under the stipulation to require the defendants to hire outside experts to evaluate the continuing violations. The six categories to be evaluated were: pharmacy, intersystem transfers, access to care, diagnostic services, specialty care, chronic care, and infirmary care. The defendants were required to submit a list of two experts in each category to the court for evaluation and selection. 2018 WL 3238938. Additionally, the court granted in part and denied in part the defendants’ motion to terminate monitoring of certain performance measures. The court ordered the defendants to retain an expert to evaluate the monitoring process, ensuring the defendants would not overstate their compliance. 2018 WL 3238944. Further, the court ordered the defendants to reinstall the health needs request form boxes that had been removed from housing units in the prisons and to resume the previous process for collecting and logging prisoners’ health requests. 2018 WL 3083847. The court also ordered the defendants to file a plan to implement the recommendations made by BJ Millar of Advisory Board Consulting. Finally, the court awarded the plaintiffs additional attorney’s fees in the amount of $1,259,991.98 for the work performed since the stipulation began. 2018 WL 3238944. The case was also reassigned a few days later to Senior Judge Roslyn O. Silver after Judge Duncan retired.
On September 28, 2018, the court again granted a motion filed by the plaintiffs to enforce parts of the stipulation and ordered the defendants to file a plan to address the non-compliance.
On December 11, 2018, the court appointed outside expert Dr. Mark Stern to evaluate the defendants’ non-compliance and analyze the cause of it, following its order on June 22, 2018. While the parties had a disagreement on the scope of the expert engagement, including the scope of the information the expert could access, the court solved this dispute by ordering the defendants to allow the expert quite broad access to the documents and the personnel he needed to fulfill his obligation. 2019 WL 396930.
On December 20, 2018, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the federal judge “may, in the future, consider ordering Defendants to develop and implement a plan to increase [health care] staffing in general as a remedy for Defendants’ non-compliance.” See Parsons v. Ryan, 912 F.3d 486 (9th Cir. 2018).
On January 11, 2019, the defendants filed the motion to terminate the monitoring and reporting of Maximum Custody Performance Measure which required the defendant to provide the isolated inmates out-of-cell time, including time for exercise and group-programming, claiming that they achieved the condition for termination by achieving most of the requirements. The plaintiffs objected to the motion, claiming that the defendant’s monitoring and reporting system was so unreliable that their self-reported findings could not support termination.
In January 2019, ADOC announced that they would change the healthcare provider from Corizon to another private company as of July 1, 2019. After this announcement, some of the plaintiffs received medical bills and collection notices that should have been paid by Corizon. Also, the plaintiffs were concerned that the upcoming transition of health care provider would not be properly made because a jail in the other jurisdiction had reported that Corizon’s operation for the transition of health care provider was flawed and caused a serious problem in meeting the medical and mental care need in the facility. To ensure the appropriate transition of the healthcare provider, the plaintiffs filed a motion to require the production of a Health Care Transition Plan on March 4, 2019.
On October 11, 2019, after the court expert filed a report that “confirm[ed] the Court’s long held belief that pervasive issues have precluded accurate monitoring of certain performance measures and that even the low compliance levels reported in some instances may be worse,” Judge Silver issued an order that gave the parties three options to proceed in this case. The parties had the options to proceed by: (1) robust efforts to coerce compliance with the stipulation, (2) a new settlement based in part on Dr. Stern’s recommendations, or (3) concluding the stipulation to be irretrievably breached by the defendants and proceeding to trial. The parties agreed to engage in settlement negotiations, and the court granted the parties 60 days to attempt to reach a new agreement. Settlement did not occur.
