Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caed-2_90-cv-00520/USCOURTS-caed-2_90-cv-00520-1362/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 550
Nature of Suit: Prisoner - Civil Rights (U.S. defendant)
Cause of Action: 42:1983 Prisoner Civil Rights

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8 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

9 FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

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This matter is before the court on plaintiffs’ motion for clarification of the court’s 

August 23, 2023 order, ECF No. 7924, requiring defendants to adopt and implement in the 

California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) psychiatric inpatient programs 

(PIPs) the minimum treatment standards in the Department of State Hospitals (DSH) continuous 

quality improvement (CQI) process previously approved by the court, ECF No. 8207. This 

dispute arose during the data remediation process; the court must resolve it for key indicators 

related to PIP treatment standards to be completed. Defendants oppose plaintiffs’ motion, ECF 

No. 8226, and plaintiffs have filed a reply, ECF No. 8230. This order resolves plaintiffs’ motion 

25 and signals future actions the court is contemplating to expedite data remediation. 

26 I. PLAINTIFFS’ MOTION TO CLARIFY

27 Plaintiffs seek clarification of the court’s order to resolve a dispute between the parties

28 over whether the court, “by establishing a clear, measurable minimum treatment standard for 

RALPH COLEMAN, et al., 

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

GAVIN NEWSOM, et al., 

Defendants. 

No. 2:90-cv-0520 KJM SCR P 

ORDER 

Case 2:90-cv-00520-KJM-SCR Document 8358 Filed 08/16/24 Page 1 of 5
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1 structured group therapy[,] rejected all other aspects of Defendants’ March 2023 plan for setting 

2 and tracking of minimum treatment standards relating to individual clinical contacts, treatment 

planning, and unstructured out-of-cell time in the PIPs.” ECF No. 8207 at 2.1 3 Defendants 

4 contend the court rejected their March 2023 plan in its entirety, arguing plaintiffs sought rejection 

5 of the entire plan in a motion the court granted in the August 23, 2023 order. See generally ECF 

No. 8226. Defendants’ position is without merit.2 6 

7 On March 28, 2023, as the court required, Mar. 17, 2023 Order, ECF No. 7765, 

8 defendants filed one document containing two parts, “CDCR’s Plans for Minimum Treatment 

9 Standards in its PIPs” and CDCR’s “PIP Staffing Recruitment and Retention” Plan. ECF No. 

10 7787 at 5-10. On April 17, 2023, plaintiffs filed a “Motion to Reject Defendants’ Plan to Provide 

11 Minimum Treatment Standards for Psychiatric Inpatient Programs . . . As Inadequate to Remedy 

12 Defendants’ Eighth Amendment Violations.” ECF No. 7812. Defendants opposed the motion. 

13 ECF No. 7828. The court resolved the motion in the August 23, 2023 order implicated by the 

14 present motion to clarify. 

15 The answer to plaintiffs’ question in the instant motion is clear: the court did not reject 

16 defendants’ March 2023 plan except that discreet part of the plan that failed to include any 

17 “minimum hour requirement for structured therapeutic treatment to patients at either the APP 

18 [Acute Psychiatric Program] or ICF [Intermediate Care Facility] level of inpatient care.” ECF 

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 Citations to page numbers in documents filed in the Court’s Electronic Case Filing 

(ECF) system are to the page numbers assigned by ECF and located in the upper right hand 

corner of each page. 

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 The court, as always, has considered whether it has jurisdiction over the pending motion 

given defendants’ pending appeal from the August 23, 2023 order. The court does not doubt that 

it does have jurisdiction. Defendants’ appeal from the August 23, 2023 order focuses on the 

court’s order requiring defendants adopt for the CDCR PIPs the twenty hours per week minimum 

treatment standards used by DSH for inpatient treatment of Coleman class members, instead of 

the individualized treatment standard defendants included in a court-ordered plan filed in March 

2023. See, e.g., Appellant’s Opening Br., Coleman v. Newsom, No. 23-2485 (9th Cir. Mar. 16, 

2024), Dkt. No. 18.1. The issue before the court here, on plaintiffs’ pending motion to clarify, is 

whether the court rejected all other parts of the March 2023 order when it ordered defendants to 

adopt the DSH minimum treatment standards for use in the CDCR PIPs. That question is not 

covered by the pending appeal. See, e.g., id.; see also ECF No. 8331 at 48 (plaintiffs’ summary 

of issues raised in appellate case No. 23-2485). 

