Ball v. LeBlanc, No. 14-30067 (5th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CasePlaintiffs, death-row inmates at a new state-of-the-art prison facility that has no air conditioning, filed suit against the State and various prison officials, alleging that the heat that they endure during the summer months violates the Eighth Amendment because of their pre-existing medical problems. Plaintiffs also allege that the failure to provide air conditioning violates the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12132, and the Rehabilitation Act (RA), 29 U.S.C. 794. Plaintiffs suffer from various conditions such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes, depression, and high cholesterol. The district court sustained the inmates’ Eighth Amendment claims, rejected their disability claims, and issued an injunction effectively ordering defendants to install air conditioning throughout death row. The court concluded that, although the trial court’s findings of deliberate indifference by prison officials to these particular inmates’ serious heat-related vulnerability suffice to support a constitutional violation, the scope of its injunctive relief exceeds the court's prior precedent, Gates v. Cook, and the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 18 U.S.C. 3626. However, the disability claims are insupportable as a matter of law even under the expanded legal definition of disability. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded for further proceedings.
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