The defendants appealed the District Court's eleven orders issued on June 22, 2018, imposing contempt sanctions, awarding attorneys’ fees to the plaintiffs, appointing expert witnesses, and otherwise enforcing obligations under the settlement agreement. The plaintiffs cross-appealed from the attorneys’ fees order. On January 29, 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s order holding the defendants in contempt; affirmed the order partially granting and partially denying the defendants’ motion to terminate the monitoring of certain performance measures; affirmed the order requiring the defendants to reinstall Health Needs Request boxes for prisoners to submit forms requesting medical assistance; dismissed the remainder of the medical needs appeal for lack of jurisdiction; and affirmed in part and reversed in part the order awarding plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees for work performed post-stipulation. Specifically, the Ninth Circuit vacated the attorneys' fees order and remanded with instructions to (a) recalculate the fee award by determining the correct hourly rates for each year, (b) exclude from any fee award the 11 hours erroneously included; (c) modify the costs award down by $1,285.79 in light of the district court’s failure to reflect the downward adjustments in its prior order; and (d) reweigh whether a fee enhancement was appropriate. See Parsons v. Ryan, No. 18-16358, 949 F.3d 443 (9th Cir. Jan. 29, 2020). The defendants' petition for rehearing en banc was denied on April 17, 2020.
On January 31, 2020, Judge Silver issued an order finding that the defendants remain substantially noncompliant with a significant number of Performance Measures at multiple locations. In light of the Ninth Circuit's conclusion that the district court may impose contempt sanctions to coerce performance, the court found further sanctions appropriate and required defendants to pay a $100,000 monthly fine for each instance of future noncompliance beginning on March 1, 2020, double the amount she had ordered in May of 2019. The court ordered that the defendants shall come into compliance regarding every Performance Measure and location identified in the January 31, 2020, order by March 1, 2020. The court ordered that if further monetary sanctions did not result in the defendants’ compliance with their contractual obligations as of the compliance numbers for July 2020, the court would set the case for trial.
On February 6, 2020, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the stipulation, claiming that the parties had completed the multi-step process regarding eleven performance measures and asking the court to order the defendants to produce a remediation plan regarding those performance measures. The court granted the motion on April 23, 2020 and ordered the defendants to submit a remediation plan for non-compliant performance measures within 14 days.
On April 27, 2020, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Appellate Commissioner ordered $152,069.40 in attorneys' fees to be paid by defendants pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1988.
On May 6, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the stipulation as to the performance measure requiring urgent specialty consultations and diagnostic services to be scheduled and completed within 30 calendar days of any requests. The plaintiffs claimed that the state had missed the deadlines to cure their noncompliance at a single facility imposed in May 2019 and therefore should be fined a total of $400,000. Additionally, the plaintiffs asked the court to order the defendants to consult with a court-appointed health care expert to discuss their failures and implement his recommendations.
On May 8, the Ninth Circuit addressed four consolidated appeals regarding various orders in 2018, including the defendant's contempt order, plaintiff's appeal of the attorneys' fee calculation, and several orders relating to specific medical needs. The court affirmed the district court’s contempt order but remanded the calculation of the attorneys’ fees due to errors in the calculation of hourly wage. For the medical needs appeals, the court affirmed the district court’s termination order denying the defendant’s request to terminate certain Performance Measures and the HNR-Box order, in which it ordered defendants to reinstall HNR boxes, but dismissed the rest for lack of jurisdiction.
On May 20, the plaintiffs also filed a motion to enforce the stipulation for certain performance measures relating to the minimum time required for the prisoners to spend outside their cells. The plaintiffs asked the court to find the defendants noncompliant for the period of November 2016 to August 2019 for all maximum custody units. They also sought an order requiring the defendants to implement the terms of the Stipulation.
On May 27, the defendants responded to the May 6 motion and argued that the court’s May 2019 order was valid only for June 2019, and not for the period after July 2019.
On June 12, the plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce paragraph 14 of the stipulation, which required an interpretation of healthcare encounters for non-English speakers. The defendants responded on July 28, arguing that the motion is based largely on information that predates Centurion’s assumption of inmate healthcare in July 2019, and that translation services are currently available.
In a September 4, 2020 order, Judge Silver disagreed with the defendants' position. She found that the defendants had not complied with the stipulation provisions relating to out of cell time for prisoners in maximum security custody, ordered the defendants to comply, and granted the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ fees for the motion.
The defendants appealed that order to the Ninth Circuit on October 5, 2020.
A matter of days after the previous order on September 8, the plaintiffs filed another motion to enforce the stipulation, this time focused on issues with the prison’s health care system. In particular, the plaintiff’s claimed that the defendants failed to meet several performance measures relating to health care, including provisions that required the defendants to give prisoners appointments with nurses within 24 hours of making a sick call, gave them timely access to diagnostic services, and required follow up care after prisoners returned from outside hospitals. The defendants opposed this motion in a September 11 response.
