Hintze v. Daniels, et al.
9th Cir. No. 24-6806
Rights Behind Bars, together with our partners at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, represents Jason Hintze, a man incarcerated at Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada. During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr. Hintze alleges, correctional officers flouted the prison's own safety protocols—refusing to wear masks, declining to enforce social distancing in a crowded chow hall, and, when he asked why, standing close to him and other prisoners and coughing in their direction, telling him they wanted the inmate population to get sick. On one occasion, officers from another prison that had just experienced a COVID-19 outbreak searched his cell for three days without masks or gloves. Mr. Hintze contracted COVID-19 twice while incarcerated and continues to live with long-COVID symptoms, including brain fog, respiratory issues, joint pain, and a diminished sense of taste and smell. He alleges that senior prison officials knew of these failures—from touring the facility and from the calls and emails advocacy groups sent warning them of the conditions—and did nothing.
Acting pro se, Mr. Hintze brought an Eighth Amendment claim against three Nevada Department of Corrections officials and three Lovelock wardens. The district court denied the officials qualified immunity, holding that disputes of material fact required a trial and that a prisoner's right to be free from exposure to serious illness was clearly established at the time. The officials filed an interlocutory appeal, and Rights Behind Bars represented Mr. Hintze in defending the denial. The Ninth Circuit dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction, holding that the officials' arguments did no more than rehash factual disputes about the sufficiency of the evidence—which are categorically unreviewable on an interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity—and that they had waived their evidentiary objections by failing to raise them in the district court. The Court also confirmed that the right to be free from involuntary exposure to a serious communicable disease has been clearly established since at least 1993. The case returns to the district court, where Mr. Hintze's Eighth Amendment claim will proceed toward trial.