Navarro-Ayala v. Hernandez-Colon

• Decision Date: 08 November 1990
• Docket Number: HERNANDEZ-COLON,NAVARRO-AYALA,No. 90-1339,90-1339
• Citation: 951 F.2d 1325
• Parties: , 2 NDLR P 175 Roberto, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Rafael, et al., Defendants, Appellants. . Heard
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

Page 1325

951 F.2d 1325

21 Fed.R.Serv.3d 1462, 2 NDLR P 175

Roberto NAVARRO-AYALA, et al., Plaintiffs, Appellees, v. Rafael HERNANDEZ-COLON, et al., Defendants, Appellants.

No. 90-1339.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Heard Nov. 8, 1990.

Decided Dec. 18, 1991.

Jorge E. Perez-Diaz, Sol. Gen., Dept. of Justice, with whom Norma Cotti-Cruz, Deputy Sol. Gen., was on brief, for appellants.

Armando Cardona-Acaba, Puerto Rico Legal Services, for appellees.

Before CAMPBELL, TORRUELLA and CYR, Circuit Judges.

LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Circuit Judge.

The two issues raised by this appeal are: (1) whether the action below is a class action, even though the district court never certified a class as required by Fed.R.Civ.P. 23(c)(1), and gave no notice to class members; and (2) whether the stipulation executed by the parties and approved and entered in the court record by the district court in 1977 conferred authority on the district court to regulate the care given certain patients at a separate psychiatric facility located some distance from the institution named in the original action. We hold that this suit is a class action and that the provisions of the stipulation do not apply at the other institution.

SUMMARY OF FACTS AND ISSUES

In 1974 Roberto Navarro Ayala ("Navarro"), a mentally retarded patient at the Psychiatric Hospital of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, a public mental health institution located in Rio Piedras, San Juan ("Hospital" or "Rio Piedras"), filed a complaint under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, on behalf of himself and all others at the Hospital, asserting that the inhumane conditions there violated plaintiffs' constitutional rights. Included as defendants were the Governor and other Commonwealth officials having control over the Hospital.

In 1977, before trial, the parties executed, and the district court approved, a stipulation effectively ending the suit. The stipulation provided for numerous specified improvements in respect to what was termed the "institution and its residents." The word "institution" was defined in the stipulation as being "The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Psychiatric Hospital as presently constituted or in Decentralized form."

In the ensuing fourteen years, defendants have taken many steps under the supervision of the district court to comply with the terms of the stipulation. Recently, however, disputes have arisen as to the court's right to force the defendants to apply the stipulated measures at a different facility known as the Guerrero Therapeutic Community ("Guerrero") to which certain of the Hospital's former patients were sent as part of the process of relieving overcrowding at the Hospital. Defendants contend (1) that the district court's jurisdiction is limited to ordering relief to Navarro personally, the only named plaintiff, because a class of patients was never certified, and notice was never given to the class; and (2) that the stipulation currently governs only the care and treatment of patients at the Psychiatric Hospital in Rio Piedras, within the municipality of San Juan, and does not regulate the care and treatment of patients at Guerrero.

In a March 6, 1990 "Opinion and Order," the district court held that this suit was a class action. The court also reaffirmed its position that it had "jurisdiction" not only over Rio Piedras but also over Guerrero in respect to the treatment and living conditions of former Rio Piedras patients there. Defendants appealed from these rulings.

BACKGROUND

A. The Institution

During the early part of the 1970s, as now, the Psychiatric Hospital in Rio Piedras, San Juan, was one of the hospitals offering mental health services as part of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's Department of Health Mental Health Program. In the words of the 1977 stipulation, the Hospital offered hospitalization 24 hours a day, emergency psychiatric services and admissions, and outpatient psychiatric services. According to the stipulation, referrals came "from the Northeastern Region of Mental Health Centers of Arecibo, Manati, Bayamon, Caguas, Carolina, Fajardo, Humacao, San Patricio and Cayey." (We take judicial notice that the Guerrero Therapeutic Community in dispute is located outside and to the west of the above-named communities; its locus, the city of Aguadilla, is in the northwest corner of Puerto Rico, roughly 70 miles from San Juan.)

