A woman wearing a mask walks out of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. Photo: Ryland West/ALM

U.S. District Judge Rachel Kovner of the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday denied a motion for preliminary injunction that would have released medically vulnerable inmates from Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, finding that the available evidence gives reason for "cautious optimism" about the MDC's response to COVID-19 so far.

Attorneys from Emery Celli Brinckerhoff & Abady and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law's Civil Rights Clinic filed a proposed class action lawsuit in late March against MDC Warden Derek Edge. The lawyers represented a group of MDC inmates, several of whom have since been released, and they argued that the court needed to intervene immediately because of severe flaws in the facility's response to the pandemic.

In her 62-page opinion, Kovner weighed the conflicting results of a series of inspections of the MDC by experts on both sides of the case. While the MDC has only tested a small portion of its nearly 1,700 inmates, Kovner noted that no inmates have died from COVID-19 and only one has been hospitalized.

"Any inference that MDC officials have been knowingly disregarding an excessive risk in their implementation of CDC guidance is undercut by the data about the effectiveness of the MDC's countermeasures thus far," she wrote.

On the other hand, Kovner said the MDC must undertake a "swift response" after failing to implement parts of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance for the pandemic. Responses to "sick call requests," or requests for medical care, have been slow at times, Kovner found, and not all inmates showing COVID-like symptoms were isolated.

Kovner found that because the CDC guidance was complex and resource-intensive, the shortfalls suggested negligent error rather than knowing disregard of a substantial risk of harm.

She also drew an adverse inference against the MDC, finding that MDC officials spoliated evidence by destroying paper sick call requests after the lawsuit was filed. Kovner wrote that the destroyed records would have contained additional reports of COVID-19 symptoms in the first three weeks of April, when the pandemic was at its peak in New York City.

"The court's sanction of the MDC for spoliating evidence during the litigation is a reminder that prison officials are not above the rules," one of the inmates' attorneys, Katherine Rosenfeld of Emery Celli, said in a statement.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York, which is representing the MDC, declined to comment Tuesday.

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