Before the court ruled on the previous motion, the plaintiffs filed another motion to enforce the stipulation on November 13, 2020. This time, they claimed that the defendants had not been complying with performance measures relating to dental care and specialty medical appointments. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants were failing to provide Arizona prisoners with such care, but manipulating their reporting data to make it appear as if they were in compliance with the measures. The defendants opposed this motion in a December 4 response.
On February 24, 2021, Judge Silver issued an order finding the defendants in contempt of court and imposing a sanction of $1.1 million. She found that the defendants had failed to comply with her May 2019 order requiring compliance with the stipulation and issued a $100,000 penalty for each month of non-compliance with each performance measure at each facility. Judge Silver also discussed in detail the defendants' lack of compliance with performance measures relating to recreation time for prisoners in maximum security custody, medical interpreters for prisoners who do not speak English, and the length of appointments with mental health providers.
The defendants paid their $1.1 million penalty on March 10. However, they also appealed Judge Silver’s order to the Ninth Circuit a few weeks later. They also filed a response to the order, asking Judge Silver not to hold them in civil contempt because much of their non-compliance with the stipulation was caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Ninth Circuit granted the defendants' motion to voluntarily dismiss their appeal on November 16, 2021 once the trial had started on November 1, 2021.
The plaintiffs again moved to enforce the stipulation on May 10, 2021, this time relating to the length of mental health encounters. The defendants opposed this motion.
On July 16, 2021, Judge Silver rescinded approval of the stipulation agreement the parties had entered into in 2015. She found that the defendants “consistently failed” to meet the agreement’s requirements, “proffered erroneous and unreliable excuses for non-performance,” and that there was “no reasonable timetable” in which the defendants would comply with the agreement. By rescinding the stipulation, she allowed the plaintiffs’ original claims, that health care and housing in solitary confinement violated the Eighth Amendment, against the defendants to proceed to trial. The order also set a trial date of November 1, 2021. The defendants appealed this order on August 16, 2021. However, on November 23, 2021, after trial began, the Ninth Circuit granted the defendants' motion to voluntarily dismiss the appeal.
Meanwhile, on July 14, 2021, the plaintiffs filed a motion to add named plaintiffs to the lawsuit, because half of the named plaintiffs were no longer in the custody of the ADOC. Judge Silver granted the motion on October 14, 2021, holding that the defendants did not adequately explain how the addition of named plaintiffs would prejudice their case.
The parties engaged in discovery from October to November. They primarily litigated issues over the plaintiffs' use of depositions from witnesses in lieu of live testimony at trial in light of COVID-19 protocols. Judge Silver simultaneously ordered the clerk of the court to update the case's caption to reflect that Shawn Jensen was the primary plaintiff in the case and David Shinn was the primary defendant.
The plaintiffs filed their trial brief on October 28, 2021, and the defendants filed their trial brief on October 29, 2021. Trial began on November 1, 2021, and continued for four weeks, concluding on December 15, 2021. On January 28, 2022, both parties filed their proposed findings of fact. The court ordered the parties to file their responses to the opposing party's findings of fact by February 25, 2022. The case is ongoing.
COVID-19 Litigation: On March 16, 2020, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the plaintiffs filed an emergency motion requesting the court to order the defendants to collaborate with Dr. Marc Stern, the court’s expert, to immediately develop and implement a plan for the prevention and management of COVID-19 in Arizona prisons. Specifically, plaintiffs' suggested plan included the following components:
1. Patient education;
2. Screening, testing, treatment, and housing of class members;
3. Provision of hygiene and cleaning supplies;
4. Health care and custody staffing plans;
5. Coordination with community hospitals and among the ten prisons; and
6. Reduction in the density of the population for class members who are high risk according to the standards set forth by the CDC.
