Suit Against Shasta County Jail Becomes a Class Action
A lawsuit against the Shasta County Jail in northern California has achieved class Actions status, according to the Legal Reader. The suit, filed in Sacramento’s Federal District Court by a number of disabled inmates, alleges numerous violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The suit claims that the jail has inadequate facilities for disabled prisoners, including a lack of handle bars in showers, and doorways too narrow to accommodate wheelchairs. A lack of wheelchair seating in classrooms was noted. The action also claims that disabled inmates were abused, forced to traverse numerous barriers with little or no assistance and placed on 23 hours-a-day lockdowns. Conditions were so bad, some of the plaintiffs claimed, that the inmates could not shower, sleep, or be mobile. Guards were alleged to have threatened to withhold medication if the prisoners complained.
The designation of the suit as a class action means that any disabled inmate, current or former, can join in the civil action and seek redress for the alleged violations.
Shasta County seems to be taking a benign attitude toward the lawsuit, perhaps in recognition that it has a problem with its jail. The county counsel, Jim Ross, declined to oppose the motion to make the lawsuit into a class action. In the meantime, jail officials have vowed to work with disability groups to ensure that the conditions alleged to be present at the jail are corrected to ensure that disabled inmates are treated with dignity as the law mandates. No word exists as of this writing whether or when the suit will be settled or go to trial.
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