Adams v. Fed. Bureau Of Prisons .

• Decision Date: 07 June 2010
• Docket Number: Civil Action No. 09-10272-JLT.
• Citation: 716 F.Supp.2d 107
• Parties: Vanessa ADAMS, legal name, Nicholas Adams, Plaintiff, v. FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts

716 F.Supp.2d 107

Vanessa ADAMS, legal name, Nicholas Adams, Plaintiff,

v.FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS, et al., Defendants.

Civil Action No. 09-10272-JLT.

United States District Court,D. Massachusetts.

June 7, 2010.

Cassandra Capobianco, Florida Institutional Legal Services, Newberry, FL, Allyson E. Kurker, Bingham McCutchen LLP, Jennifer L. Levi, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, Boston, MA, Jody Marksamer, Shannon Minter, National Center for Lesbian Rights, San Francisco, CA, for Plaintiff.

James J. Fauci, United States Attorney's Office, Boston, MA, for Defendants.

ORDER

TAURO, J.

For the reasons set forth in the accompanying Memorandum, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint [# 20] is DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

MEMORANDUM

I. Introduction

Plaintiff, an inmate in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, asserts that Defendants have subjected her ¹ to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution by denying her appropriate medical treatment for her diagnosed condition of Gender Identity Disorder. Presently at issue is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint [# 20]. For the following reasons, Defendants' Motion to Dismiss the Amended Complaint [# 20] is DENIED.

II. Background ²

Plaintiff came into the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (“BOP”) in 1999 at age 29. Though Plaintiff is biologically a male, she has self-identified as a female throughout her adult life. Because of this, she wanted to initiate the gender transition process prior to her incarceration, but found herself unable to do so in the face of the restrictions imposed on her by a conservative family and workplace.

BOP formally diagnosed Plaintiff with Gender Identity Disorder (“GID”) in February 2005. GID is a readily diagnosable and treatable mental illness with an established course of treatment, consisting primarily of three components. This course of treatment is commonly referred to as “triadic therapy” and includes: (1) hormones of the desired gender; (2) the “real-life experience,” i.e. living full-time in the new gender, and (3) surgery to change the sex characteristics of the person suffering from GID. Individuals suffering from GID who do not receive appropriate medical treatment are at risk of serious harm including depression, anxiety, self-mutilation and suicide.

After her 2005 diagnosis, Plaintiff requested that BOP treat her with female hormones in order to assist her in her transition from male to female, but BOP denied her request. As a result, on February 8, 2005, Plaintiff attempted to hang herself in her cell at USMCFP Springfield. Thereafter, BOP's staff psychologist observed that what Plaintiff “really wants is alternatives to mutilating [her] genitals and ways to develop a more female appearance ...,” ³ and that Plaintiff “sometimes thinks about cutting off [her] penis to make [herself] more female and to stop the male hormones from being produced in [her] body.” ⁴ Despite this warning from the staff psychologist that Plaintiff presented a real risk of self-mutilation, BOP did not provide her with treatment for her GID. And two weeks later, Plaintiff did in fact try to cut her testicles off using a razor. Plaintiff's wound required seven staples to repair.

In discussing this attempt at self-castration, the BOP staff psychologist stated that Plaintiff “appears somewhat desperate to find a way to either get female hormones or to complete the process [she] attempted today. I believe [she] will attempt again at some point before [her] sentence ends.... [Her] Gender Identity Disorder will continue and [her] desire to be female will not remit. Therefore, [she] will continue to be at risk for this type of behavior.” ⁵ BOP, however, still did not provide Plaintiff with treatment. Rather, BOP punished Plaintiff for violating the prison's prohibition against “self-mutilation.”

On July 20, 2005, BOP's staff psychologist submitted a request to transfer Plaintiff from Springfield to FMC Devens in Massachusetts, based on her history of suicide attempts and self-mutilation stemming from BOP's ongoing refusal to treat her GID. Upon intake at the inpatient mental health unit at Devens, BOP psychiatrist Dr. James Fletcher performed a diagnostic assessment of Plaintiff, which confirmed that she suffers from GID. But Dr. Fletcher informed Plaintiff that BOP would not provide treatment because, pursuant to BOP policy, only those inmates who received hormone therapy prior to incarceration were eligible to receive hormones while incarcerated. ⁶ Dr. Fletcher stated that Plaintiff “has been very persistent and requested on numerous times through various avenues that [she] be considered for gender reassignment therapy, namely estrogen ... [She] has been disappointed to find out that the Bureau of Prisons policy is rather rigid in this regard [ ] ...” ⁷ and that she “was not a candidate.” ⁸ A charge nurse at FMC Devens echoed this position, explaining that “[hormone treatment] is not going to happen unless you were already on hormones before coming to prison.” ⁹

While at Devens, Plaintiff requested evaluation and treatment for GID both in writing and during psychiatric sessions no fewer than ten times. Each time, BOP denied her treatment because she did not meet BOP policy criteria. Specifically, they consistently declared her ineligible for hormone treatment during incarceration because she had not been treated with hormones prior to incarceration.

