Gregg v. Hawaii DPS, No. 14-16785 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CaseThe Ninth Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of an action filed under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that a former inmate was psychologically traumatized as a result of being compelled to undergo sexual shame therapy at a Hawaii correctional facility. The panel applied Simmons v. United States, 805 F.2d 1363 (9th Cir. 1986), and held that the district court erred in denying as futile plaintiff's request for leave to amend to include new assertions where she may be able to allege that she was unaware of her injuries until sometime after she stopped participating in the therapy sessions, and she may have reasonably viewed the embarrassment and humiliation she felt as the ordinary, and hence not harmful, response to therapy.
Court Description: Civil Rights. The panel vacated the district court’s dismissal of a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action brought by a former Hawaii inmate who alleged that she was psychologically traumatized as a result of being compelled to undergo sexual shame therapy at a Hawaii correctional facility, and remanded. The district court held that because plaintiff experienced feelings of embarrassment and humiliation contemporaneously with her therapy sessions, her claims accrued on the last date that the sessions occurred in November 2011. The district court dismissed plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claims filed on January 31, 2014 under the applicable two-year statute of limitations and denied her request for leave to amend her complaint. Applying Simmons v. United States, 805 F.2d 1363 (9th Cir. 1986), the panel held that the district court erred in denying plaintiff leave to amend to try to make a plausible showing that it was not until January 2012 that she first became aware of her injuries from her purported treatment GREGG V. STATE OF HAWAII DPS 3 in the therapy program. The panel held that it may be reasonable for an incarcerated individual who is told she must resurface past sexual traumas to overcome them to rely on these assurances, and to view associated feelings of emotional distress as normal, constructive responses incidental to the healing process. The panel held that like the plaintiff in Simmons, plaintiff in this case may be able to allege facts making it plausible she neither knew nor reasonably should have known she was injured by the therapy program until sometime after she stopped participating in the sessions.
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