Filed Date: June 20, 2011
Case Ongoing
Clearinghouse coding complete
On June 20, 2011, two deaf prisoners filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina against the federal Bureau of Prisons. Represented by private counsel and the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights, the plaintiffs filed their lawsuit under Bivens and claimed violations of the Rehabilitation Act and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. In addition, the plaintiffs alleged violations of their Fifth Amendment due process rights, First Amendment Freedom of Speech, and First Amendment Free Exercise of Religion. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants refused to provide them with effective communication and auxiliary aids necessary to accommodate their disability. The discriminatory conduct deprived the plaintiffs of their ability to receive adequate and informed medical treatment, participate in institutional disciplinary proceedings, effectively take part in any rehabilitative, educational, or religious programs, or communicate with those within and outside the institution. The plaintiffs requested declaratory and injunctive relief.
On April 11, 2012, the plaintiffs filed an amended complaint. On June 22, 2011, the case was transferred to Judge James C. Dever, with a revised case number of 5:11-ct-3118. The defendants then filed a motion to dismiss or for summary judgment. The plaintiffs also filed for summary judgment on count two of their amended complaint.
On March 11, 2013, Judge Dever denied the plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment on count two, granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motion to dismiss, and denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment. Judge Dever dismissed count one under the Rehabilitation Act for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. Judge Dever dismissed count five under the Fifth Amendment for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. Eight claims of the plaintiffs' claims survived. 2013 WL 943406 (E.D.N.C. Mar. 11, 2013).
Discovery was contested and the plaintiffs filed a motion to compel the production of documents. On September 12, 2014, the district court issued an ordering denying the plaintiffs' motion to compel the production of documents from the defendants. 2014 WL 4545946 (E.D.N.C. Sept. 12, 2014).
On March 31, 2015, the Court granted in part the defendants’ motion for summary judgment, denied the plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment, and dismissed as moot the remaining counts of the amended complaint. 2015 WL 1470877 (E.D.N.C. Mar. 31, 2015). The plaintiffs filed a notice of appeal on May 27, 2015. The case went to the Fourth Circuit as Appeal No. 15-6826.
On November 5, 2015, after the plaintiffs submitted their appellate brief and while the defendants’ response brief was pending, Plaintiff Boyd filed a notice notifying the Fourth Circuit that he had “some limited ability to hear and understand speech in certain contexts.” See Notice, Appeal No. 15-6826, at Doc. 31. On this date, Boyd also filed a motion for voluntary dismissal of his appeal, and proposed that each party bear its own costs and attorneys’ fees. The U.S. opposed this proposal. The Fourth Circuit dismissed the appeal because Boyd was not determined to be deaf. 849 F.3d 202 n.1. On January 4, 2016, the district court dismissed Boyd's motion for a voluntary dismissal because the court lacked jurisdiction.
On February 23, 2017, the Fourth Circuit ruled on the appeal of the District Court's grant of summary judgment, affirming it in part, vacating it in part, and remanding for further judgment. 849 F.3d 202. The Court of Appeals found that the defendant was deliberately indifferent to plaintiff's medical needs by failing to provide him with an ASL interpreter for medical appointments, particularly when he was suffering from seizures as a result of inadequate medical care. The Fourth Circuit found that the plaintiff had adequately shown substantial risk of serious harm resulting from the defendant's actions. The court also reversed the summary judgment on plaintiff's First Amendment claims, finding that defendant's security complaints regarding the requested videophone were exaggerated, and that defendant substantially interfered with plaintiff's ability to communicate outside of the prison walls. The Fourth Circuit also found that the supplies given to the plaintiff to alert him of emergencies were inadequate.
The court referred the case to Magistrate Judge James E. Gates for a court-hosted settlement conference on May 18, 2017. Defendants moved for dismissal due to lack of jurisdiction, or in the alternative, judgment on the pleadings, on September 29, 2017. After reaching a partial settlement, the parties moved jointly to dismiss the case in part with prejudice on November 2, 2017. Under this partial settlement, the defendants agreed to provide the plaintiff with several accommodations, including in-person ASL interpreter services and calls through video relay service that facilitates communication with non-ASL speakers. The court granted this motion on November 3. This limited the litigation to the plaintiff's First Amendment claim regarding access to a videophone for communication.
A bench trial was held before Judge Dever from November 6-7, 2017. Judge Dever denied the defendant's motions to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and for judgment on the pleadings on September 12, 2018. On February 12, 2019, the court entered judgment in favor of the defendant, finding that the plaintiff failed to prove that the BOP's failure to install and provide the requested videophone equipment violated the First Amendment.
The plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration on March 12, 2019, requesting that the court alter the judgment. The court subsequently denied this motion on June 21, 2019. The plaintiff then appealed both orders to the Fourth Circuit.
The Fourth Circuit (Circuit Judges Henry F. Floyd, Motz, Diana Gribbon Motz, and Barbara Milano Keenan) agreed with the plaintiff and reversed the district court’s judgment on January 13, 2021. 984 F.3d 347. It remanded the case to the district court for judgment in favor of the plaintiff. Though the Fourth Circuit agreed with the defendants that the ban on videophone for communication bore a rational connection to the defendant's interests in prison safety, rehabilitation of the plaintiff, and protection of the public, it found that other factors weighed in the plaintiff’s favor. First, the plaintiff lacked alternative means to communicate with other deaf individuals. The Fourth Circuit found that the district court erroneously concluded that video relay service was an alternative means because video relay service only permitted communication with non-deaf individuals. Here, the plaintiff was asserting an interest in communicating with the deaf community—an interest video relay service couldn’t fulfill. Second, the Fourth Circuit found that the district court overlooked the substantial evidence that the defendants already have resource-efficient means of managing the risks of videophone calls in evaluating the hypothetical risks of these calls. Finally, the Fourth Circuit found that the district court did not explain why existing safeguards for videophone calls did not mitigate the risks of the calls to a de minimis level. It noted that the district court improperly focused on the nature of the risks of videophones rather than the likelihood of the risks materializing.
After the plaintiff's victory in the Fourth Circuit, the parties returned to litigation before a DOJ administrative law judge (ALJ). This litigation centered around the issue of whether, and to what extent, the plaintiff was entitled to point-to-point video technology to communicate outside of prison walls. Plaintiff argued that he was entitled to videophone access in particular, while defendants argued that the Fourth Circuit’s decision did not explicitly find that the First Amendment required the plaintiff to have videophone access, and that it explicitly stated that his First Amendment rights did not provide a justification for allowing videophone calls to his hearing brother.
Defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim in April 2021, and a motion in the alternative to stay proceedings, arguing that the plaintiff already enjoyed legally sufficient access to the phone program that was comparable to that enjoyed by hearing inmates/detainees. Meanwhile, the plaintiff filed a motion for summary judgment, arguing that the defendants’ denial of access to point-to-point videophone calls violated his First Amendment rights, and that this holding “necessitate[d]” a finding here that the BOP also violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. ALJ Teresa Wallbaum agreed with the plaintiff, denying defendants’ motion to dismiss and granting the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on May 21, 2021. She found there were no material facts in dispute that might preclude a decision on summary judgment, as the relevant facts had been “extensively litigated” in the Fourth Circuit. She also held that defendants could not avoid liability by establishing that providing the plaintiff with point-to-point videophone access would constitute a fundamental alteration to the phone program and/or create undue burdens.
The ALJ issued her Recommended Decision in the case on July 20, 2021, which recommended an order that defendants, within thirty days of the date of final Agency action, ensure that a fully operational videophone or its functional equivalent was available for use by the plaintiff at the detention facility. She added a caveat that nothing in the order “shall be interpreted to limit or abridge the authority of BOP to implement reasonable security measure[s] or to limit access to the videophone in the same manner that access of all inmates may be limited under the inmate telephone program.”
On August 4, 2021, defendants submitted exceptions to the Recommended Decision, arguing that the DOJ should ignore the facts drawn from the Fourth Circuit and either order the record to be supplemented or remand the case to the ALJ for further development of the record. Defendants argued that stronger facts needed to be proven regarding how skilled the plaintiff’s brother was in communicating in ASL, and also that the record did not support the ALJ’s finding that complainant “ha[d] deaf friends or family with which he wishe[d] to communicate.” Defendants also argued that the ALJ erred in her conclusions of law regarding denial of a stay, issue preclusion, the summary judgment analysis standard, and the determination that defendants violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. The plaintiffs filed a reply contesting these arguments, and the case went to a Complaint Adjudication Officer
In a Final Decision written by Complaint Adjudication Officer C. Douglas Kern on February 25, 2022, the DOJ found the ALJ’s recommendation reasonable. It found that plaintiff established a prima facie case under Section 504, and defendants did not establish an affirmative defense. However, the DOJ provided some adjustments and clarifications to the ruling. First, the DOJ agreed with the ALJ that defendants must provide the plaintiff with point-to-point videophone access, but that defendants could also provide a functionally equivalent accommodation. However, any form of mediated telecommunication that prevented the plaintiff and another ASL user from communicating directly in ASL would not be a functional equivalent. Second, it was unclear what the ALJ determined as to whether the plaintiff should be allowed to make videophone calls to his brother in ASL. Defendants argued that it would thus be reasonable to limit this right to members of the Deaf community, not his hearing brother. However, nothing in the record provided a basis for requiring the plaintiff to communicate with his brother through a less effective method simply because his brother was not deaf. The decision additionally noted that nothing in the decision interfered with the defendants’ ability to exercise its sound correctional judgment in determining whether to allow the plaintiff to call any particular individual, including his brother – but those determinations should be made under the same bases that defendants use to decide whether to allow hearing inmates/detainees to call any particular person on any device.
