Kelly v. Wengler

May 23, 2016 by Justia

Plaintiffs filed a putative class action against CCA under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that CCA staffed the Idaho Corrections Center (ICC) with an inadequate number of security guards, in deliberate indifference to the health and safety of prisoners. After the parties settled, CCA agreed to staff ICC with a specified number of security personnel. The district court dismissed the case with prejudice. The district court subsequently held CCA in contempt for falsifying staffing reports, ordered remedial measures, and awarded plaintiffs attorney's fees and costs. The court concluded that the district court had ancillary jurisdiction to enforce the settlement agreement, the terms of which were incorporated into the district court’s dismissal order. The court also concluded that the extension of the settlement agreement is a compensatory civil sanction. Rather than punishing CCA, this sanction sought to return plaintiffs as nearly as possible to the position they would have occupied had CCA not violated the agreement. By extending the settlement agreement for two years, the district court thus ordered the relief to which plaintiffs were originally entitled under the agreement but that CCA had failed to provide. The court concluded that the remedies remain narrowly drawn, necessary, and the least intrusive means to rectify CCA’s continued Eighth Amendment violations. In regard to attorney's fees, the court held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), 18 U.S.C. 3626, allows enhancement of the lodestar figure in appropriate circumstances; while the PLRA limits the hours and the hourly rate used in calculating the lodestar figure, it does not cap the total amount of attorney’s fees awards in cases seeking declaratory and injunctive relief, and it continues to authorize a court to enhance the lodestar figure based on non-subsumed factors; and even when an enhancement is appropriate it may not be based on considerations already subsumed in the PLRA rate. In this case, the district court provided clear reasons, supported by specific evidence in the record, for enhancing the lodestar figure. Accordingly, the court affirmed the contempt order and the order awarding attorney's fees. View "Kelly v. Wengler" on Justia Law