In the early 1970s the Hospital was badly overcrowded and urgently in need of improvement. According to allegations of plaintiffs' complaint, it lacked essential physical facilities, such as lockers where patients could safely keep their personal belongings, clocks in all wards, visible calendars, lamps, night tables, lounging areas with comfortable chairs, pictures, magazines, books and other items of normal daily living. Beds in the wards did not have pillows, the laundry service was faulty, and the bathrooms and hallways were not deodorized. Patients would be placed naked in isolation rooms which lacked toilet facilities. Not only were the facilities faulty, but so, too, was the treatment. Therapeutic treatment was insufficient, as the Hospital was understaffed. Many patients allegedly did not have comprehensive habilitation plans addressed to their individual needs; and, in some wards,

patients were grouped according to their geographical origin, regardless of their mental condition and needs.

B. The Plaintiff

"Navarro" was referred to a social worker at the Psychiatric Hospital in Rio Piedras in 1970, when he was 19 years old because of "abnormal behavior." After attempts to treat Navarro's mental illness using only out-patient services had failed, his mother had him committed to the Hospital in April of 1974.

C. Evolution of this Appeal

On November 25, 1974, Navarro, represented by his mother, Maria Ayala, filed a complaint in the District Court for the District of Puerto Rico "on behalf of all allegedly mentally incapacitated persons now residents at the Psychiatric Hospital ... or that are receiving mental treatment in said Hospital." The complaint contained detailed allegations criticizing conditions at the Hospital and the treatment received by patients therein; included were the allegations outlined above. The complaint alleged that these conditions at the Psychiatric Hospital violated provisions of the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, depriving Navarro of his right to privacy, his right not to be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment, his right not to be subjected to involuntary servitude, his right to equal protection under the law, and his right to treatment. The complaint alleged that the Psychiatric Hospital "is not a therapeutic institution. It resembles a prison...." It further alleged that the Psychiatric Hospital's environment "is inhumane and psychologically destructive" due to overcrowding and lack of minimal physical and health facilities. Other inadequacies of the Psychiatric Hospital were delineated. While describing at length the wretched conditions at the Psychiatric Hospital, the complaint did not allege similar inadequacies at any other of the Commonwealth's mental health facilities. The prayers in the complaint sought declaratory and injunctive relief solely at the Hospital: they requested a declaration that the Psychiatric Hospital did not meet constitutionally minimum standards; a judicial determination of what proper standards the Constitution required for residents of the Psychiatric Hospital; and an injunction against the unconstitutional conditions there. The court was asked to enjoin further admissions to the Hospital until it had determined that the Hospital met such standards as the court specified.

The complaint named as defendants: Rafael Hernandez Colon, as Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico; Jose Alvarez de Choudens, then Secretary of Health of the Commonwealth; Jose A. Nunez-Lopez, then Assistant Secretary of Health; Erick Santos, then Director of the Commonwealth's Psychiatric Hospital; Concepcion Perez, then Administrator of the Hospital Center of Puerto Rico, and their "agents, employees and/or successors in office."

1975--June 1977: The Stipulation

The defendants answered the complaint on March 21, 1975, denying most of its allegations, including that the suit was properly a class action. The defendants also denied that the district court had jurisdiction. However, before the case could be set for pretrial in May 1977, all parties engaged in negotiations resulting in agreement on the terms of a comprehensive stipulation in settlement of the lawsuit. On April 20, 1977, they submitted the stipulated agreement for the court's approval. The remedying of the existing conditions at the Psychiatric Hospital was the central theme of the stipulation; it included 86 standards that the parties stipulated would be observed at the Hospital. Short term plans included removal of the mentally retarded and other long term patients who did not require this type of hospital care to the Cayey and Bayamon Psychosocial and Rehabilitation Centers, and included the placement of additional patients in the foster home care program. The agreement contained no express provisions that the 86 standards, or any of them, would be effectuated at the Cayey and Bayamon facilities, nor did it mention at all the Guerrero Therapeutic Community in Aguadilla. The

court approved the stipulation and on June 3, 1977 entered judgment "in accordance with all the agreements made by the parties."

Appointment of the Special Master

Between July 1977 and 1984, there was little activity in the case. On January 31, 1985, the district court held a status conference, and, on February 1, 1985, entered an order granting plaintiff's request that a master be appointed. ¹ On February 8, 1985, the court appointed Dr. David Helfeld, former Dean of the University of Puerto Rico Law School, as Special Master ("Master"). The...