Haldane v. Hammond

• Decision Date: 18 September 2017
• Docket Number: No. 15-CV-1810,15-CV-1810
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Washington
• Parties: DANIEL HALDANE, WENDEL JOHNSON, TIMOTHY MARTIN, and LEESHAWN REDIC, Plaintiffs, v. G. STEVEN HAMMOND, M.D., Chief Medical Officer of the Washington State Department of Corrections, and DAN PACHOLKE, Secretary of the Washington State Department of Corrections, in their official capacities, Defendants.

DANIEL HALDANE, WENDEL JOHNSON, TIMOTHY MARTIN,and LEESHAWN REDIC, Plaintiffs, v. G. STEVEN HAMMOND, M.D.,Chief Medical Officer of the Washington State Departmentof Corrections, and DAN PACHOLKE,Secretary of the Washington State Departmentof Corrections, in their official capacities, Defendants.

No. 15-CV-1810

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE

September 18, 2017

DISTRICT JUDGE RICHARD A. JONES

ORDER

I. INTRODUCTION

This matter comes before the Court on Plaintiffs' Motion for Class Certification and Appointment of Class Counsel. Dkt. ## 47, 81. Defendants oppose the Motion. Dkt. # 90. Having considered the parties' briefs and balance of the record, the Court finds oral argument unnecessary. For the reasons stated below, the Court DENIES Plaintiffs' Motion.

II. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs are prisoners in the custody of the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC). Dkt. # 1 (Complaint). DOC's healthcare services are subject to the Offender Health Plan (OHP). Id. at ¶ 9. The OHP defines what types of medical care are "medically necessary." Id. at ¶ 10; see also Dkt. # 47-1 at 11-12 (defining "medical necessity"). The OHP segregates care into three Levels: Level 1 care is considered medically necessary such that a practitioner may authorize treatment; Level 2 care constitutes care that may be medically necessary but requires authorization by the Care Review Committee (CRC); Level 3 care is not medically necessary and therefore a practitioner may not authorize treatment. Dkt. ## 47-1 at 13, 47-2 at 1.

The CRC is composed of physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. Dkt. ## 1 (Complaint) at ¶ 13, 47-2 at 2-5 (describing the CRC Review Procedure). The committee meets every week for a teleconference that lasts up to two hours. Dkt. # 1 (Complaint) at ¶ 15. The committee decides whether Level 2 care should be authorized—thereby raising it to Level 1 status—or denied—demoting it to Level 3.

Plaintiffs each have ailments for which their providers submitted requests to the CRC for specific treatment. See generally Dkt. # 1 (Complaint) at ¶¶ 26-71. The CRC denied treatment, and Plaintiffs claim that the refusals lead to their continued suffering from severe pain and limitations on daily living. Id. at ¶¶ 41, 54, 62, 71. Plaintiffs argue that the CRC is unreasonably denying care not just to the named plaintiffs but to an entire class of inmates. Accordingly, Plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit against DOC and its Chief Medical Officer and Secretary.

III. LEGAL STANDARD

The Court's decision to certify a class is discretionary. Vinole v. CountrywideHome Loans, Inc., 571 F.3d 935, 944 (9th Cir. 2009). Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 ("Rule 23") guides the Court's exercise of discretion. A plaintiff "bears the burden of demonstrating that he has met each of the four requirements of Rule 23(a) and at least one of the [three alternative] requirements of Rule 23(b)." Lozano v. AT&T Wireless Servs., Inc., 504 F.3d 718, 724 (9th Cir. 2007). Rule 23(a) requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the proposed class is sufficiently numerous, that it presents common issues of fact or law, that it will be led by one or more class representatives with claims typical of the class, and that the class representative will adequately represent the class. Gen. Tel. Co. of the S. W. v. Falcon, 457 U.S. 147, 161 (1982); Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(a).

If a plaintiff satisfies the Rule 23(a) requirements, he must also show that the proposed class action meets one of the three requirements of Rule 23(b). Zinser v. Accufix Research Inst., Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1186 (9th Cir. 2001). Here, Plaintiffs move for class certification under Rule 23(b)(2). Rule 23(b)(2) requires that "the party opposing the class has acted or refused to act on grounds that apply generally to the class, so that final injunctive relief or corresponding declaratory relief is appropriate respecting the class as a whole." Fed. R. Civ. P. 23(b)(2). Rule 23(b)(2) is met where "a single injunction or declaratory judgment would provide relief to each member of the class." Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, 564 U.S. 338, 360 (2011).