Case 2:90-cv-00520-KJM-SCR Document 8358 Filed 08/16/24 Page 2 of 5
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No. 7924 at 8. As noted, defendants used the plural noun in describing their “plans” for PIP 

minimum treatment standards. Id. at 5. These plans consist of proposed “minimum treatment 

frequencies for Interdisciplinary Treatment Team (IDTT) meetings, psychiatry contacts, primary 

clinician contacts, and unstructured out of cell activities” as well as “structured treatment 

activities commensurate with the individual patient’s clinical needs” for both acute and

intermediate levels of inpatient care. Id. The plans include specific frequencies for IDTT 

meetings, psychiatry and primary clinician contacts, and unstructured programming. Id. at 6-7. 

Only the structured treatment part of the plan omits specific frequencies. Id. at 6-7. The plans

also provide for clinical training on the new policies and “develop[ment of] audits and automated 

indicators to track and report on compliance with these policies, including indicators to track 

timely contacts with psychiatrists and primary clinicians and timely IDTTS.” Id. at 7. 

Defendants are correct that plaintiffs’ April 17, 2023 motion included a request to “reject 

Defendants’ plan to provide minimum treatment standards for psychiatric inpatient programs,”

ECF No. 8226 at 4-5 (quoting ECF No. 7812 at 1), but they are not correct that plaintiffs thereby 

placed defendants’ entire plan at issue. Throughout their 2023 motion, plaintiffs expressly 

challenged only the parts of defendants’ proposed plans that covered structured therapeutic 

activities and unstructured out of cell activities, contending defendants improperly relied solely 

on an “individualized treatment standard” for structured therapeutic activities without specifying 

any minimum frequency for those activities, as well as the absence of “even a conceptual model 

to measure compliance with [the] purely individualized treatment standard” proposed for 

structured therapeutic activities. ECF No. 7812 at 8, 15. Plaintiffs contended defendants should 

be required to offer “at least 20 hours of structured therapeutic activities” and that the proposal to 

offer ten hours of unstructured activities should be increased to twenty hours. Id. at 8, 15. In 

contrast, plaintiffs specifically referenced the proposals for minimum frequencies of IDTT 

meetings, psychiatry contacts, and primary clinician contacts, without raising any challenge to 

these parts of defendants’ proposals. Id. at 15. In addition to asking the court to reject the 

discreet portion of defendants’ plan, plaintiffs asked the court to direct defendants to “file a 

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revised plan that provides, at a minimum, 20 hours per week of structured therapeutic treatment 

and 20 hours per week of unstructured out-of-cell activities for patients in the PIPs.” Id. at 2. 

Moreover, the court did not reject defendants’ entire plan. On its face and read in its 

entirety, the court’s order makes clear the court granted plaintiffs’ motion in part. See ECF 

No. 7924 at 10 (“Plaintiffs’ April 17, 2023 motion, ECF No. 7812, is GRANTED to [the] extent 

consistent with this order.”). The court found defendants’ plan inadequate because it did not 

contain any “minimum hour requirements for structured therapeutic treatment to patients” at 

either level of inpatient care, id. at 8, but it did not order a new plan. Id. at 9-10. Instead, the 

court specifically determined that “[t]he time has passed for additional planning,” that expeditious 

action was required, and it ordered defendants to “immediately adopt and implement” the DSH 

“minimum treatment standard measurements requiring patients be offered 20 hours of treatment

per week” as previously approved by the court. Id. at 9-10 (emphasis in original). 

In sum, the court’s August 23, 2023 order left intact most parts of defendants’ March 2023 

plan for minimum treatment standards in the CDCR PIPs, directing only the incorporation of the 

DSH minimum treatment frequencies approved by the court to fill the gap left by the omission of 

treatment frequencies from structured treatment.

Consistent with the foregoing, the court GRANTS plaintiffs’ April 18, 2024 motion for 

18 clarification. The parties shall proceed with remediation of associated indicators accordingly. 

19 II. EXPEDITING DATA REMEDIATION

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As the court has made clear to the parties, the data remediation process is taking too long

to complete. The court recognizes multiple factors are contributing to the delay, but there is no 

good reason the data remediation process cannot be completed in the relatively near term. The 

court does not accept defendants’ suggestion at a recent status conference, that the process needs 

to take another two years. See, e.g. Apr. 2, 2024 Order at 6, ECF No. 8181. To ensure this 

essential aspect of the case, as foundational to full deployment of the continuous quality 

improvement tool (CQIT) defendants will use to demonstrate compliance with the remedy, is not 

unnecessarily drawn out the court has directed the Special Master to propose directly to the court 

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1 a solution to expedite completion of the process without sacrificing any measure of quality in the 

2 final product. 

3 III. CONCLUSION

4 In accordance with the above, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that Plaintiffs’ April 18, 2024

5 Motion to Clarify, ECF No. 8207, is GRANTED consistent with this order. 

6 DATED: August 16, 2024. 

Case 2:90-cv-00520-KJM-SCR Document 8358 Filed 08/16/24 Page 5 of 5