Class Action Heroes Take Courageous Stand For Economic Justice and Human Rights
Kelly M. Dermody, Managing Partner, Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann & Bernstein, LLP
The early weeks and months of the COVID-19 pandemic were scary and disruptive for everyone, but they were particularly devastating for people institutionalized in prisons, jails, and other carceral settings. Facing lock down all day, every day, became the norm. Visitation was terminated. Outdoor activities and prison jobs were shuttered. But the virus itself still got in and spread like wildfire. Thousands were infected and many lives were lost.[1] And basic mitigations like masks, soap, or sanitizer were often unavailable or had to be purchased from prison stores. People inside who had previously held full-time jobs (at 10 cents/hour) had no way to earn money, and those who depended on the financial support of friends and family outside could no longer rely on those support systems due to financial hardships at home. Because even phone calls were prohibitively expensive, families were often unable to provide critical emotional support across prison walls. Many inside describe the year 2020 as the darkest time they ever experienced in or out of prison.
Against the backdrop of a national public health and economic crisis, and just two weeks after lockdowns began, Congress passed the CARES Act, providing a stimulus payment of up to $1,200 for eligible individuals, who were defined to be virtually every citizen and legal permanent resident (excepting those at higher incomes). Despite the clear statutory language, and the fact that incarcerated people disproportionately come from communities suffering from the greatest levels of poverty, the Internal Revenue Service invented an additional restriction excluding any incarcerated person from eligibility notwithstanding the predictable dire impacts on incarcerated people and their families.
Lisa Strawn and Colin Scholl, 2023 Hall of Fame Inductees
Plaintiffs Colin Scholl and Lisa Strawn came forward to challenge those restrictions in a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of California by a legal team including Kelly Dermody, Yaman Salahi and Jallé Dafa of Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP and Eva Paterson, Mona Tawatao, Lisa Holder, and Christina Alvernaz of Equal Justice Society. Within days of filing the complaint, they filed a motion for preliminary injunction and class certification, seeking an injunction prohibiting the IRS from implementing its “no prisoners” rule and requiring it to re-determine every affected person’s eligibility moving forward. Twenty-three non-profit organizations, including Impact Fund, submitted a supporting brief describing the catastrophic economic impacts of incarceration during COVID. A few weeks later, the Court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification and preliminary injunction, and soon thereafter granted summary judgment adopting its ruling as a permanent injunction. As a result of the lawsuit, over $1.5 billion was paid to incarcerated people and their families, making the case one of the largest recoveries for an intentionally excluded economic class.[2]
At the time of the case, Mr. Scholl was finishing his 17th year at Salinas Valley State Prison. He said his situation and that of his peers was one of absolute desperation and extreme scarcity. “The meals were the meanest possible,” the required portions were rarely provided, “you were always hungry” and “frequently your cell would be skipped for food” if a guard decided they were upset with you. “It was a situation of want. Very few people had materials necessary for basic things like toothpaste and soap, so they depended on the prison for what were called indigent supplies,” said Mr. Scholl. Even toilet paper was rationed, with one roll for two people meant to last a week, but frequently in short supply.
“We took a stand because we saw an opportunity for the courts to affirm our personhood and our rights.” - Colin Scholl
Mr. Scholl described the injustice at the root of the litigation stemming from “the way in which prisoners were conceived as less than human beings, not people. We were not accorded even basic considerations. The justification was that somehow we chose this. That we deserve neglect, mistreatment, and cruelty. Kindness and compassion were looked down upon. Prison staff who were caught being decent were ostracized. The root of the injustice is the inhumanity we felt.”
Mr. Scholl elaborated, “We were frequently told that we were ‘human’, but that we weren’t ‘people’–not persons with rights. We took a stand because we saw an opportunity for the courts to affirm our personhood and our rights. We also wanted to improve our material situation and to receive the benefits other people were receiving. We were so excited when we learned the case was accepted as a class action and the judge agreed with us on the merits. We were all used to having our legal claims rejected in procedural battles that barred us from having our grievances heard.”
Similarly, plaintiff Lisa Strawn was motivated to stand up for the humanity of everyone inside, a role that was especially meaningful to her as a transgender woman who had spent decades inside men’s maximum security prisons creating wider and wider circles of understanding before she was paroled in July 2020. Ms. Strawn said, “I got involved because as a Transgender person we are represented at times by people that rarely have any contact with us and this was an opportunity for me to be involved as an equal to a system and society that isn’t so accepting.”
Lisa Strawn (Photo Source: NBC News)
When the court sided with the plaintiffs, it created a ripple that far transcended even the significant monetary impacts. “When we won, it gave everyone tremendous hope, said plaintiff Colin Scholl. “The court’s ruling meant that we had rights, that we were people with rights that had to be respected. It also gave us money that we needed. He added, “We were going to be able to educate ourselves, to prepare for release, to help our families, to send our kids birthday presents, to send my mother money to help pay for telephone calls, to buy new underwear so I didn’t have to keep sewing the ones I had, to buy toothpaste and deodorant.”
“Our dreams and aspirations were to finally have the necessities we needed and the opportunity for more, to be able to finish a correspondence course, to make a contribution in a deceased parent’s name to a charity, to pay off a bill to get our diplomas. Other people wanted to pay for family and conjugal visits, which you couldn’t have without paying for food, cleaning, etc. Some people dreamed of buying their kids presents after years of not being able to. Everybody’s dreams were the same as people on the outside,” added Mr. Scholl.
Plaintiff Lisa Strawn noted the restorative impacts of the case: “This ruling was historic for so many families, not just incarcerated people and their families but for victims of crimes of which incarcerated people owed restitution to these families.” She also noted the significance of the case to her own successful return to life outside the prison walls: “This case personally impacted me because for the first time in my life I was able to have my own place to live.”
[1] California was one of several states that lost at least 500 incarcerated people to COVID in 2020.
[2] Over 400,000 class members resided in California alone, with about 130,000 in its 33 overcrowded prisons and camps, roughly 75,000 in county jails, 15,000 in federal prisons in the state, and approximately 200,000 on parole/probation.
Colin Scholl and Lisa Strawn were inducted into the Impact Fund Class Action Hall of Fame on February 24th, 2023, in recognition of their courage, sacrifice, commitment, and determination that led to a significant advance in social justice.
