Hicks v. Armstrong

• Citation: 116 F.Supp.2d 287
• Decision Date: 30 September 1999
• Docket Number: No. CIV.A.3:98CV1348AWT.,CIV.A.3:98CV1348AWT.
• Parties: Jonathan HICKS, Plaintiff, v. John J. ARMSTRONG, et al., Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut

116 F.Supp.2d 287

Jonathan HICKS, Plaintiff, v. John J. ARMSTRONG, et al., Defendants.

No. CIV.A.3:98CV1348AWT.

United States District Court, D. Connecticut.

September 30, 1999.

Robert Edward Lancaster, Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization, New Haven, CT, for Jonathan Hicks.

Roberta S. Kirkendall, U.S. Dept. of Justice, Civ. Rights Div., Disability Rights, Washington, DC, for U.S.

Terrance M. O'Neill, Attorney General's Office, Hartford, CT, for John J. Armstrong, Edward Arrington, Mary M. Johnson, Frank Kinney, Theresa C. Lantz, David N. Strange, Mark W. Strange, Melvin Wearing.

Thomas W. Ude, Jr., Audrey Claire Kramer, Office of Corp. Counsel, City of New Haven, New Haven, CT, for Nicholas Pastore.

RULING ON MOTION TO DISMISS

THOMPSON, District Judge.

Plaintiff Jonathan Hicks ("Hicks"), a paraplegic pretrial detainee, has filed a complaint setting forth seventeen claims for relief against John Armstrong (Commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Corrections), Edward Arrington (Former Warden of the Hartford Correctional Center), Mary Johnson (Former Warden of the Corrigan Correctional Institution and Current Warden of the Hartford Correctional Center), Frank Kinney (High Sheriff of New Haven's Sheriff's Department), Theresa Lantz (Warden of the New Haven Correctional Center), David Strange (Warden of the Corrigan Correctional Institution) and Mark Strange (Warden of the MacDougall Correctional Institution) (collectively, the "State Defendants"), as well as Nicholas Pastore (Former Chief of Police for the City of New Haven), Melvin Wearing (Chief of Police for the City of New Haven), Unidentified New Haven Sheriff's Deputies, Unidentified New Haven Police Officers, Unidentified Correctional Personnel at all of the aforementioned institutions and Unidentified Medical Personnel at all of the aforementioned institutions.

The Plaintiff alleges that the Defendants violated Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12101 et seq. (1999) ("ADA"), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §§ 701 et seq. (1999) ("Rehabilitation Act"), the equal protection clause of the Connecticut Constitution, CONN. CONST. art. I, § 20, amended by CONN. CONST. art. XXI (1984), and the Fourth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution and 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (1999).

The State Defendants move to dismiss all claims brought against them, based on (i) sovereign immunity; (ii) the Plaintiff's failure to allege their personal involvement in any alleged harm; and (iii) assuming all federal claims are dismissed pursuant to (i) and (ii), lack of supplemental jurisdiction over the Plaintiff's Connecticut Constitutional claims.

For the reasons set forth below, the State Defendants' motion to dismiss is being denied.

I. Standard of Review

Dismissal of a complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted is not warranted "unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief." Conley v. Gibson, 355 U.S. 41, 45-46, 78 S.Ct. 99, 2 L.Ed.2d 80 (1957). The task of the court in ruling on a Rule 12(b)(6) motion "is merely to assess the legal feasibility of the complaint, not to assay the weight of the evidence which might be offered in support thereof." Ryder Energy Distribution Corp. v. Merrill Lynch Commodities Inc., 748 F.2d 774, 779 (2d Cir.1984) (internal quotations omitted). The court is required to accept as true all factual allegations in the complaint and must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the plaintiff. See Hernandez v. Coughlin, 18 F.3d 133, 136 (2d Cir.1994).

II. Factual Allegations

With the foregoing standard in mind, the court accepts as true the following allegations by the Plaintiff. The Plaintiff, Jonathan Hicks, is an individual with paraplegia who depends on a wheelchair for mobility. He has no functional use of his legs. As a result of his disability, he requires a number of accommodations to fulfill basic life functions. Due to prolonged sitting in his wheelchair, Hicks often develops pressure sores which become infected and ulcerous if not properly treated. For maintenance of personal hygiene and using the toilet, he requires an accessible urinal, shower, and bladder control briefs. In order to disimpact his bowels, he requires lubricant and gloves. Without access to clean linens, body sponges, and an accessible shower, Hicks suffers an exacerbation of his pressure sores.

