| Docket: 18-3176 Opinion Date: June 29, 2020 Judge: Jose A. Cabranes Areas of Law: Civil Rights, Constitutional Law, Criminal Law |
| Plaintiffs, current and former inmates of the DOC incarcerated within Garner Correctional Institution, filed a putative class action alleging that they were exposed involuntarily to indoor radon gas, a recognized human carcinogen, far in excess of any published safe level while incarcerated at Garner. The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment to the extent that it determined that defendants violated clearly established law as of the date of the Supreme Court's decision in Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25, 29 (1993). In Helling, the Supreme Court held that an inmate can state a claim under the Eighth Amendment by alleging that prison officials have, with deliberate indifference, exposed him to levels of environmental tobacco smoke that pose an unreasonable risk of serious damage to his future health. Therefore, as of the date of the Supreme Court's decision in Helling, the court held that reasonable officials would recognize that a failure to take any reasonable steps to abate the risk of excessive radon exposure, of which risk they were actually aware, would constitute deliberate indifference to a serious medical need that violated inmates' clearly established Eighth Amendment rights. The court affirmed in part to the extent that the judgment denied defendants' motions to dismiss plaintiffs' federal claims for injunctive and declaratory relief; reversed in part to the extent that the judgment denied defendants' motion to dismiss plaintiffs' state-law claims for prospective relief against the official-capacity defendants; and remanded for further proceedings. |
