Fields v. Henry
- Wilhelmina Wright
- 0:17-cv-02662
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 5
In Fields v. Henry, Judge Menendez denied parts of Fields’s motion, denied sealing without prejudice, and required defendants to supplement their discovery response.
Victor Donnell Fields and the prison and mental-health officials named as defendants; the order also directed the defendants to provide a supplemental discovery response.
What happened
In Fields v. Henry, Victor Donnell Fields, an inmate, asked the court to address access to his medical and mental-health records, discovery about defendants, his segregated housing, and related issues.
The court denied his request for a hearing and denied without prejudice his request to seal unspecified records. It also found no improper disclosure in prison attorneys’ access to records related to the case. The court required defendants to provide a supplemental response about objections and the possible relevance and proportionality of disciplinary-history and complaint information.
The court did not rule on Fields’s request for injunctive relief because his motion lacked sufficient argument and supporting evidence. The motion was denied in part and denied in part without prejudice, as ordered by Magistrate Judge Katherine Menendez.
The detailed version
- Fields v. Henry · No. 0:17-cv-02662
- Wilhelmina Wright
- Nov. 27, 2018
Background
Victor Donnell Fields, an inmate at the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Rush City, Minnesota, brought a civil-rights action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against prison and mental-health officials. He alleges that the defendants were deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs and discriminated against him because of his race.
Fields’s motion asked the court to address several matters involving his medical and mental-health records, discovery about the defendants, his segregated housing, treatment, property, restitution, and court fees.
Rulings on the Motion
The court denied Fields’s request for a hearing, concluding that the motion could be decided from the written submissions. It denied without prejudice his request to seal records because the motion did not identify a specific document for sealing. The court noted that it could decide how to protect particular medical or mental-health information if such information were later filed. The defendants stated that they intended to file sensitive records under seal if they submitted them as evidence.
Fields also sought information about the defendants’ education, work history, positions, disciplinary actions, complaints, and training. Rather than require Fields to restate the request, the court ordered the defendants to file a supplemental response by December 10, 2018. That response had to explain the basis for objections to requests concerning disciplinary history and complaints and address whether the information was discoverable, including whether it was relevant and proportionate under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(b)(1).
The court rejected Fields’s assertion that it was improper for the Minnesota Department of Corrections’s in-house counsel, identified as Dan Ganin, to access information related to the litigation, including Fields’s medical records. The court stated that the agency’s own attorneys could access information related to the case.
Request for Injunctive Relief
Fields asked the court to order his release from segregated housing and require defendants to pay his restitution and court fees. He alleged that false disciplinary reports had led to his segregation and interfered with treatment, access to property, and payment of restitution.
The court stated that the request for injunctive relief was not properly before it at that time. Fields had provided little supporting argument, did not address the four factors used to evaluate a preliminary injunction, and submitted no evidence. Accordingly, the court stated that it would issue no ruling on that passing request for injunctive relief.
The court’s overall disposition was that Fields’s motion was denied in part and denied in part without prejudice. The order was signed by Magistrate Judge Katherine Menendez.
Read the full 5-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.