PHOENIX — Lawyers who filed a lawsuit challenging the quality of health care in Arizona’s prisons are seeking $1.6 million in additional legal fees and other costs in enforcing a 2014 settlement that they say the state has repeatedly resisted.
The request, filed Friday, comes after attorneys representing the 34,000 inmates have already been awarded $6.1 million in litigation costs since they filed the lawsuit in March 2012.
The state paid $4.9 million to the prisoners’ lawyers after settling the lawsuit in October 2014 and agreeing to improve care. They were awarded another $1.2 million for their efforts through July 2017 in enforcing the terms of the settlement after Corrections Director Charles Ryan was found to be in civil contempt and the state was fined for failing to adequately improve care.
Though a magistrate judge ordered the state in June to pay the $1.2 million, attorneys for the prisoners haven’t yet received that money. The state is appealing the decision.
Lawyers for the prisoners say the latest request covers their enforcement efforts for the one-year period ending on June 30. The attorneys say they rightfully earned such fees because they had to repeatedly complain in court that the state wasn’t complying with some of the changes to inmate care that it promised.
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Andrew Wilder, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Corrections, declined to comment on the latest fee request.
The lawsuit alleged that Arizona’s 10 state-run prisons didn’t meet the basic requirements for providing adequate medical and mental-health care. It said some prisoners complained that their cancer went undetected or that they were told to pray to be cured after begging for treatment.
