Hernandez v. County of Monterey

Background

Hernandez challenged the medical care, mental-health care, safety, and disability access provided to inmates at the Monterey County Jail. In 2014, the court approved a protective order limiting access to information designated confidential, including medical, custody, personal, proprietary, and security-sensitive information. The order allowed certain people—including the court, the defendants and their staff, experts, attorneys, and their staff—to access confidential information. It also stated that the order did not prevent plaintiffs’ counsel from reviewing an inmate’s own jail medical or custody records with that inmate.

A settlement later required changes to Monterey County Jail policies and practices. The court had also established a process for approving requests for particular inmate records. Rafael Ramirez Lara was a Hernandez class member. He died in the Monterey County Jail on December 22, 2019. The estate and Lara’s three adult children brought a separate case concerning the circumstances of his death and sought records produced in Hernandez. Hernandez class counsel obtained some of Lara’s records through the court-approved process but declined to provide them to the Lara plaintiffs, citing the protective order.

Motion and legal standard

The Lara plaintiffs sought permissive intervention, which is a court-authorized opportunity for a person or group to participate in an existing case when the request involves a common legal or factual question. They sought intervention only to clarify or modify the Hernandez protective order so they could obtain Lara’s records.

The court applied Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(b) and Ninth Circuit decisions stating that intervention to modify a protective order does not require an independent basis for federal jurisdiction. The court considered whether the request was timely and whether it involved common issues. It also considered whether the protected records were relevant and generally discoverable in the separate case, the opposing parties’ reliance interests, and the policy against duplicating discovery.

Court’s analysis

The court found that the motion was timely because the separate case had been filed less than two months earlier. It also found the required commonality because Lara was a member of the Hernandez class. The court therefore concluded that permissive intervention was appropriate.

The court did not agree that the protective order’s existing language itself entitled the Lara plaintiffs to the records. In the court’s view, the language about counsel reviewing an inmate’s own records contemplated communications with a named plaintiff or possibly a class member, not disclosure to the family of a deceased inmate.

The court nevertheless found that modifying the protective order was warranted. The records were relevant to the separate case and generally discoverable there, and the defendants did not dispute those points. The court found that the defendants had shown little reliance interest and had identified no prejudice from allowing access. It also concluded that allowing access would avoid duplicating discovery. The Lara plaintiffs would remain subject to the protective order’s restrictions.

Order

The court ordered that:

- The Lara plaintiffs’ motion to intervene was GRANTED. - The Lara plaintiffs were required to file their proposed complaint in limited intervention as soon as practicable. - The Hernandez protective order was MODIFIED to allow access to Lara’s medical and custody records produced in Hernandez, including incident reports or other documents relating to his death. - The hearing set for December 2, 2021 was VACATED. - The order terminated ECF 693.

The court stated that it was not deciding what evidence would be discoverable or admissible in the separate case; those decisions belonged to the court handling that case.