Additionally, the plaintiffs requested that the court order defendants to suspend all department orders, policies, and/or regulations that:
1. Charge class members for hygiene supplies including soap;
2. Charge class members $4.00 for submitting a Health Needs Request seeking medical care;
3. Designate ethyl-alcohol based hand sanitizer as contraband.
The District Court granted expedited briefing, and the defendants responded on March 18, 2020. They argued that the ADOC is following a prevention and response plan guided by CDC recommendations and outlined the policy changes in effect in light of COVID-19. Because the defendants maintained that ADOC already has a robust and detailed plan in place, they recommended that the plaintiffs' emergency motion be denied in full. The plaintiffs' replied on March 20, 2020, urging the court to order the defendants to work with Dr. Stern, the expert, because in the past the defendants repeatedly failed to meaningfully implement proposed plans and failed to provide basic healthcare.
On March 23, 2020, the court denied the plaintiffs' emergency motion. Although the court acknowledged that defendants have failed to comply with the performance measures, it found that "that does not empower the Court to exercise general control over matters such as prisoner education or the distribution of hygiene and cleaning supplies." Additionally, the court found that plaintiffs’ motion did not point to clear provisions of the stipulation that would authorize the type of order they seek.
On March 23, 2020, the defendants issued a press release stating that six prisoners had been tested for COVID-19. The next day, plaintiffs’ counsel wrote defendants’ counsel, requesting the class members’ identities, and asking to be notified if and when additional class members are tested in the future so that plaintiffs’ counsel could monitor the delivery of health care to these persons. The defendants refused to provide the requested information on the basis that the stipulation does not cover COVID-19 or require defendants to provide this information to plaintiffs. On April 2, 2020, the court ordered defendants to produce this information, finding that COVID-19 is covered by the parties' stipulation. Therefore, to comply with the stipulation and the specified performance measures, the court ordered the defendants to provide plaintiffs the names and identification numbers of prisoners tested for COVID-19 and the results, on a weekly basis.
Summary Authors
Jonathan Forman (7/7/2013)
Samantha Kirby (10/28/2014)
Hannah Basalone (11/29/2018)
Chiaki Nojiri (4/19/2019)
Elena Malik (5/16/2020)
Tessa McEvoy (2/20/2021)
Laura Irei (2/17/2022)
Gamez v. Ryan, District of Arizona (2010)
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4133612/parties/jensen-v-shinn/
Duncan, David K. (Arizona)
Medsker, R Scott (District of Columbia)
Noonan, John T. Jr. (California)
Reinhardt, Stephen Roy (California)
Roberts, Douglas (California)
Silver [Moore-Silver], Roslyn O. (Arizona)
Wake, Neil Vincent (Arizona)
Watford, Paul J. (California)
Abela, Maya S. (Arizona)
Ahlers, James A (Arizona)
Duncan, David K. (Arizona)
Medsker, R Scott (District of Columbia)
Noonan, John T. Jr. (California)
Reinhardt, Stephen Roy (California)
Roberts, Douglas (California)
Silver [Moore-Silver], Roslyn O. (Arizona)
Wake, Neil Vincent (Arizona)
Watford, Paul J. (California)
Abela, Maya S. (Arizona)
Ahlers, James A (Arizona)
Alewelt, Jennifer (Arizona)
Amiri, Amir Q. (California)
Arellano, Casey (Arizona)
Barr, Daniel C. (Arizona)
Boughton, Kathryn E (Arizona)
Brantley, Kevin (California)
Brizgys, Molly Patricia (Arizona)
Brody, Kathleen E. (Arizona)
Calderon, Sophia Helena (California)
Cho, Eunice (District of Columbia)
Colby, Mikaela Nicole (Arizona)
Daley-Rooney, Rose Ann (Arizona)
Daly-Rooney, Rose A. (Arizona)
Dietrich, Asim (Arizona)
Dooley, Cathleen Marie (Arizona)
