Adams v. Commonwealth of Kentucky

What this case is about

This was a federal class-action lawsuit against the Commonwealth of Kentucky, the Kentucky Department of Corrections, and the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. Two deaf prisoners — Oscar Adams and Michael Knights — sued in January 2014 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky. They alleged that Kentucky's prison system systematically failed to provide effective communication to deaf and hard-of-hearing inmates: no qualified sign-language interpreters for medical visits, disciplinary hearings, classification, education, religious services, or work assignments; no videophones for outside communication; no visual or tactile emergency alerts; no training for prison staff. Deaf inmates were being punished for not responding to verbal commands they couldn't hear, missing classes they couldn't access, and serving longer sentences as a result. The case was settled in May 2015. Kentucky agreed to provide qualified interpreters at no charge for all major events, install videophones, give visual emergency notifications, train staff on disability rights, and submit to monitoring. The named plaintiffs received $1,500 each in damages; their attorneys received $250,000 in fees and costs. The case is now in long-term compliance phase. If you or someone you know is a deaf or hard-of-hearing prisoner in Kentucky custody and is NOT getting interpreters, videophones, visual alerts, or other auxiliary aids — that's a violation of the settlement. Report it.

Who may qualify

This case is for deaf or hard-of-hearing people currently or formerly in Kentucky DOC custody (and their families/advocates) who experienced effective-communication failures. You may benefit from this settlement if: - You (or someone you're acting on behalf of) is deaf or hard-of-hearing. - You are/were incarcerated in any Kentucky DOC facility (state prisons; this does NOT cover county jails, which are separate). - You needed interpretation, a videophone, a visual emergency alert, or other auxiliary aids — and did not get them, or had to pay for them, or had family members improperly used as interpreters. You don't have to have been part of the original 2014 class to report current violations.

What helps your case

Documentation supporting current-violation reporting and settlement-enforcement: - Facility identification, dates, and program/service involved (medical, disciplinary, classification, educational, vocational, religious, or emergency-notification). - Staff identification (where available) and contractor identification (e.g., medical providers, educational vendors). - Description of the auxiliary aid or service requested and the response (refusal, substitution with a non-qualified person, family-member-as-interpreter, etc.). - Internal KDOC grievance filings and responses; PREA-related communications where relevant. - Medical records demonstrating the qualifying disability and the specific communication-access need. - Records of any disciplinary actions or programming exclusions attributable to communication failures.

How to document what happened

For incarcerated class members and their representatives documenting current violations: Contemporaneous documentation: - Maintain dated narrative records of each access-denial incident. Inmate-maintained logs are admissible. - Preserve copies of KDOC grievance forms (filed, denied, or unanswered) — even denied grievances exhaust administrative remedies and establish notice. - Document each specific service or program where access was denied (medical encounters, disciplinary hearings, classification reviews, programming). External documentation: - Family or advocate correspondence with the inmate establishing real-time accounts of incidents. - Medical or treatment records establishing the qualifying disability — these may be obtainable through HIPAA-compliant releases from KDOC medical providers. - Audiological or otological records establishing degree of hearing loss and primary communication mode (ASL, written English, lip-reading). Filing: - DOJ Civil Rights Division administrative complaints support inmate-source documentation. - Settlement enforcement may proceed without exhaustive records given the systemic nature of the underlying violations.

What if you don’t have documentation?

Documentary records are frequently inaccessible to incarcerated class members. The settlement-enforcement and administrative-complaint mechanisms accept reports based on contemporaneous narrative, not solely paper records. Avenues for reporting without documentation: - Direct contact with Washington Lawyers' Committee DC Prisoners' Project. - DOJ administrative complaint under 28 C.F.R. § 35.170 (ADA.gov). - Kentucky Commission on Human Rights administrative complaint. - KDOC internal grievance process under KRS Chapter 197 — even denied grievances establish notice and exhaust administrative remedies for subsequent federal action. - Family-member or advocate intake through disability-rights legal organizations (Kentucky Protection & Advocacy, NAD). - Prospective documentation: contemporaneous letters from the incarcerated person to family or to a legal advocate are admissible and probative.

What this case doesn’t cover

Scope limitations: - Bound only Kentucky DOC state-operated facilities. County jail facilities (Title II liability separate per municipality) and federal Bureau of Prisons facilities in Kentucky are outside settlement scope. - Limited to deaf/hard-of-hearing communication-access claims. Title II claims for physical-access barriers, Eighth Amendment medical-care claims, or other disability classifications require separate enforcement. - Title II/Section 504 relief is principally injunctive; compensatory damages require Section 504 deliberate-indifference showings or independent constitutional claims. - The settlement covers programmatic and policy obligations; it does not preempt individual constitutional or PLRA-bound claims. For barriers outside this case's scope: - Federal BOP facilities: DOJ administrative complaints and Section 504 actions. - County jails: independent Title II/Section 504 actions; state-level Protection & Advocacy entities (Kentucky P&A). - Visitor accessibility: separate Title II claims against the facility.

Legal theory

ADA Title II + Section 504

Named defendants

• Kentucky Department of Corrections

Case facts

Type

Class action

Affected states

KY

Court

U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Kentucky

Docket

3:14-cv-00001

Filed

2014-01-01

Who to contact

Nobody is running an intake for this one. You can still report what happened.

• Government agency

  U.S. Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division

  Takes complaints about businesses open to the public and about state and local government. It investigates and enforces, but it does not represent individuals and cannot advise you on your own claim. For someone currently in custody, the state Protection & Advocacy agency is usually the faster route — they have the right to enter facilities.

  Phone 800-514-0301

  TTY 833-610-1264

  civilrights.justice.gov/report

  Filing a complaint is not the same as having a lawyer, and it does not pause any legal deadlines. If you may want to bring a case, talk to an attorney about your dates as well as filing.

  Every state has one. They are free, they take intake directly, and unlike a federal agency they can represent you. Find yours

Key dates

Status

Long-term compliance monitoring

Settlement

May 2015

Companion case

Jarboe v. Maryland DPSCS, 1:12-cv-00572 (D. Md., 2015)

Complaint filed

2014-01-01

Model precedent

2010 Virginia DOC settlement (WLC)

Last docketed activity

2020-12-17