DRNJ v. Velez

The Bazelon Center joined the state protection and advocacy agency in a class action challenging the illegal confinement of nearly 1,000 individuals in New Jersey’s four state psychiatric hospitals. The amended complaint in New Jersey Protection and Advocacy, Inc. v. Davy, filed in May 2005, asserts that the state’s commissioner of human services has failed to ensure that community services are available to these residents and instead has warehoused them for years after they are ready for discharge.

Update: In a settlement signed on July 29, 2009, the state agreed to release hundreds of the plaintiffs and provide the services they need to live independent, integrated lives in the community, including more than 1,000 units of supportive housing. The protection and advocacy agency is now known as Disability Rights New Jersey (DRNJ).

Acknowledging that indefinite institutional confinement is inappropriate for individuals who no longer meet the civil commitment standard, New Jersey in 1983 created the status of “conditional extension pending placement” (CEPP) to permit the continued hospitalization of individuals who no longer meet commitment standards but who need assistance to survive in the community, while an appropriate placement is sought. The state, however, “has misused CEPP status to justify the continued confinement of thousands of individuals,” according to the complaint. In so doing, the commissioner “runs afoul of his obligations” under the Americans with Disabilities Act to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court’s Olmstead decision, mandating that people with disabilities be served in the most integrated setting appropriate to their needs.

Nearly half of the non-forensic residents of New Jersey’s psychiatric hospitals are on CEPP status, the lawsuit asserts. Many are housed on the most restrictive hospital wards, where they are often subject to abuse and neglect.

Carol C., for example, now 60, was committed to a state hospital in 1993. Less than a month later she was determined ready for discharge to a community placement and placed on CEPP status. She remains in the hospital, however, isolated and unable to participate in the activities she enjoys, such as supported employment and attending church. She has also been assaulted at the hospital.

The complaint points out that in addition to violating state and federal laws, the retention of people on CEPP status is wasting public resources: “A shockingly large portion of each dollar spent in New Jersey’s psychiatric institutions is being spent on individuals who are no longer on committed status and do not belong there.”

The plaintiffs ask the federal district court to compel the state to develop and provide appropriate community services for all state hospital residents who have been adjudicated as no longer meeting the standards for civil commitment. Judge Stanley Chesler has denied the state’s motion to dismiss the complaint and discovery is underway.