Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/10pdf/09-1233.pdf
Page Number: 61.0

Cite as:  563 U. S. ____ (2011) 

3 

SCALIA, J., dissenting 

Roper v. Simmons, 543 U. S. 551, 615–616 (2005) (SCALIA, 
J., dissenting)) does not prescribe (or at least has not until 
today prescribed) rules for the “decent” running of schools,
prisons,  and  other  government  institutions.    It  forbids 
“indecent” treatment of individuals—in the context of this 
case, the denial of medical care to those who need it.  And 
the  persons  who  have  a  constitutional  claim  for  denial  of 
medical  care  are  those  who  are  denied  medical  care—not 
all who face a “substantial risk” (whatever that is) of being 
denied medical care. 

The  Coleman  litigation  involves  “the  class  of  seriously
mentally ill persons in California prisons,” ante, at 8, and 
the  Plata  litigation  involves  “the  class  of  state  prisoners 
with serious medical conditions,” ante, at 9.  The plaintiffs
do not appear to claim—and it would absurd to suggest—
that  every  single  one  of  those  prisoners  has  personally 
experienced  “torture  or  a  lingering  death,”  ante,  at  13 
(internal  quotation  marks  omitted),  as  a  consequence  of 
that bad medical system.  Indeed, it is inconceivable that 
anything  more  than  a  small  proportion  of  prisoners  in 
the  plaintiff  classes  have  personally  received  sufficiently
atrocious  treatment  that  their  Eighth  Amendment  right
was  violated—which,  as  the  Court  recognizes,  is  why  the
plaintiffs  do  not  premise  their  claim  on  “deficiencies  in
care  provided  on  any  one  occasion.”  Ante,  at  7,  n. 3. 
Rather,  the  plaintiffs’  claim  is  that  they  are  all  part  of  a 
medical system so defective that some number of prisoners
will  inevitably  be  injured  by  incompetent  medical  care,
and  that  this  number  is  sufficiently  high  so  as  to  render 
the system, as a whole, unconstitutional. 

But what procedural principle justifies certifying a class 
of plaintiffs so they may assert a claim of systemic uncon-
stitutionality? 
I  can  think  of  two  possibilities,  both  of 
which  are  untenable.    The  first  is  that  although  some  or 
most plaintiffs in the class do not individually have viable 
Eighth Amendment claims, the class as a whole has collec-