Cases

Rights Behind Bars has won more than 100 cases in the Federal Circuit Courts. Our briefs are linked on their respective case pages. If they are helpful to you as an attorney or pro se litigator, please feel welcome to use them.

Montanez v. Price, et al.
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Montanez v. Price, et al.

Mr. Montanez collapsed in his cell and lost all sensation from the chest down. Rather than sending him to a hospital, prison staff laughed off his request for emergency care, left him to drag his paralyzed body across his cell floor, and abandoned him for three days before he received an MRI revealing spinal cord stenosis and edema requiring surgery.

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Evans v. Smith
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Evans v. Smith

Mr. Evans was left in leg restraints for 15 hours after being returned to his cell — with no penological justification whatsoever. He spent the better part of those 15 hours standing at his cell door calling out for help. He sued under the Eight Amendment.

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Brown v. Stapleton, et al
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Brown v. Stapleton, et al

While incarcerated at Red Onion State Prison, Demmerick Brown went to the prison barbershop to get a shave and a haircut. Because of the pandemic, he was wearing a face mask, and the barber told him to remove it for the shave. Mr, Brown did. On this basis, a guard filed a disciplinary charge against Brown, Brown was convicted of a rule violation, and he was fined fifteen dollars.

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Durham v. G. Kelley, et al
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Durham v. G. Kelley, et al

After a diagnosis with lumbar stenosis Mr. Durham has been limited in his ability to ambulate and was prescribed a cane to allow him to walk without extreme pain. Despite this diagnosis and prescription, officials in the Trenton facility ordered Mr. Durham to abandon his cane in his cell when he was transferred to a quarantine unit. They then continued to deny him access to his cane for approximately ten days. They did this despite numerous different requests from Mr. Durham for his cane to nurses, doctors, and correctional officers, and despite his reports of excruciating pain when he was forced to walk without his cane.

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Bobo v. Ericsons
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Bobo v. Ericsons

Donnie Bobo was incarcerated at a Michigan prison when he began experiencing excruciating dental pain. Over the following months, the prison dentist saw him multiple times but provided no pain medication and did not arrange for him to see a specialist.

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Brown v. Meisner, et al.
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Brown v. Meisner, et al.

After injuring his knee in a fall at one Wisconsin prison, Lee Brown was transferred to another facility where his previously granted accommodations—a lower bunk, a wheelchair, and crutches—were not continued. He fell again while climbing to a top bunk, and was told he needed surgery that the prison would not provide.

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Hall v. Higgins
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Hall v. Higgins

Mr. Hall has been paralyzed from the waist down since 2012 and requires a wheelchair for mobility. Jail staff repeatedly refused to assist him in accessing his bed, the toilet, and medical appointments, citing "protocol."

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Hageman v. Billups
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Hageman v. Billups

Mr. Hageman was quietly reading his bible in his cell when five correctional officers forcibly removed him from his bunk and took him to segregation, nominally not because he had done anything wrong but for his own protection. Although he was not resisting, they handcuffed him and pulled on the chain, breaking his wrist and cutting his hands.

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Shaw v. Kemper et. al.
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Shaw v. Kemper et. al.

Mr. Shaw, a wheelchair user, was unable to access the prison’s only handicapped-accessible toilet on multiple occasions because it was in use. Mr. Shaw’s lawsuit was dismissed by the district court at screening. The court characterized his inability to access a handicapped toilet as a mere "inconvenience" of prison life.

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Wheat v. Day
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Wheat v. Day

Rights Behind Bars represents Christopher Wheat, a pretrial detainee at Walton County Jail, on appeal for his § 1983 action against Deputy Day, a corrections officer who tasered him from behind as punishment for spilling water in his cell. Day moved for summary judgment following discovery on the basis of qualified immunity, and appealed when his motion was denied.

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RBB wins rare Supreme Court qualified immunity reversal
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

RBB wins rare Supreme Court qualified immunity reversal

In an extraordinary win for prisoner’s rights and all who oppose qualified immunity, the Supreme Court reversed the Fifth Circuit in Taylor v. Riojas, emphasizing that “no reasonable correctional officer could have concluded that, under the extreme circumstances of this case, it was constitutionally permissible to house Taylor in such deplorably unsanitary conditions for such an extended period of time.”

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Shorter v. United States, et al.
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Shorter v. United States, et al.

Rights Behind Bars represents Chrissy Shorter, a transgender woman who was sexually assaulted while incarcerated at a federal prison in New Jersey. Shorter brought an 8th Amendment claim pro se against the prison for failing to take preventative actions to protect her from sexual assault even after her request for transfer to a safer institution had been approved.

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Melnik v. Dzurenda
Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard Appellate Litigation Phoebe Mesard

Melnik v. Dzurenda

Rights Behind Bars, together with O’Melveny & Myers, represent John Melnik, an individual incarcerated at Nevada Desert State Prison who was denied the opportunity to present documentary evidence in his defense for a disciplinary charge. Because he was denied the opportunity to present this evidence, Melnik is currently facing three years in punitive solitary confinement.

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