Despite Hicks' obvious disability, the police officers who arrested Hicks on December 31, 1996 and transported him to the Union Avenue lockup in New Haven made no attempt to accommodate his disability in order to ensure safe transport. Not only did the police van lack a wheelchair lift, but the police officers broke Hick's specially-designed wheelchair when they threw it into the van. The van also lacked safety restraints. Left handcuffed and without support in the back of the van, Hicks could not prevent himself from being thrown back and forth against the sides of the van. The result was that his pressure sores were torn open.

Upon arrival at the police station, Hicks was placed in a desk chair equipped with wheels. His broken wheelchair was not replaced. The desk chair lacked safety restraints, proper cushioning, leg rests, and a mechanism by which he could propel himself forward. The police officers pushed Hicks through the police station with his legs dragging on the ground. Without any safety restraint to keep his body within the chair and without a suitable cushion to protect the pressure sores on his backside, Hicks' condition worsened. After he was processed, Hicks was sent to Yale New Haven Hospital for treatment of a pressure sore which had developed into an open wound.

Upon his return to the police station, Hicks was placed in a holding cell that was not accessible to a wheelchair. For three days, he remained in the cell with no access to supplies for using the toilet or an accessible shower. He was given a carton to urinate in and was forced to lie in his own feces.

After his arraignment, Hicks was held as a pre-trial detainee for almost seven months in various state correctional facilities operated by the State Defendants. Over the course of his pre-trial detention, he suffered extreme physical and emotional deprivations largely as a result of the State Defendants' failure to accommodate his disability.

The indignities and harm he suffered include lack of access to a shower, inaccessible toilet facilities, disregard for his basic hygienic needs and inadequate medical care. At times he went for months without a shower. At other times he was forced to disimpact himself in front of twenty inmates. At one point, the stench created by the lack of accessible hygiene facilities was so unbearable that fellow inmates at Corrigan Correctional Institute signed a petition requesting that the correctional officers stop this inhumane treatment.

Hicks was also repeatedly subjected to dangerous conditions caused by inappropriate and unsafe transport. The officials responsible for transporting him appeared to have no training or experience in handling individuals with mobility impairments. They repeatedly transported him without the proper safety precautions. On March 10, 1997, while Hicks was returning from a court appearance, correctional officers failed to secure him in his wheelchair. While the officers were pushing the wheelchair over an architectural obstruction rather than using the wheelchair-accessible route, they caused Hicks to be thrown from his wheelchair, and he fractured his right leg.

Finally, Hicks was often segregated from other pre-trial detainees and denied participation in many of the correctional facilities' educational programs, recreational activities and religious services. No efforts were made to accommodate his requests to participate or to make these programs accessible to him.

III. Discussion

A. Sovereign Immunity

The State Defendants argue that application of Title II of the ADA, 42 U.S.C. §§ 12131-12165 (1999), which prohibits discrimination in public services, and the Rehabilitation Act to state prison operations is unconstitutional because those acts are not authorized under either section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment (the "Enforcement Clause") or the Commerce Clause. Further, the State Defendants argue that even if the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act were passed pursuant to a valid exercise of congressional power, they violate the Tenth Amendment under Printz v. United States, 521 U.S. 898, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 138 L.Ed.2d 914 (1997), and New York v. United States, 505 U.S. 144, 112 S.Ct. 2408, 120 L.Ed.2d 120 (1992), because they are examples of the federal government compelling the States to enact or administer a federal regulatory program. The court concludes that Title II of the ADA is valid under the Enforcement Clause, that the Rehabilitation Act is valid under the Enforcement Clause and also that there is provided for an express Eleventh Amendment waiver by recipients of federal funds under the Act, that neither Title II of the ADA nor the Rehabilitation Act violate the Tenth Amendment, and that the Commerce Clause issue need not be reached.

In Seminole Tribe v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 116 S.Ct. 1114, 134 L.Ed.2d 252 (1996), the Court set forth a two-prong test for determining when Congress may abrogate the states' sovereign immunity: (i) Congress must have unequivocally expressed its intent to abrogate the immunity, and (ii) Congress must have acted pursuant to a valid exercise of power. Id. at 55, 116 S.Ct. 1114.

As to part one of that test, it is undisputed that Congress unequivocally expressed its intent to abrogate the states' sovereign immunity under both the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act. See 42 U.S.C. § 12202 (1999) (noting that "[a] State...