The plaintiff complained that he did not get adequate HIV treatment in the
District of Columbia system because the Federal Bureau of Prisons failed to
transfer his medical records (though they did send a piece of paper saying
he was to take AZT every four hours and he required blood and bodily fluid
precautions). In the D.C. system, he says, he received no treatment from
1990 to 1998, when his HIV status was "rediscovered" (meanwhile, he
couldn't tell anybody because of his dementia and depression).

The plaintiff's claim against the Bureau of Prisons is barred for failure
to present it to the agency within two years. There is no § 1983 claim
against the Bureau of Prisons because federal officials do not act under
color of state law. The court does not construe his claim as a Bivens
claim, apparently because he did not plead it against individuals in their
personal capacity.

The plaintiff's claim against the Corrections Corporation of America is
barred because recovery against a corporation requires a showing of
corporate policy and there are no such allegations in the complaint. The
same applies to his claim against the District of Columbia. See: Gabriel v.
Corrections Corporation of ...

The decedent committed suicide in prison.

The court refuses to draw an adverse inference against the medical
defendants from missing records because almost all of them were from a
period later than when they had any dealings with the decedent, and the
exception, a treatment plan, has been the subject of testimony.

The court grants summary judgment to the medical defendants on the ground
that none of them were shown to be deliberately indifferent. Plaintiffs
argued that the sharp drop-off in care provided the decedent in the weeks
before his suicide, combined with evidence of a meeting at which it was
agreed that he was becoming time consuming, was very ill, etc., all despite
his heavy medication, and at which no treatment plan was discussed,
supported a theory that his care was scaled down for financial and
administrative reasons by the private medical provider. The court declines
to draw the suggested inference and says that there is no evidence to
support this theory. See: Pelletier v. Magnusson, 201 F.Supp.2d 148 (D.Me.
2002).

Wackenhut is a State Actor for Section 1983 Liability

The Wackenhut Corporation and its employees are "state actors" under § 1983
with respect to their operation of a jail under contract with the state.

The plaintiff's allegation that a nurse refused to agree that he had a
herniated disc, and instead gave him an analgesic balm and told him to
exercise, is a mere disagreement with a medical provider and does not
constitute deliberate indifference. See: Palm v. Marr, 174 F.Supp.2d 484
(N.D.Tex. 2001).

Sheila Proffitt, a Tennessee state prisoner, had a cast put on her broken
leg by Prison Health Services, Inc. (defendants). The cast was secured by
two bolts, which orthopedic physicians later said should be removed to
promote healing. Surgery for that purpose was approved but never done.
After Proffitt's release from prison six months later, she sued the
defendants in the Circuit Court of Davidson County, Tennessee for medical
malpractice under Tenn. Code Ann. § 29-26-115. The Circuit Court dismissed
on the defendants' motion for summary judgment, and Proffitt appealed.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals of Tennessee (Middle Section) at Nashville
found that a jury might find that the defendants had committed medical
malpractice. Therefore, they were not entitled to summary judgment. The
case was remanded to the Circuit Court to proceed to trial. See: Proffitt
v. Prison Health Services, Inc., Tenn. Court of Appeals, Case No.
010A1-9604-CV-00144 (1996) (unreported -- see 1996 WL 426779).

The plaintiff alleged that he was physically abused by staff members of a
private school specializing in the treatment and education of juvenile sex
offenders.

The school and its staff did not engage in state action, since the
plaintiff's placement in it was not mandated by any court order and was
done with the plaintiff's mother's consent. Receipt of government funds
and subjection to a detailed contract with a state agency are not
sufficient to create state action. Nor did the school perform a function
that has been "traditionally the exclusive province of the state"; the only
schools performing the relevant function are private. The fact that state
law required the agency to provide those services did not create state
action. The court distinguishes cases involving prisoners and the civilly
committed, since his legal guardian, the agency, initiated the placement,
and his mother consented. Milonas v. Williams is partly distinguished on
the ground that some commitments in that cases were involuntary, and
otherwise rejected.

