by Chuck Sharman

In what is quite possibly the first damages payout to U.S. prisoners for injuries suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oregon has agreed to a $49 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of state prisoners sickened or killed by the disease. Gov. Tina Kotek (D) announced the agreement on June 24, 2026. The following day, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon granted it preliminary approval—though much of the payout depends on future funding by state lawmakers; if they fail to come through, the agreement will be voided and litigation will resume.

As PLN reported, the case was filed during the pandemic’s early days in April 2020 by attorneys with the Oregon Justice Resource Center (ORJC) on behalf of seven prisoners: Paul Julian Mandy, Gary Clift, George W. Nulph, Theron D. Hall, David Hart and Sheryl Lynn Sublet, along with Felishia Ramirez as personal representative for the Estate of Juan Tristan. They accused the state Department of Corrections (DOC) of inadequately protecting them from COVID-19, in violation of the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. The suit was later amended to include negligence and wrongful death claims, as well.

It was in a February 2021 ruling that the district court granted an injunction requiring the DOC to begin offering prisoners vaccines that were then just being released. A groundbreaking ruling followed in April 2022, certifying two classes of prisoner Plaintiffs: a “Damages Class” consisting of all 5,319 DOC prisoners who tested positive for the disease between February 1, 2020, and May 31, 2022, plus a “Wrongful Death Class” including the estates of 46 prisoners who had died. [See: PLN, June 2022, p.16.]

Defendant state officials secured dismissal of Plaintiffs’ claim that prioritizing guards for vaccination violated the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit agreed that DOC officials were covered by the immunity provision of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, 42 U.S.C. § 247d-6d(a)(1), as PLN also reported. Back at the district court, Plaintiffs’ remaining claim against former Gov. Kate Brown (D) was dismissed, after she was found immune from liability for (1) refusing to offer Plaintiffs clemency release and for (2) submitting a budget that prioritized closing prisons, rather than making them available to maximize Plaintiffs’ social distancing and minimize their COVID-19 risk. Whether that was a good decision, however, remained a question of fact for a jury to decide, the district court said, and it denied DOC officials qualified immunity (QI) on the claim. [See: PLN, Oct. 2024, p.56.]

Ninth Circuit Affirms Denial of QI

Defendants appealed that ruling, but the Ninth Circuit affirmed the denial of QI on June 30, 2025. The Eighth Amendment’s protections extend to “condition[s] of confinement that [are] sure or very likely to cause serious illness and needless suffering” in the future, like exposure to “infectious maladies,” the appellate Court said, citing Hampton v. California, 83 F.4th 754 (9th Cir. 2023) (quoting Helling v. McKinney, 509 U.S. 25 (1993)).

Defendants argued that this was inapt because what Plaintiffs had advanced was not a valid Eighth Amendment conditions-of-confinement-claim; rather, they said what Plaintiffs were asserting was the right to “an overall ‘reasonable’ pandemic response in the aggregate,” which is not protected by the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Circuit rejected that argument, sticking by its earlier ruling in Hampton that exposing a prisoner to COVID-19 satisfied the objective prong of an Eighth Amendment claim.

As to the subjective prong, the Court said that it was “bound by the district court’s determination that, as a matter of law, genuine issues of material fact exist to preclude a declaration of liability.” Specifically, the district court had said that a jury must weigh whether Defendants “(1) implemented and enforced a masking policy and whether that policy was consistent with then-current public health guidance; (2) adopted housing policies to minimize mixing of [Oregon prisoners] from different housing units; (3) implemented a policy of testing symptomatic [prisoners] and symptomatic close contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases; (4) adopted a policy of testing asymptomatic close contacts; (5) enforced a quarantine policy; or (6) considered using empty facilities or spaces to improve social distancing.”

Since the right that the prisoners claimed was violated—“to be free from exposure to a serious disease”—was clearly established nearly 30 years earlier in Helling, the Ninth Circuit reiterated that “all reasonable prison officials would have been on notice in 2020 that they could be held liable for exposing inmates to a serious disease, including a serious communicable disease,” like COVID-19. The district court’s denial of QI to Defendants was therefore affirmed. A request for rehearing before the full Ninth Circuit en banc was denied on September 5, 2025. See: Maney v. Oregon, 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 16044 (9th Cir.); and 2025 U.S. App. LEXIS 23051 (9th Cir.). Defendants next filed a petition with the Supreme Court of the U.S. (SCOTUS) for a writ of certiorari to hear their appeal on February 2, 2026.

Settlement Reached

Meanwhile, the state apparently decided to cut its losses and began negotiating a settlement. The agreement that Gov. Kotek announced included $33.1 million to cover claims from the Damages Class and another $15.9 million to cover those from the Wrongful Death class—which had grown by then to include the estates of 38 prisoners who died from exposure to COVID-19. That meant the settlement payout for each death averaged about $871,000. The amount received by each claimant in the Damages Class—about 25% of whom remain incarcerated—will depend upon the severity of his or her disease. Costs and fees for the Class Counsel will be deducted from all awards before the remaining funds are passed along to Class members who timely file claims.

The district court has docketed a fairness hearing for January 2027, with final approval of the settlement scheduled to follow later that year. The Classes of current and former prisoners were represented by ORJC attorneys Juan C. Chavez and Benjamin W. Haile, as well as former ORJC attorney Brittany Plesser, all in Portland; they were joined by attorneys Nadia H. Dahab and Jessica G. Snyder of Sugarman Dahib, also in Portland. See: Maney v. Oregon, USDC (D. Ore.), Case No. 6:20-cv-00570.

Only the first $10 million of the settlement is currently funded by the state’s self-insurance fund, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. State lawmakers must come up with the remaining $39 million in their upcoming session; failure to do so will trigger a self-termination provision in the settlement agreement, putting the case back on track for trial. Defendants also dismissed their SOCTUS appeal on June 30, 2026. See: Oregon v. Maney, U.S., Case No. 25-960.

GOP state Sen. Christine Drazan, who is reprising the campaign for governor that she lost to Kotek in 2022, has already used the settlement to open a line of attack, accusing Kotek in a statement of “choosing to pay adults in custody who were serving criminal sentences instead of holding the line and defending Oregon taxpayers in court from a weak lawsuit.”  

Additional source: Oregon Public Broadcasting

Subscribe today

Already a subscriber? Login