Part 1: complete case summaries in alphabetical order.

• Position: Case overview

Part 1 presents complete summaries for each case, alphabetically by year published. The major topic section and subtopics are identified before each case summary. This format makes it easier for the reader to review every case. Part 2 presents the summaries under each of the 50 major topic areas.

1. ACCESS TO COURT: PLRA-Prison Litigation Reform Act, Exhaustion

27. LIABILITY: FTCA- Federal Tort Claims Act, Negligence

29. MEDICAL CARE: Failure to Provide Care, Inadequate Care

32. PRETRIAL DETENTION: Medical Care

    Acosta v. U.S. Marshals Service, 445 F.3d 509 (1st Cir. 2006). A detainee brought an action against the United States Marshals Service, various county jails where he was detained, doctors in a federal prison, a private medical center, a private doctor, and others, alleging claims under [section] 1983 and the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and alleging negligence under state law. The district court dismissed the action and the detainee appealed. The appeals court affirmed. The court held that filing of an administrative claim with the United States Marshals Service was insufficient to satisfy the administrative exhaustion requirement of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), for the purpose of [section] 1983 claims against county jails and a federal prison doctor. The court noted that administrative claims against the county jails had to be directed to those facilities, and claims alleging wrongdoing by a doctor at a federal prison had to be filed with the federal Bureau of Prisons. The court ruled that FTCA claims against county facilities were barred by the independent contractor exemption of the FTCA. According to the court, allegations did not state deliberate indifference claims against a private medical center or a private doctor with allegations that someone at a private medical center overmedicated him, and that a private doctor failed to properly diagnose the severity of his foot injury. The detainee had been arrested on federal drug and firearm charges and he was held without bail. During his pretrial detention, the United States Marshals Service lodged him in several county jail facilities with which it contracts, and he also spent time in two federal facilities. (Hillsborough County Department of Corrections, NH; Cumberland County Jail, Maine; Merrimack County House of Corrections, NH; FMC Rochester, MN; Strafford County House of Corrections, NH; FCI Raybrook, NY)

1. ACCESS TO COURT: Access to Counsel

7. CIVIL RIGHTS: Access to Court, Aliens

22. HABEAS CORPUS: Access to Courts, Alien

    Adem v. Bush, 425 F.Supp.2d 7 (D.D.C. 2006). In a habeas case, the petitioner, who was detained at the United States Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, filed a motion to hold federal respondents in contempt of a protective order governing access to counsel for Guantanamo detainees and a motion to expedite his access to counsel. The district court held that the protective order did not require evidence of authority to represent a detainee as a prerequisite to counsel meeting with a detainee, but rather, the protective order provided that counsel who purportedly represented a particular detainee provide evidence of their authority to represent that detainee within 10 days of counsel's second visit with the detainee. (United States at the Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba)

31. PERSONNEL: ADA- Americans with Disabilities Act, Termination

    Almond v. Westchester County Dept, of Corrections, 425 F.Supp.2d 394 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). A probationary corrections officer who was terminated after she displayed hysterical behavior and underwent a psychiatric evaluation following training in disturbance control and use of a baton, brought an action against a county Department of Corrections (DOC) alleging wrongful discharge in violation of Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and New York State Human Rights Law (NYSHRL). The employer moved for summary judgment and the district court granted the motion. The court held that the officer failed to establish a prima facie case of disability discrimination under ADA, on the theory that the employer perceived her to be either a drug addict or mentally ill, where she did not prove that the employer perceived her to be drug addict despite her statement that she had overmedicated herself, her admission to taking some sort of drug on the day of the subject incident, and her superior's order that a drug test be administered, and assuming that the employer perceived her to be mentally ill. The court concluded that she did not show that the employer believed she was impaired from working or from performing some other major life activity. The employer alleged that the plaintiff complained that the exercises were "too hard," and asserted that she had been exhibiting nervous and erratic behavior throughout the day, crying and complaining that the training was too tough. The court declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the officer's remaining claim under NYSHRL, instead dismissing it without prejudice. (Department of Corrections for Westchester County, New York)

