Supreme Court won't take case about Michigan inmate suing because he got COVID
The court rejected an appeal from correction officials who argued the prisoner’s lawsuit should be dismissed because the Muskegon Correctional Facility faced an impossible situation.
WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court on Monday declined to take up a case looking at whether a Michigan prisoner can sue prison officials for not doing enough during the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent infection.
The court rejected an appeal from correction officials who argued the prisoner’s lawsuit should be dismissed because the Muskegon Correctional Facility faced an impossible situation in keeping at bay a novel communicable disease in a group setting where there are significant security issues.
Allowing the suit to proceed, the correction officials told the Supreme Court, would hold them and other prison officials to an “unreasonable and impossible standard.”
Attorneys for the prisoner, Jimmie Leon Gordon, said officials displayed “deliberate indifference” to the risks posed by COVID-19. Officials ignored procedures developed by the Michigan Department of Corrections requiring them to segregate prisoners who either tested positive or had been in close contact with those who had, Gordon alleges.
After a prisoner tested positive in the summer of 2020, inmates who had been in close contact with that prisoner were moved into Gordon’s unit. When prisoners complained, they were moved to the gymnasium, which had been converted into dormitory-style housing.
Gordon charged that the bunk beds were not far enough apart and ventilation was poor.
He tested positive for COVID a few days later.
In allowing Gordon’s suit to move forward, the Cincinnati-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said prison officials have a duty to protect inmates from involuntary exposure to dangerous prison conditions. And a “reasonable prison official” would have understood the risk posed by “purposefully commingling infected prisoners with uninfected prisoners,” the appeals court said.
Prison officials told the Supreme Court that decision should be overturned.
“This ruling,” they said, “would seemingly make it virtually impossible to avoid suit where a prisoner complains about contagion.”