Nunez v. N.Y.C. Department of Correction

Background

The plaintiffs represented a class of present and future incarcerated people confined in jails operated by the New York City Department of Correction. The case arose from allegations that Department staff used unnecessary and excessive force. A 2015 settlement, called the Consent Judgment, required the City and Department to take measures addressing violence, safety, supervision, investigations, and accountability. The court appointed a Monitor to assess compliance.

After monitoring reports described worsening jail conditions, the court entered a Second Remedial Order in September 2021. Paragraph 1(i)(c) required the Department to process people through intake and place them in assigned housing within 24 hours. It also required the Department, by November 15, 2021, to develop and implement a reliable system to track the amount of time each person remained in intake and every instance in which a person stayed there more than 24 hours. The court later incorporated that requirement into an Action Plan approved in June 2022.

The contempt motion

The plaintiffs moved to hold the Department in civil contempt based on the tracking requirement. Civil contempt is a court remedy intended primarily to encourage compliance with a court order or address past noncompliance, rather than to punish. To obtain it, the moving party had to show by clear and convincing evidence that the order was clear, that the Department failed to comply, and that the Department did not diligently attempt to comply in a reasonable manner.

The motion concerned two types of intake:

- New admissions: The Department used a New Admissions Dashboard to record custody, arrival, medical and other processing events, and placement in housing. The record showed that the data entered during 2022 was unreliable and could not accurately establish whether people were processed within 24 hours. The Department introduced a revised dashboard on or about January 5, 2023, with additional prompts, error-identification features, daily reports, and assigned staff. The revised system’s accuracy had not yet been established through monitoring over time. - Interfacility and intrafacility transfers: The Department had an Inmate Tracking System that could track movement into and out of intake units, but staff did not use it consistently, and the resulting data was unreliable. As of the completion of briefing in February 2023, the Department had not implemented a reliable system-wide tracking mechanism. It planned to use the system facility-wide by late February or March 15, 2023, with staff training, supervision, barcode scanning of accompanying cards, audits, and daily reports.

Court’s analysis

Judge Swain held that the tracking requirement was clear and unambiguous and applied to both new admissions and interfacility or intrafacility transfers. The court rejected the Department’s arguments that questions about when the 24-hour period begins or when time may be excluded made the tracking obligation unclear. The Action Plan’s incorporation of the Second Remedial Order also carried forward the November 15, 2021 deadline.

The court found that the plaintiffs had shown by clear and convincing evidence that the Department failed to comply with the tracking requirement for new admissions. The earlier dashboard data was unreliable, and the reliability of the revised dashboard had not yet been determined. The court also found clear and convincing evidence of noncompliance for interfacility and intrafacility transfers because the Department had not yet implemented a reliable system-wide tracking method.

The court nevertheless declined to find civil contempt at that time. It considered the Department’s recent corrective measures, including the revised dashboard, planned facility-wide use of the transfer-tracking system, audits, daily reports, training, and supervision. The court also considered the broader reform effort addressing the foundational problems underlying excessive force and unsafe jail conditions. The court concluded that the Department had made substantial recent efforts and that the court-appointed Monitoring Team reported concrete progress and no additional recommendations at that stage.

Disposition

Judge Swain denied the plaintiffs’ motion to hold the Department in civil contempt without prejudice to renewal after later reporting. The Department was ordered to file public status reports on its implementation of reliable intake-tracking systems by March 20 and April 17, 2023. The court also requested that the Monitoring Team include a brief intake update in its March 31, 2023 report.