DOJ settlement will bring new protections for people with opioid use disorder in Pa. courts

This story originally appeared on Spotlight PA.

A recent settlement between the U.S. Department of Justice and the Pennsylvania court system offers new protections to people who county courts allegedly barred from taking medications for opioid use disorder.

The agreement follows the DOJ alleging the system forced some people under court supervision into a lose-lose scenario: Give up medication prescribed by a doctor or risk going to jail.

Advocates celebrated the settlement, which requires that three county court systems adopt an anti-discrimination policy for substance use disorder medications and that statewide court administrators encourage all other county court systems to do the same.

While still denying the claims, officials overseeing Pennsylvania’s court system agreed to pay $100,000 total to individuals allegedly harmed by the restrictions. Statewide court administrators must also provide training to all judges handling criminal matters and report on which counties agree to adopt the anti-discrimination policy.

“This case makes it clear that those practices are illegal, they’re dangerous, and they need to stop,” Sally Friedman, an attorney with the advocacy group the Legal Action Center, told Spotlight PA. “And I think other courts around the country are going to pay attention.”

Sonya Mosey is one of the people whose complaint prompted the Justice Department lawsuit. In a previous Spotlight PA story, she described how an opioid use disorder medication ban in Jefferson County in 2018 led her to fear she would relapse and die.

After she learned of the settlement, she cried on the way to work.

“It was a relief,” she said. “But it was also … a sense of like all this time and we finally got somewhere.”

The Department of Justice lawsuit named as defendants the entire state court system, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and four individual county courts.

The agreement requires three of those county court systems — Blair, Jefferson, and Northumberland — to adopt an agreed upon nondiscrimination policy for medications for opioid use disorder.

The two sides agreed for the state Supreme Court to be dismissed from the case. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s administrative arm agreed to take a number of actions to implement the settlement.

What did the two sides say about the settlement?

Throughout the case, the two sides have offered differing interpretations of the scope of the alleged violations.

Stacey Witalec, a spokesperson for the administrative arm of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, said in a statement that the DOJ claimed violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act were committed by “a few local treatment courts” and that the federal agency “found no systemic” violations.

That description contrasted with how the Department of Justice described the case in earlier legal filings. The agency identified six unnamed individuals who it says were harmed in four counties, and it listed seven other counties that it alleged have or recently had administrative policies restricting the use of opioid use disorder medication.

Those 11 county courts have tens of thousands of people under supervision, many for drug law violations, and there is “thus a high likelihood” that Pennsylvania courts harmed others with opioid use disorder, the Justice Department alleged in a legal filing last September.

The agreement will “alleviate the burden of the ongoing litigation on the courts, who continue to deny the DOJ’s claims,” said Witalec. Under the state constitution, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has “general supervisory and administrative authority” over the lower courts in the state system.

Witalec called Pennsylvania’s court system a national leader for offering effective treatment and rehabilitation opportunities. She said courts here “reiterate their continuing and steadfast commitment to our treatment courts and to providing full access to the justice system and fair and evenhanded treatment to all citizens, including those with disabilities.”

In a news release, the DOJ emphasized the $100,000 compensation the court system agreed to pay, policy changes and recommendations, and training required under the settlement.

“People with opioid use disorder caught up in the criminal justice system should be supported in seeking treatments that can help them attain recovery,” said Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.