MICHAEL HAMPTON, ET AL V. STATE OF CALIFORNIA, ET AL, No. 22-15481 (9th Cir. 2023)
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Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, the California Institution for Men (“CIM”) suffered a severe COVID-19 outbreak. In an attempt to protect CIM inmates, high-level officials in the California prison system transferred 122 inmates from CIM to San Quentin State Prison, where there were no known cases of the virus. The transfer sparked an outbreak of COVID-19 at San Quentin that infected over two-thousand inmates and ultimately killed over twenty-five inmates and one prison guard. The wife of one of the deceased inmates sued, claiming that the prison officials had violated her husband’s constitutional and statutory rights. The officials moved to dismiss, asserting that the claims were barred by various federal and state immunities, including immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act and qualified immunity. The district court held that the officials were not entitled to immunity at this stage of the proceedings, and the officials filed this interlocutory appeal.
The Ninth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s order denying Defendants’ motion to dismiss on the basis of immunity under the PREP Act and qualified immunity in an action brought against California prison officials arising from the death of a San Quentin inmate from COVID-19; and (2) dismissed for lack of jurisdiction Defendants’ claims asserting immunity under state law. The panel held that Defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claim, which adequately alleged that Defendants acted with deliberate indifference to the health and safety of San Quentin inmates, including Hampton.
Court Description: Prisoner Civil Rights/COVID-19 On interlocutory appeal, the panel (1) affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s order denying defendants’ motion to dismiss on the basis of immunity under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (“PREP Act”) and qualified immunity in an action brought against California prison officials arising from the death of a San Quentin inmate from COVID-19; and (2) dismissed for lack of jurisdiction defendants’ claims asserting immunity under state law.
On May 30, 2020, defendants transferred 122 inmates from the California Institution for Men, which had suffered a severe COVID-19 outbreak, to San Quentin Prison, where there were no known cases of the virus, resulting in an * The Honorable Richard D. Bennett, United States Senior District Judge for the District of Maryland, sitting by designation.
outbreak that killed one prison guard and over twenty-five inmates, including plaintiff’s husband, Michael Hampton.
Determining that the denial of PREP Act immunity was an appealable collateral order, the panel held that defendants were not, on the face of the complaint, entitled to immunity under the PREP Act, which limits legal liability for the administration of medical countermeasures (such as diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines) during times of crisis. The panel held that the PREP Act does not provide immunity against claims arising from the failure to administer a covered countermeasure. Here, plaintiff alleged that defendants were aware prior to the inmates’ transfer that their COVID-19 test results were so outdated as to be essentially irrelevant. It therefore was plausible to infer that the testing results did not contribute to the decision to transfer the inmates—and, accordingly, did not contribute to Hampton’s death. Once post-transfer testing occurred, the damage had been done. Because the allegations did not describe a causal relationship between the administration of testing and Hampton’s death, plaintiff’s claims were not precluded by the PREP Act.
The panel held that defendants were not entitled to qualified immunity on plaintiff’s Eighth Amendment claim, which adequately alleged that defendants acted with deliberate indifference to the health and safety of San Quentin inmates, including Hampton. The right at issue—to be free from exposure to a serious disease—was clearly established since at least 1993, when the Supreme Court decided Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993), and under this circuit’s precedent. All reasonable prison officials would have been on notice in 2020 that they could be held liable for exposing inmates to a serious disease, including a serious communicable disease. Finally, the panel held that it lacked jurisdiction to consider whether officials were entitled to immunity under state law. Because the state law immunities on which defendants relied were immunities from liability, not from suit, defendants could not invoke the collateral order doctrine to immediately appeal the district court’s rejection of those state law defenses.
In an accompanying memorandum disposition, the panel reversed the district court’s denial of qualified immunity on plaintiff’s due process claim for violation of her own right to familial association with Hampton.
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