Court rules against Rikers in medical care case
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If the Department of Correction fails to prove it is providing medical care to incarcerated people, the city will need to pay nearly $200,000. Eagle file photo by Jacob Kaye
By Rachel Vick
A Bronx Supreme Court judge ruled Tuesday that the city has 30 days to demonstrate it is no longer violating an order to bring Rikers Island detainees to medical appointments. If they fail to do so, the agency will face a $100 fine for each medical appointment missed since December 11, 2021.
The contempt order was issued the same day the Department of Correction had to deliver a plan of action addressing conditions inside the jails to prevent the facility being placed under federal control.
“Today, the Court acknowledged the City’s egregious ongoing failure to fulfill its obligation to provide incarcerated people with timely access to medical care,” The Legal Aid Society, Brooklyn Defender Services and Milbank LLP said in a joint statement. “This failure has caused undue suffering, resulting in long-lasting health impacts and even death.”
“We hope this contempt finding provides some relief to people denied access to the medical care they desperately need. But our clients deserve much more,” they added. “DOC has proven time and time again that it lacks the capacity and the willingness to respect basic human rights.”
The city would owe approximately $190,900 to the people affected by the jail’s failure to provide services, according to LAS. DOC will also have to pay attorneys’ fees and costs associated with bringing the motion.
The motion was filed in February 2022 after DOC failed to produce evidence that it was providing access to medical care in the city jails, and DOC Bureau Chief of Facility Operations Ada Pressley told the court the rate at which they were being given medical attention was not in compliance.
“In my opinion, I believe this rate of production does not constitute substantial compliance with the pertinent directives to provide timely access to the clinics,” Pressley said in her affidavit.
Though Pressley and others testified that DOC tried to comply, Justice Elizabeth Taylor’s May 17 ruling found “that good faith attempts to comply with a court's order is not a recognizable defense to a motion for contempt“ and that “the record is devoid of any evidence of respondent's factual impossibility to comply.”
Twenty detainees have died in DOC custody since January 2021 – a number of those deaths are believed to be related to a lack of medical care.
The suit alleged that detainees were denied medical care because of staffing issues on the island. Incarcerated people are required to be brought to a medical facility by a correctional officer, however, thousands of officers have been out sick or AWOL each day since the summer of last year.
The ruling lines up with Tuesday’s deadline for the agency to submit a clear plan of action to institute the changes the Federal Monitor outlined repeatedly in reports, and days after Mayor Eric Adams announced the creation of a task force to address the problems.
Check back with the Eagle for more on the city’s plan to fix Rikers submitted to the court Tuesday.