BOP transferred Plaintiff to USP Beaumont in Texas in March 2006. In August 2006, Plaintiff asked the Beaumont medical staff to cut her penis off for her and requested hormone therapy. Medical staff refused this request and Plaintiff again attempted to sever her penis on August 15, 2006. Subsequently, the BOP psychologist noted that Plaintiff was “continuing to plan on ways to amputate h[er] penis....” ¹⁰

In 2007, Plaintiff was transferred to FCC Coleman in Florida. On June 27, 2007, the warden denied Plaintiff's request for treatment based on Dr. Fletcher's determination that she was not a candidate for treatment because she had not received hormones prior to incarceration. ¹¹ Plaintiff's appeal of this decision was denied by the Regional Director for the Southeast Regional Office based on the same BOP policy, which prevented inmates from receiving hormone treatment while incarcerated unless they received hormones prior to incarceration. ¹² Plaintiff also appealed this denial. And on December 13, 2007, the Administrator for National Inmate Appeals again denied Plaintiff's request for treatment, concluding that “the Agency will not initiate medical or surgical intervention” for a GID diagnosis. ¹³

On January 20, 2009, just days before the initiation of this action, BOP again denied Plaintiff's request for treatment. And three weeks later, Plaintiff finally succeeded in severing her penis with a razor. Despite Plaintiff's self-mutilation and the pendency of this litigation, BOP still provided Plaintiff with no treatment for GID for the next six months.

Plaintiff was transferred to USMCFP Springfield in Missouri in March 2009, where she again requested hormone treatment. On August 14, 2009, Plaintiff filed, and this court allowed, an emergency motion seeking an order allowing Plaintiff's outside expert, Dr. Randi Ettner, to perform an psychological evaluation of her. BOP finally initiated hormone treatment for Plaintiff on the very same day.

Based on the foregoing facts, Plaintiff's Amended Complaint alleges that BOP has acted with deliberate indifference in violation of the Eighth Amendment by refusing to adequately treat her GID. Plaintiff additionally asserts that the policy upon which BOP consistently relied in denying treatment is unconstitutional on its face and as applied to her.

III. DiscussionA. Motion to Dismiss for Lack of Subject Matter Jurisdiction

Defendants contend that this court is without subject matter jurisdiction to hear the current action because, by voluntarily providing hormone therapy to Plaintiff as of August 14, 2009, Defendants have rendered her claims moot. This court disagrees.

Pursuant to Article III of the United States Constitution, federal courts have the power to “adjudicate only actual, ongoing cases or controversies.” ¹⁴ This constitutional limitation on the jurisdiction of the federal courts is expressed, at the outset of a case, through the requirement that Plaintiff have standing to commence the litigation. Thus, “[t]o invoke the jurisdiction of a federal court, a litigant must have suffered, or be threatened with, an actual injury traceable to the defendant and likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision.” ¹⁵ The injury must be both “concrete and particularized,” as well as “actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical.” ¹⁶

The “case-or-controversy requirement subsists through all stages of federal judicial proceedings,” ¹⁷ however, and the “requisite personal interest that must exist at the commencement of the litigation (standing) must continue throughout its existence (mootness).” ¹⁸ So even where the Plaintiff initially presents a viable claim, “a federal court is duty bound to dismiss [her] claim as moot if subsequent events unfold in a manner that undermines any one of the three pillars on which constitutional standing rests: injury in fact, causation, and redressability.” ¹⁹

Nonetheless, “[i]t is well settled that a defendant's voluntary cessation of a challenged practice does not deprive a federal court of its power to determine the legality of the practice. If it did, the courts would be compelled to leave the defendant ... free to return to his old ways.” ²⁰ Accordingly, the standard set forth by the Supreme Court for “determining whether a case has been mooted by the defendant's voluntary conduct is stringent.... [A] defendant claiming that its voluntary compliance moots a case bears the formidable burden of...