Jackson v. Los Lunas Community Program

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This civil rights class action lawsuit was filed thirty years ago to challenge various aspects of the institutionalization of developmentally disabled individuals at two state-supported facilities in New Mexico. After a lengthy trial in 1990, the district court ruled that Defendants (the two institutions and the individuals charged with their operation) were violating class members’ federal constitutional and statutory rights. The district court ordered the parties to develop a plan to cure the violations, and the plan was implemented over the ensuing years through several consent decrees and other court-approved agreements. Although the two institutions closed in the 1990s, the district court has continued to monitor whether Defendants complied with the obligations mandated by the consent decrees. In the years since the court’s initial ruling, the parties have agreed to, and the court has approved, numerous additional decree obligations of varying specificity with which Defendants must comply before the court will discontinue its oversight. As of the district court’s most recent order, Defendants had yet to fulfill over 300 decree obligations. In August 2015, Defendants moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(5) to vacate all consent decrees and to terminate the court’s oversight, arguing that changed factual circumstances warrant the requested relief. The district court denied the motion in June 2016. Defendants appealed. The Tenth Circuit vacated the 2016 Order and remanded the matter for the district court to decide whether Defendants were currently violating class members’ federal constitutional or statutory rights, and to reassess the equity of continuing federal oversight with the benefit of that determination. View "Jackson v. Los Lunas Community Program" on Justia Law