Du Mee, Matthew B (Arizona)
Durkin, Brenna (Arizona)
Eidenbach, Kristin T (Arizona)
Fathi, David Cyrus (District of Columbia)
Fettig, Amy (District of Columbia)
Flood, Kelly Joyce (Arizona)
Freeman, Taylor (Texas)
George, Warren E. Jr. (California)
Gerlicher, Amelia Morrow (Arizona)
Gray, John H (Arizona)
Hardy, Alison (California)
Hosseini, Ilham A (California)
Kader, Sarah Eve (Arizona)
Keenan, Jared G (Arizona)
Kendall, Ryan Matthew (District of Columbia)
Kendrick, Corene Thaedra (California)
Kiernan, David C (California)
Levinson, Dara (California)
Lieberman, Martin (Arizona)
Lomio, Rita Katherine (California)
Lopez, Victoria (Arizona)
Lyall, James Duff (Arizona)
Mamedova, Kamilla (New York)
Messina, Jennifer K (New York)
Mitchell, Caroline N. (California)
Morgan, Jamelia Natasha (District of Columbia)
Morris, Maria (District of Columbia)
Norman, Sara Linda (California)
Peters, Jerica Lyn (Arizona)
Pochoda, Daniel Joseph (Arizona)
Quereshi, Ajmel (District of Columbia)
Rauh, Sarah (California)
Rico, Jose De Jesus (Arizona)
Ripke, Jill L (Arizona)
Ross, Jessica Janespar (Arizona)
Ryerson, Thomas D (Arizona)
Soldati, Kelly Lynn (Arizona)
Specter, Donald H. (California)
Suh, Eun Ae (Texas)
Szanto, Ruth (Arizona)
Varma, Asim (Arizona)
Wilkes, John Laurens (Texas)
Worsham, Karl Joeseph (Arizona)
Yost, Austin (Arizona)
Acedo, Nicholas Daniel (Arizona)
Bojanowski, Timothy J (Arizona)
Bracken, Mark Allen (Arizona)
Cloman, Courtney Rachel (Arizona)
Fletcher, Ashlee B (Arizona)
Glynn, Courtney Rachel (Arizona)
Gottfried, Michael Evan (Arizona)
Guzman, Jamie (Arizona)
Hanger, Kevin Richard (Arizona)
Hesman, Ashlee (Arizona)
Horne, Thomas C. (Arizona)
Lee, Jacob B. (Arizona)
Love, Rachel (Arizona)
Orcutt, Anne Marie (Arizona)
Rand, Lucy Marie (Arizona)
Ray, Timothy Michael (Arizona)
Struck, Daniel Patrick (Arizona)
Valenti, Richard Michael (Arizona)
Watanabe, Katherine Emiko (Arizona)
Wieneke, Kathleen L (Arizona)
Zuerlein, Ashley Brook (Arizona)
Beller, Courtney Rose (Arizona)
Benge, Robert Joseph (Arizona)
Berg, Timothy J (Arizona)
Chami, David Ali (Arizona)
Christner, Dustin Allan (Arizona)
Cohn, Michael J (Arizona)
Fernandez, Anthony Joseph (Arizona)
Hadous, Nemer (Arizona)
Hancock, Christian Watson (North Carolina)
Illsley, Alyssa Rae (Arizona)
Kartchner, Todd Stephen (Arizona)
Maisano, Dale F (Arizona)
Wagner, Milton Alan (Arizona)
Yokois, Douglas D (Arizona)
Cohen, Robert L. MD (New York)
Diaz, Tania Amarillas (California)
Haney, Craig William (California)
Matthews, Warren W. (Alaska)
Shulman, Jay (Texas)
Stewart, Pablo (California)
Vail, Eldon (Washington)
Wilcox, Todd Randall (Utah)
Williams, Brie (California)
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4133612/jensen-v-shinn/
Last updated May 12, 2022, 8 p.m.
State / Territory: Arizona
Case Type(s):
Special Collection(s):
Post-PLRA enforceable consent decrees
Post-WalMart decisions on class certification
Key Dates
Filing Date: March 22, 2012
Case Ongoing: Yes
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
A class of Arizona prisoners who experienced deficiencies in the Department of Corrections health care system
Plaintiff Type(s):
Attorney Organizations:
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: Yes
Class Action Outcome: Granted
Defendants
Arizona Department of Corrections, State
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Constitutional Clause(s):
Due Process: Substantive Due Process
Availably Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Source of Relief:
Form of Settlement:
Court Approved Settlement or Consent Decree
Amount Defendant Pays: $4.9m and up to $250k/yea
Order Duration: 2014 - None
Content of Injunction:
Issues
General:
Food service / nutrition / hydration
Sanitation / living conditions
Solitary confinement/Supermax (conditions or process)
Staff (number, training, qualifications, wages)
Crowding:
Medical/Mental Health:
COVID-19:
Type of Facility: