Weldeyohannes v. Washington
No. 24-3821 (9th Cir.)
In short
When our client, a wheelchair-bound prisoner, found out he’d be transferred to a new facility, he had a simple request: Please take me there in a wheelchair van. I can’t climb the steps to board a regular coach-style bus. Instead of accommodating his disability, the State sent a squad of riot guards to forcibly drag him onto the bus. They broke his shoulder and worsened his longstanding knee and back injuries, and the trauma of the ordeal left him with PTSD. The district court dismissed his claims, holding that a “clerical error” in the State’s computer systems absolved the State of liability. We asked the Ninth Circuit to reverse.
Briefs
Weldeyohannes’s opening brief.
Defendants’ answering brief.
Weldeyohannes’s reply brief.
Decision
We won! The Ninth Circuit held that whatever the computers may have shown, the guards could see with their own eyes that Weldeyohannes was disabled. Forcibly dragging him onto the bus anyway violated both the ADA and the Eighth Amendment.