Regarding the remedy, the DOJ found that it had received no dispositive evidence that defendants had provided the plaintiff with point-to-point videophone access to date. Thus, within thirty days of the Final Decision, the defendants were ordered to provide the plaintiff with fully operational videophone access that allowed him to make direct, point-to-point videophone calls to other ASL users from the facility in which he was housed, and the defendants must provide the Complaint Adjudication Office with a report on the status of the remedy within sixty days of its receipt of the Final Decision.
This case is ongoing.
Summary Authors
Jessica Kincaid (4/22/2016)
Elizabeth Heise (11/4/2018)
Alex Moody (5/20/2020)
Emily Kempa (4/1/2021)
Zoe Goldstein (4/10/2022)
For PACER's information on parties and their attorneys, see: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4303467/parties/heyer-v-united-states-bureau-of-prisons/
Dever, James C. III (North Carolina)
Floyd, Henry Franklin (South Carolina)
Gates, James E. (North Carolina)
Keenan, Barbara Milano (Virginia)
Motz, Diana Jane Gribbon (Maryland)
Bergman, Daniel B. (District of Columbia)
Fornaci, Phillip Jerome (District of Columbia)
Gardner, Elizabeth [Elaine] Elaine (District of Columbia)
Golden, Deborah Maxine (District of Columbia)
Hoffman, Ian S. (District of Columbia)
Dever, James C. III (North Carolina)
Floyd, Henry Franklin (South Carolina)
Gates, James E. (North Carolina)
Keenan, Barbara Milano (Virginia)
Motz, Diana Jane Gribbon (Maryland)
Bergman, Daniel B. (District of Columbia)
Fornaci, Phillip Jerome (District of Columbia)
Gardner, Elizabeth [Elaine] Elaine (District of Columbia)
Golden, Deborah Maxine (District of Columbia)
Hoffman, Ian S. (District of Columbia)
Nath, Snayha M. (District of Columbia)
Pearce, Carolyn A. (California)
Riemann, Neil A. (North Carolina)
Williamson, Tara L. (District of Columbia)
Acker, G Norman III (North Carolina)
Bredenberg, Michael D. (North Carolina)
Dannels, Jennifer D. (North Carolina)
Dodson, Robert J. (North Carolina)
Fesak, Matthew Lee (North Carolina)
Higdon, Robert Jr. (North Carolina)
Kelley, Christina A. (North Carolina)
Renfer, R. A. Jr. (North Carolina)
Wood, Seth Morgan (North Carolina)
See docket on RECAP: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4303467/heyer-v-united-states-bureau-of-prisons/
Last updated May 3, 2023, 3:08 a.m.
State / Territory: North Carolina
Case Type(s):
Special Collection(s):
Key Dates
Filing Date: June 20, 2011
Case Ongoing: Yes
Plaintiffs
Plaintiff Description:
Two deaf federal prisoners.
Plaintiff Type(s):
Attorney Organizations:
Public Interest Lawyer: Yes
Filed Pro Se: No
Class Action Sought: No
Class Action Outcome: Not sought
Defendants
United States Bureau of Prisons, Federal
Defendant Type(s):
Case Details
Causes of Action:
Religious Freedom Rest. Act/Religious Land Use and Inst. Persons Act (RFRA/RLUIPA)
Ex Parte Young (Federal) or Bivens
Section 504 (Rehabilitation Act), 29 U.S.C. § 701
Constitutional Clause(s):
Available Documents:
Injunctive (or Injunctive-like) Relief
Outcome
Prevailing Party: Plaintiff
Nature of Relief:
Injunction / Injunctive-like Settlement
Source of Relief:
Form of Settlement:
Issues
General:
Informed consent/involuntary medication
TTY/Close Captioning/Videophone/etc.
Discrimination-basis:
Disability (inc. reasonable accommodations)
Disability:
Language:
Medical/Mental Health:
Type of Facility: