Plata v. Davis
| Decision Date | 27 May 2003 |
| Docket Number | No. 02-16161.,02-16161. |
| Citation | 329 F.3d 1101 |
| Parties | Marciano PLATA; Otis Shaw; Ray Stoderd; Joseph Long; Leslie Rhoades; Gilbert Aviles; Paul Decasas; Steven Bautista, and all others similarly situated; Raymond Johns; Elijah J. Sandoval; Gary Alan Smith; Clifford Myelle, Plaintiffs-Appellees, v. Grey DAVIS; B. Timothy Gage; Robert Presley; Susann Steinberg, Defendants-Appellants, and Daniel Thor; MTA Cooper; T. Bui; Donald Calvo; Shankar Raman; Brian Yee; D. Smith; M.A. Van Pelt; Bhaviesh Shah; Andrew Wong; Daniel Fuller; Michael Songer; M. Levin; Joseph Siegel; Edgar Castillo; Mohan Sundareson; Clinton; Sanford Hepps; Stephen Wyman; L. Richnak; Richard Sandham; C. Park; Teresa Rocha, Acting Director Department of Corrections, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
John M. Applebaum, Supervising Deputy Attorney General, Sacramento, CA, for the defendants-appellants.
Donald Specter, Prison Law Office, San Quentin, CA, and Caroline N. Mitchell Pillsbury Winthrop LLP, San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellees.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of California; Thelton E. Henderson, District Judge, Presiding. D.C. No. CV-01-01351-TEH.
Before: NOONAN, TASHIMA, and WARDLAW, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from an interlocutory order denying defendants' motion to exclude certain members from the plaintiff class. A stipulated judgment was entered thereafter, from which defendants did not appeal. Because the order appealed from is not a final order under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, lacked the practical effect of granting or denying injunctive relief, and defendants took no other steps to preserve a right of appeal as to it, we dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.
On April 4, 1995, present and future inmates confined at the California Institution for Women ("CIW") in Frontera, California, and at the Central California Women's Facility ("CCWF") in Chowchilla, California, filed a class action against numerous defendants, including most significantly the Governor of California, the California Director of Finance, the Secretary of the Youth and Adult Correctional Agency, the Director of the California Department of Corrections ("CDC"), and the Deputy Director for Health Care Services for the Department of Corrections, in the United States District Court, Eastern District of California. Shumate v. Wilson, No. CIV S-95-0619 (E.D.Cal.2000). The Shumate plaintiffs sought injunctive relief to remedy alleged "policies, practices, acts, and omissions evidenc[ing] and constitut[ing] deliberate indifference to the rights of prisoners and violat[ing] the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment." The complaint alleged that defendants furnished inadequate sick call, triage, emergency care, nurses, urgent care, chronic care, specialty referrals, medical screenings, follow-up care, examinations and tests, medical equipment, medications, specialty diets, terminal care, health education, dental care, and grievance procedures, and that the provision of medical care featured unreasonable delays and disruptions in medication.
On January 12, 1996, the district court certified a plaintiff class, defined as all persons suffering from, or at risk of developing, serious illness or injury, excluding mental disorders, who were then or would be in the future confined at CIW and CCWF. It also certified a subclass, defined as all persons who were then or would be in the future confined at CIW and CCWF and who were diagnosed as HIV positive. After two years of litigation and negotiation, on August 11, 1997, the parties entered into a court-approved settlement agreeing to independent audits of the CIW and CCWF healthcare systems to determine their compliance with the parties' settlement provisions as to 56 aspects of care.1
On December 20, 1999, the independent assessor issued a final report stating that CIW and CCWF substantially complied with the Shumate settlement terms, meeting criteria for 44 of the parties' 56 settlement provisions. The assessor noted seven areas of concern that precluded a finding of full compliance: 1) bus screenings, medication continuity, and physician referrals; 2) the wait for sick call; 3) the integration of diagnostic testing results into regular chronic care; 4) educational and preventative aspects of chronic care; 5) mental health staff at CCWF; 6) HIV-positive medication distribution at CIW; and 7) CIW's physical therapy program. On August 21, 2000, pursuant to the parties' stipulation and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(a)(1)(ii), the district court dismissed the Shumate class action with prejudice.
Following the dismissal, in February 2002, Dr. Ronald Shansky, a physician and consultant for the CDC, audited CIW's and CCWF's compliance with the Shumate settlement provisions. After examining medical records, log books, policies, procedures, and meeting minutes, and observing health services furnished to CIW and CCWF inmates, Dr. Shansky found eleven areas of non-compliance at CIW and only two at CCWF.2 He opined that the deficiencies at CIW and CCWF were easily correctable.
A year after Shumate was dismissed, on August 20, 2001, ten male California inmates filed a complaint against many of the same defendants as in Shumate, alleging that the CDC's inadequate medical care system violated the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment, as well as the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"), 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., and section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794. These allegations are virtually identical to those raised in Shumate.3
On January 28, 2002, the parties stipulated to injunctive relief. The stipulation called for the CDC to implement Health Care Services Division Policies and Procedures "designed to meet or exceed the minimum level of care necessary to fulfill the defendants' obligation to plaintiffs under the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution." Under the stipulation, CDC institutions became subject to a schedule of audits to determine their compliance with the Policies and Procedures. They are also required to provide access to records, information, housing, and persons including staff and inmates.
