Delegating Care, Evading Review: The Federal Tort Claims Act and Access to Medical Care in Federal Private Prisons

• Author: Danielle C. Jefferis
• Position: Clinical Teaching Fellow, Civil Rights Clinic, University of Denver Sturm College of Law
• Pages: 37-62

Louisiana Law Review Louisiana Law Review

Volume 80

Number 1

Fall 2019

Article 7

3-3-2020

Delegating Care, Evading Review: The Federal Tort Claims Act Delegating Care, Evading Review: The Federal Tort Claims Act

andAccess to Medical Care in Federal Private Prisons andAccess to Medical Care in Federal Private Prisons

Danielle C. Jefferis

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Repository Citation Repository Citation

Danielle C. Jefferis,

Delegating Care, Evading Review: The Federal Tort Claims Act andAccess to Medical

Care in Federal Private Prisons

, 80 La. L. Rev. (2020)

Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.lsu.edu/lalrev/vol80/iss1/7

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at LSU Law Digital

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337366-LSU_80-1_Text.indd 43 11/27/19 9:28 AM

Delegating Care, Evading Review: The Federal Tort

Claims Act and Access to Medical Care in Federal

Private Prisons

Danielle C. Jefferis*

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction.................................................................................... 38

I. Background .................................................................................... 43

A. The Federal Tort Claims Act ................................................... 44

B. The FTCA’s Application to Prisoners’ Claims........................ 45

II. For-Profit Prisons and the FTCA’s Independent-Contractor

Exception........................................................................................ 49

A. The Rise of For-Profit Federal Prisons.................................... 50

B. The Independent-Contractor Exception

as Applied, Generally .............................................................. 52

C. The Exception as Applied to For-Profit Prisons...................... 53

III. Incarceration as a Government Function, Medical Care

as a Nondelegable Duty.................................................................. 55

A. States’ Non-Delegable Duty to Provide Medical Care

to Prisoners .............................................................................. 55

B. Incarceration as a Federal Government Function .................... 58

C. A Federal Nondelegable Duty of Care .................................... 59

Conclusion...................................................................................... 60

Copyright 2019, by DANIELLE C. JEFFERIS.

* Clinical Teaching Fellow, Civil Rights Clinic, University of Denver

Sturm College of Law. I would like to thank the editorial board of the Louisiana

Law Review for organizing and hosting the 2019 Louisiana Law Review

Symposium, for their care in putting together this Symposium issue, and for

fostering timely and important conversations around the criminal legal system and

American mass incarceration. I especially owe thanks to Christine Colwell and

Nena Eddy for their work on the Symposium and their hospita lity while I was in

Baton Rouge, as well as to the Louisiana Law Review Volume 80 Board of

Editors. I presented a version of this Article at the Symposium and am grateful to

my co-presenters Andrea Armstrong, Betsy Ginsberg, and Nicole B. Godfrey for

consistently pushing me to think critically and creatively about issues of

incarceration and injustice. All errors are mine.