Monterey County Jail inmates’ class-action suit gets go-ahead

SALINAS >> In what plaintiffs call a “sweeping” victory, a federal judge has granted class-action status to all Monterey County Jail inmates in public defender Jim Egar’s lawsuit over local jail medical care.

The ruling raises the specter of another historic trial from Rosen, Bien, Galvan and Grunfeld, the San Francisco law firm behind a decades-long class action and U.S. Supreme Court order that drastically cut California’s prison population.

In a 50-page ruling issued just after 5 p.m. Thursday, U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal wrote that “all adult men and women who are now, or will be in the future, incarcerated in Monterey County Jail” will be included in the lawsuit’s “class,” as well as a subclass defined as disabled people in the jail.

The suit was filed in May 2013 on behalf of inmates who allege the jail in Salinas has inadequate medical and mental health care, poor accommodations for the disabled, and serious safety and violence problems.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also joined in the complaint.

Trial is scheduled to begin in September if the parties don’t agree on enforceable plan.

In a stinging emailed press release Friday from the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office, the county blasted the plaintiffs and said it has been working hard to improve jail conditions.

Senior Deputy Counsel Susan Blitch said the court’s decision “is not a determination of the validity of plaintiffs’ claims in this case.”

Attorney Michael Bien of Rosen, Bien, Galvan and Grunfeld said although Grewal’s class certification does not judge the case’s merits, class actions have recently come under tighter standards and potential evidence is now considered when judges determine class status. After a recent class action involving Wal-Mart stores, judges “had to delve into the merits of the case a lot more,” Bien said, adding that Grewal has “reviewed a lot of evidence, while he’s not making finding about whether we’ll win or lose.”

Blitch said the county has offered from the beginning “to include plaintiffs’ counsel in its continuing efforts to improve the conditions at the Monterey County Jail. Plaintiffs’ counsel has chosen to force the county to spend extensive resources on litigation rather than work collaboratively.” She said it was the inmates’ attorneys’ choice “to proceed with litigation, but it is an unfortunate one.”

County Counsel Charles McKee said in the same statement that the county “has welcomed constructive criticism on how to continue to improve its facilities in a fiscally sound manner. The county agreed to retain neutral experts at its own expense to assist the county in its ongoing efforts.”

Grewal cited those same experts in his decision, listing a litany of alleged deficiencies including one expert’s conclusion that the jail’s “systemwide policies and practices for providing medical care harmed inmates or placed them at great risk of serious harm.”

The county’s press release also noted that the jail’s contract with California Forensic Medical Group, a company founded by Monterey psychiatrist Taylor Fithian, was amended in 2014 to add funds for increased jail staffing. The private company provides medical care to more than two dozen jails and juvenile halls around California.

If the lawsuit does go to trial, the Bien law firm’s involvement in the case means it’s likely to garner wide attention.

Bien’s firm represents mentally ill state prisoners in the three-decades-old “Coleman” lawsuit, which led to California’s most dramatic corrections overhaul in modern history, including the state prisoner “realignment” currently under way. Federal judges in Coleman and a related case ordered the state’s prison population reduced to 137 percent of its designed-for capacity by Feb. 28, 2016, a decision the Supreme Court upheld in 2011. That goal was unexpectedly reached this week, when the corrections department posted an inmate population of 113,463, bringing it just under the court-ordered limit.

Now attorneys on both sides of the Monterey County case are waiting for another critical decision by Grewal — whether he’ll step in and issue a preliminary injunction that would order immediate changes to jail procedures.

Bien said the quick remedies could include steps like improvements to the jail’s suicide prevention measures, drug and alcohol detoxification practices, policies on continuing medications after arrest, and adding tuberculosis screening and sign language interpreters for deaf inmates.

Bien said the class certification was likely helped by recent court decisions involving inmates in Arizona and Riverside County.

He said it helps that in those cases “they’re not asking for money for pervasive problems. The focus is on injunctive relief rather than damages.”

Egar said the same is true for the Monterey County Jail lawsuit. “The goal of this from the beginning is not to end up in trial,” he said. “The goal is to provide the care that has been lacking.”

Newly instated Sheriff Steve Bernal, who campaigned to fellow deputies on promises of limiting inmates’ abilities to file complaints, said his department’s employees “continue to provide professional law enforcement services to the citizens of Monterey and will continue to strive to make improvements to the jail.”

Julia Reynolds can be reached at 726-4365.