08.23.23 — In a novel lawsuit, Northeastern Law’s Action Lab at the Center for Health Policy and Law filed a federal complaint in West Virginia challenging the discriminatory and harmful practices of a national prison medical contractor, Wexford Health Sources, Inc. The lawsuit requests that a judge enjoin Wexford and the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation from forcibly and abruptly terminating the plaintiff’s life-saving medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) upon his incarceration. West Virginia has the highest per capita opioid overdose death rate in the nation. Wexford is responsible for inmate medical care in many states, including in all regional jails and prisons in West Virginia, and a $1.3 billion contract for all Illinois prisons. MOUD, which includes methadone and buprenorphine, is proven to reduce overdose deaths and lower criminal recidivism rates. Forcibly withdrawing a person from their MOUD causes severe physical and mental suffering, including suicidal ideation, and dramatically elevates the risk of relapse and fatal overdose.
“Access to MOUD is critical to curb the opioid overdose crisis” said Amelia Caramadre ’21, senior legal fellow with The Action Lab. “Forced withdrawal from MOUD causes unnecessary and excruciating suffering while significantly increasing the risk of fatal overdose” said David Sinkman, who previously served as the opioid coordinator and civil rights coordinator for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, “Barriers to MOUD in jails and prisons are a nationwide problem and this lawsuit can serve as a model for other litigation against private medical providers that place profits over human life and deny people the MOUD they need to stay alive.”
Caramadre and David Howard Sinkman, also of the The Action Lab, were joined with co-counsel Sarah Grady from Kaplan & Grady, LLC, and Lydia Milnes ’07 and Lesley Nash from Mountain State Justice in West Virginia in filing the lawsuit.
A few lawsuits have been brought against jail policies that deny MOUD to incarcerated people. The Action Lab’s lawsuit is the first to use the Americans with Disabilities Act to challenge a private medical contractor’s practice of forcibly withdrawing people from this standard of care addiction treatment. This lawsuit also seeks damages for the pain and suffering that Wexford and the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation caused the plaintiff to suffer when he was refused his medication during a previous incarceration in January, which led to a relapse immediately upon release.
Substance use disorders are a protected disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which means that jail systems and medical providers cannot exclude from participation in or deny benefits of services offered to people because of their protected disability. Denying such treatment qualifies as discrimination under these laws.
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