The district court properly excluded several incidents of abusive treatment
of students by staff (like holding a student over a balcony railing),
notwithstanding plaintiff's claim that they were offered to show a lax
attitude by the ...

In litigation against the operator of a notorious private immigration
facility (one certified class action and two individual actions which
appear to have multiple plaintiffs), the class members were so difficult to
locate that the court questions whether the case can proceed as a class
action, or whether "new and creative ways of settling the case may have to
be devised to give recognition to the interests of the entire class of
1,625 people." Meanwhile, assuming that the class action will continue as
such, the period for opting out must be extended in fairness to the
plaintiffs in the other actions given the difficulty of notice and
communication. See: DaSilva v. Esmor Correctional Services Inc., 215 F.R.D.
477 (D.N.J. 2003).

The operator of a community corrections center challenged the Department of
Justice's policy change barring persons sentenced to prison from being
placed in a community corrections center except near the end of their
sentences. The operator lacked prudential standing to raise the argument
because it was not within the zone of interests protected by the statute
giving the Bureau of Prisons discretion to select where prisoners serve
their sentences. See: Dismas Charities, Inc. v. United States Dep't of
Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, 287 F.Supp.2d 741 (W.D.Ky. 2003).

Here the Sixth Circuit's "exhaust per defendant" rule is turned into a
heightened pleading requirement. At 943:

In his fifth objection, Plaintiff argues that Defendant Correctional
Medical Services was named throughout all stages of the grievance process.
However, the court finds that Plaintiff did not name Correctional Medical
Services in his Step 1 grievance. In his Step 1 grievance, Plaintiff
consistently grieves the conduct of Defendants Debruyn and King throughout
his description of his complaints. Plaintiff makes no mention of
Correctional Medical Services in Step I of his grievance until the final
paragraph where he states: "Should this matter not be resolved and I become
subject to foot Amputation, Nurse King, Health Manager Susan Debruyn,
Health Care and CMS will be liable in a large monetary damages."
Plaintiff's mention of Defendant CMS, however, is not done "against the
person or persons he ultimately seeks to sue." Curry, 249 F.3d at 505.
Simply listing the parties that Plaintiff will sue if the matter is not
resolved and if Plaintiff undergoes further injury, does not name an
individual responsible for an alleged injury in the grievance procedure.
Nor is it sufficient to establish what action or inaction taken by CMS is
being ...

The plaintiff sued over the decedent's death in jail. A nurse, a doctor,
and a private medical provider moved for a more definitive (sic) statement,
asserting that language in the complaint such as "inter alia" and "is not
limited to" is "impermissibly vague." The court says they they meet the
Federal Rules' notice pleading standards. The plaintiffs were not required
to plead "separate causes of action against each of" the defendants under
Rule 8(e)(2), which allows pleading in the alternative and pleading of
multiple claims regardless of consistency. (This holding stands in a murky
relation to defendants' murky argument.) Further, Rule 10(b), though it
requires that separate claims be stated in separate counts in the
complaint, does not require separate statements just because there are
multiple defendants. At 721: "Where the essence of the complaint against
multiple defendants is a scheme, plan or course of conduct, Fed.R.Civ.P.
10(b) does not require that each claim against each defendant be stated
separately merely because all of the defendants may not be involved in each
transaction or occurrence."

The defendants also moved to strike the language in the complaint alleging
deliberate indifference, intent, and willfulness, and therefore the claim
for punitive damages, on ...

Compensation to an expert for time spent in responding to discovery
includes a reasonable amount of time preparing for a deposition. Here, 3.5
hours was reasonable for a review of medical records more than a year after
the expert prepared his report (no details on the case itself). Time
conferring with counsel is not included. The rate for this work is cut
from $500 an hour (the expert's rate for being deposed) to $200. See: Boos
v. Prison Health Services, 212 F.R.D. 578 (D.Kan. 2002).