The stipulation's enforcement provisions provide that "[t]he court shall find that this Stipulation satisfies the requirements of 18 U.S.C. § 3626(a)(1)(A) and shall retain jurisdiction to enforce its terms." The parties agreed to disagree as to whether the stipulated relief would apply to inmates at CIW and CCWF but that upon motion by defendants the district court would resolve the question:
The parties disagree about whether prisoners incarcerated at the California Institution for Women (CIW) and the Central California Women's Facility (CCWF), previously litigated in a class action entitled Shumate v. Wilson (E.D.Cal.) CIV S-95-0619 WBS JFM P, should be members of the class. To resolve this dispute defendants shall move within sixty days after this Stipulation is approved by the Court for an order determining whether prisoners at CCWF and CIW should be excluded from the class on the sole ground that they are not similarly situated to plaintiffs because of the previously litigated class action entitled. The motion will not otherwise alter the burden of proof under Rule 23 or create a presumption concerning their inclusion.
The parties did not provide for appeal of the district court's order by either the plaintiff class or defendant.
As provided in the stipulation, defendants moved on March 19, 2002 to exclude CIW and CCWF inmates from the plaintiff class. On May 21, 2002, following briefing and a hearing, the district court denied defendants' motion, ordering that the CIW and CCWF inmates be included in the class. Defendants filed a notice of appeal from that order on June 3, 2002. The district court held a fairness hearing on the class settlement on June 13, 2002, and entered a final order adopting the class action stipulation on June 20, 2002. That final order was not appealed by either side.
Defendants assert that we have jurisdiction over this matter pursuant to 28 U.S.C § 1292 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f). Because defendants' appeal has no relation to either receiverships, see 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(2), or to rights in admiralty, see 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(3), we must examine whether the order appealed from had the practical effect of granting or denying an injunction so as to support jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1). We hold that it did not. Nor is jurisdiction sustainable under either 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b) or Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(f), because defendants failed to request permission to file an interlocutory appeal. Therefore, we lack jurisdiction over this appeal.
The parties recognize that the district court's order denying exclusion of the CIW and CCWF inmates from the plaintiff class was not a final order for purposes of appeal. This order is best interpreted as a decision to maintain or expand the grant of class certification, comparable to class certification orders. Class certification orders generally are not immediately appealable. Bauman v. United States Dist. Court, 557 F.2d 650, 663 (9th Cir.1977) (Hufstedler, J., concurring) (); see also Schwarzer, Tashima, & Wagstaffe, California Practice Guide: Federal Civil Procedure Before Trial §§ 10-620, 10-621 (2002); James Wm. Moore et al., Moore's Federal Practice § 23.61[9][b] (3d ed. 2002).
Defendants nevertheless suggest that we have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1) because the district court's order had the practical effect of granting or denying injunctive relief. Section 1292(a)(1) allows courts...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Kane v. Winn
...farm). e. Inadequate Medical and Mental Health Care Inadequate medical care is also a common problem. See, e.g., Plata v. Davis, 329 F.3d at 1101, 1103-05 (9th Cir.2003) (discussing two class actions alleging an inadequate medical care system in California prisons); Cameron v. Tomes, 783 F.......
-
Jeff D. v. Kempthorne
..."inextricably bound up" with the motion to vacate the consent decrees, over which we certainly have jurisdiction. See Plata v. Davis, 329 F.3d 1101, 1107 (9th Cir.2003). 5. Rule 60(b) provides in pertinent On motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party or a party's......
-
Nagrete v. Allianz Life Ins. Co. of North America
...orders ... granting, continuing, modifying, refusing or dissolving injunctions." 28 U.S.C. § 1292(a)(1); see also Plata v. Davis, 329 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir.2003). That may not seem to dispose of Negrete's challenge because the district court did not denominate its order as an injunction4......
-
Mount Shasta Bioreg'l Ecology Ctr. v. United States Forest Serv.
...the district court's remand order was the equivalent of an interlocutory order refusing an injunction. See, e.g., Plata v. Davis, 329 F.3d 1101, 1106 (9th Cir.2003) (“[A] line of cases ... permit[s] appellate jurisdiction over orders that have the ‘practical effect’ of granting, denying, or......
-
THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS: DOCTRINE AND ANIMUS IN CALIFORNIA'S COVID-19 PRISON LITIGATION.
...(109.) Id. at 3 (emphasis omitted). (110.) Id. at 6 (emphasis omitted). (111.) Complaint at 19, Plata v. Davis, 329 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. (112.) Tigar, Jon Steven, FED. JUD. CTR., https://www.fjc.gov/history/judges/ tigar-jon-steven [https://perma.cc/FY4T-G2WW] (last visited Mar. 29, 2022). (......
-
Comparison of Correctional Services for Youth Incarcerated in Adult and Juvenile Facilities in Michigan
...why we cannot do what we think we can do, and what we can do about it. European Sociological Review, 26(1), 67-82. Plata v. Davis, 329 F.3d 1101 (9th Cir. 2003).Radloff, L. S. (1977). The CES-D scale: A self-report depression scale for research in the general population. Applied Psychologic......