In considering Rule 23's requirements, the Court must engage in a "rigorous analysis," but a "rigorous analysis does not always result in a lengthy explanation or in depth review of the record." Chamberlan v. Ford Motor Co., 402 F.3d 952, 961 (9th Cir. 2005) (citing Falcon, 457 U.S. at 161). The Court is neither permitted nor required to conduct a "preliminary inquiry into the merits" of the plaintiff's claims. Blackie v. Barrack, 524 F.2d 891, 901 (9th Cir. 1975) (citing Eisen v. Carlisle & Jacquelin, 417 U.S. 156, 177 (1974)); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 advisory committee's note (2003) ("[A]n evaluation of the probable outcome on the merits is not properly part of the certification decision."); but see Dukes, 564 U.S. at 351 (suggesting that Rule 23 analysismay be inextricable from some judgments on the merits in a particular case). The Court may assume the truth of a plaintiff's substantive allegations, but may require more than bare allegations to determine whether a plaintiff has satisfied the requirements of Rule 23. See, e.g., Blackie, 524 F.2d at 901, n.17; Clark v. Watchie, 513 F.2d 994, 1000 (9th Cir. 1975) ("If the trial judge has made findings as to the provisions of the Rule and their application to the case, his determination of class status should be considered within his discretion.").

IV. DISCUSSION

Plaintiffs propose that the Court certify the following class:

All current and future prisoners, incarcerated under the jurisdiction of the Washington Department of Corrections, whose access to necessary medical care has been denied, or will be subject to denial, under the Department's policies and practices governing access to health care requiring prior approval.

Dkt. # 1 (Complaint) at ¶ 73. The Court takes issue with Plaintiffs' ability to satisfy Rule 23(a)'s commonality requirement and will therefore limit its analysis to this core requirement of Rule 23(a).

A. Commonality

Plaintiffs fail to satisfy the commonality requirement of Rule 23(a). Plaintiffs rely on Parsons v. Ryan, 754 F.3d 657 (9th Cir. 2014), to show that their allegations satisfy Rule 23 and to urge this Court to grant class certification. Though the Court agrees that Parsons is on point in this matter, the Court disagrees that Parsons aids the Plaintiffs in their arguments.

In Parsons, the Ninth Circuit upheld the district court's order granting class certification. There, the plaintiffs' 74-page complaint detailed the Arizona Department of Correction's (ADC) mass deficiencies, going so far as to outline fifteen specific, uniform,statewide policies and practices that exposed all ADC's inmates to a substantial risk of harm. Id. at 664. The complaint included graphic examples in which medical staff gave prisoners expired medication, caused prisoners to reuse catheters, and delayed care when outside contracts were cancelled. Id. at 664-666 n.5-7. Additional examples included correctional officers standing by while a prisoner bled to death after a suicide attempt and failing to perform CPR on a patient who collapsed from a heart attack. Id. The plaintiffs argued that the defendants' policies and practices violated the Eighth Amendment because they were deliberately indifferent to inmates' health and safety and exposed inmates to a substantial risk of serious harm.

The plaintiffs supported their motion for class certification in Parsons with ample evidence collected through the discovery process. Some of the more pertinent documents included communications between the ADC and its health services provider in which ADC "identified serious and systemic deficiencies in [the health services provider's] provision of health care to ADC inmates." Id. at 668. The health services provider responded by "condemn[ing] the low quality of ADC's preexisting programs." Id. Other documents obtained through discovery uncovered practitioners' warnings of "abysmal staffing" that was "'grossly insufficient' and 'so limited that patient safety and orderly operation of ADC facilities may be significantly compromised.'" Id. (docket citations omitted).

The plaintiffs further supported their motion in Parsons with unrebutted expert reports that validated the practitioners' criticisms. Id. at 669-671. The reports were detailed and included observations that there were system-wide defects and deficiencies that "placed prisoners at serious risk of harm, and in some cases, death." Id. at 669. The plaintiffs also included declarations by the named plaintiffs describing their experiences with ADC policies. Id. at 672.

Having reviewed the evidence and the lower court's conclusions, the Ninth Circuit agreed that the plaintiffs had satisfied the elements of Rule 23(a). ¹ As to the commonality requirement, the court found that all ADC inmates were exposed to "specified statewide ADC policies and practices that govern the overall conditions of health care services and confinement," and this exposure resulted in "a substantial risk of serious future harm to which the defendants are deliberately indifferent." Id. at 678. The court found that the identified policies and practices were "the 'glue' that holds together the putative class . . . either each of the policies and practices is unlawful as to every inmate or it is not." Id.

Plaintiffs in this case attempt to bring what they believe are similar claims against DOC. Like in Parsons, Plaintiffs' claims are grounded in the Eighth Amendment. Though the Court does not expressly analyze the merits of the claims at this stage in litigation, it must briefly consider the nature of the underlying claims to properly analyze whether the claims meet Rule 23(a)'s commonality requirement. Accordingly, the Court reiterates that Plaintiffs' carry the burden to prove that Defendants were "deliberately indifferent to policies and...