29. MEDICAL CARE: Deliberate Indifference, Failure to Provide Care

    Ammons v. Lemke, 426 F.Supp.2d 866 (W.D.Wis. 2006). A state inmate filed a [section] 1983 action alleging that a prison's medical officials were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical conditions. The district court held that the inmate's wrist injury constituted a "serious medical condition," for the purposes of his Eighth Amendment claim against prison medical officials for deliberate indifference, where the injury was diagnosed as a fracture of his ulnar styloid process, the injury caused his bone structure to split, the wrist sustained permanent injury and bone disfigurement, and the injury continued to cause him pain. The court found that a physician's failure to immediately prescribe pain medication for the inmate or to make an appointment for the inmate to see an orthopedic specialist after examining the inmate's fractured wrist did not demonstrate deliberate indifference to inmate's serious medical condition necessary to establish claim under Eighth Amendment, where the physician examined the inmate twice in one month's time, reviewed an x-ray of his wrist, determined initially that no treatment was possible because the injury was the result of old fracture, but later prescribed pain medication and arranged for the inmate to see an orthopedic specialist. (Stanley Correctional Institution, Wisconsin)

7. CIVIL RIGHTS: ADA- Americans with Disabilities Act

9. CONDITIONS OF CONFINEMENT: Hearing Impaired

29. MEDICAL CARE: Hearing Impaired, ADA- Americans with Disabilities Act

    Arce v. O'Connell, 427 F.Supp.2d 435 (S.D.N.Y. 2006). A purportedly hearing-impaired inmate brought a pro se suit against employees of a corrections department, alleging that they violated his rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), as well as the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments, by failing to provide reasonable accommodations for his hearing impairment and retaliating against him after he filed grievances regarding the lack of such accommodations. The defendants moved for summary judgment and the court dismissed the case. The district court held that the inmate was not a member of the class protected by a consent decree addressing the treatment of deaf or hard-of-hearing inmates and thus, he lacked standing to move for contempt alleging violations of the decree. The court found that to the extent the inmate suffered from a hearing loss, it was not such as would prevent him from participating fully in "activities, privileges, or programs" as required for him to come within the protections of the consent decree. (New York State Department of Correctional Services)

22. HABEAS CORPUS: Segregation, Programs

34. PROGRAMS- PRISONER: Drug/Alcohol

    Barq v. Daniels, 428 F.Supp.2d 1147 (D.Or. 2006). A federal prisoner filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his removal from his originally assigned class under the Bureau of Prisons' (BOP) drug and alcohol treatment program (DAP), and subsequent placement into another class that graduated on a later date violated his constitutional rights. The district court held that it was arbitrary and capricious and an abuse of discretion for BOP to rely exclusively on the number of sessions that it forced the petitioner to miss in deciding to remove the prisoner from his original DAP class. The prisoner had been placed in a special housing unit (SHU) through no fault of his own, and he missed classes as a result. The court noted that had the prisoner been permitted to rejoin his class, as of graduation he would have completed more sessions than seventy-five percent of the other DAP participants. (FCI Sheridan, Oregon)

14. FAILURE TO PROTECT: Prisoner on Prisoner Assault

    Borello v. Allison, 446 F.3d 742 (7th Cir. 2006). A prisoner brought a federal civil rights suit against prison employees, alleging they were deliberately indifferent to the danger posed by leaving him in a cell with a mentally unstable cellmate, who attacked him. The district court denied the employees' motion for qualified immunity and they appealed. The appeals court reversed and remanded, finding that the prison employees did not deliberately condone the cellmate's attack on the prisoner, in violation of his Eighth Amendment rights, when they reasonably responded to the prisoner's complaints by honoring his request to be transferred to another cell, and by immediately taking the cellmate to a psychiatrist when he began acting strangely, and by interviewing both men. The prisoner was attacked by his cellmate one week after the cellmate's psychiatric evaluation. (Menard Correctional Center, Illinois)

31. PERSONNEL: Termination, Racial Discrimination, Title VII, Free Speech

    Burke-Fowler v. Orange County. Fla., 447 F.3d 1319 (11th Cir. 2006). A former correctional officer brought an action against a county alleging that her termination was racially...