Radon chemical element from the Mendeleev periodic table. Photo: Antoine2K/Shutterstock.com

A federal lawsuit alleging the state knew about radon dangers at a Connecticut prison, but failed to act for decades, can proceed to trial, a three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has ruled.

The ruling came in Thursday afternoon. The litigation lists lead plaintiff Harry Vega and 13 other current or former prisoners of the Garner Correctional Institution in Newtown. Defendants include the Connecticut Department of Correction, along with numerous officials from that department.

"This is an important ruling for inmates everywhere," said plaintiff counsel Martin Minnella of Minnella, Tramuta & Edwards. "We have heard from hundreds of people, that are either incarcerated or were incarcerated, about the radon dangers at the prison. I look at Garner as a death box. We can't ignore this."

What the state ignored, Minnella and the lawsuit claim, were repeated signs over the years that the facility was overrun with radon, which is an odorless and colorless gas that can cause lung cancer or other ailments.

Here is a look at the attorneys in the case.

Martin Minnella, plaintiffs counsel

Minnella has been an attorney for more than three decades, according to the biography on his firm's page.

He received his law degree from the New England School of Law in Boston. He was recognized with the American Juris Prudence Award from Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing for excellence in the study of criminal law, civil procedure and constitutional law, according to his biography. His specialties are criminal law and prisoner rights.

Minnella is also a founding member of the Connecticut Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys and a member of both the Connecticut Bar Association and the Federal Bar Association.

Stephen Finucane, defense counsel

Finucane is an assistant attorney general in the public safety department of the Office of the Connecticut Attorney General. He graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Law. The Office of the Attorney General wouldn't provide further details on Finucane's background.

Elizabeth Benton, a spokeswoman for the office, said Monday, "The courts have not yet addressed the facts of the case, only those facts as claimed by the plaintiffs and not yet tested by discovery or witness testimony. We will continue to press our defenses and to develop the record accordingly."

Demand for testing

Meanwhile, the plaintiffs are pressing on with their claims that Garner "was built on a waste site from Fairfield Hills."

"The state knew there was a substantial risk for radon when the prison was built," Minnella said Monday.

According to Minnella, water from a public school that shared a well with the prison was found to have contained higher than normal levels of uranium in 1996. The uranium levels, Minnella said, was a telltale sign there could be a radon problem. He said no radon testing was done at the time, although prison officials said they "couldn't take showers with the water and had to use bottled water to drink. The prisoners were never told why this was being done."

And, Minnella said, testing for radon only began in 2013 and in limited areas. No prison cell has even been tested for radon, he said.

"We want them to test the cell block areas, which they have never done," Minnella said. "If they have to move the prison population so be it. If it's unsafe, it should be remediated. This has all been more than just reckless. The state of Connecticut put their head in the sand."

In allowing the lawsuit to proceed, Judge Jose Cabranes, writing for the three-judge panel, cited the 1993 U.S. Supreme Court Helling v. McKinney, which dealt with the dangers of cigarette smoke within Nevada prisons.

"As of the date of the Supreme Court's decision in Helling, reasonable officials would recognize that a failure to take any reasonable steps to abate the risk of excessive radon exposure, of which risk they were actually aware, would constitute deliberate indifference to a serious medical need that violated inmates' clearly established Eighth Amendment rights," Cabranes wrote for the Second Circuit.

Plaintiffs are now raising questions about deaths at the prison.

Minnella says two former inmates died of lung cancer, which might be linked to radon.

"I am hopeful the state can create a fund so everyone can be tested," the attorney said. "I'd like them to just meet with us."

 

Related stories:

Prisoners Clear Early Hurdle Against Connecticut Over Radon Exposure

Citing Illness, Death From Radon at Garner Correctional, Plaintiffs File Second Lawsuit