Trivette v. Tennessee Department of Correction

This lawsuit, filed in March 2020 on behalf of several Deaf and hard of hearing people incarcerated in Tennessee Department of Correction (“TDOC”) facilities, challenges TDOC’s failure to provide effective communication to Deaf and hard of hearing incarcerated people, and seeks to enable them to access the same programs and services as non-disabled people who are incarcerated.

Plaintiffs Kevin Trivette, Jason Collins, Alex Stinnett, Thomas White, and Lakeevious Owens are all Deaf and primarily use American Sign Language (“ASL”) to communicate. Pamela Bingham and John Giles are hard of hearing and use assistive devices like hearing aids and captioning to communicate. TDOC repeatedly failed to provide plaintiffs auxiliary aids and services including ASL interpreters, videophones, and captioning, for things like medical appointments, jobs and required programs, religious services, and parole hearings, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504).

Plaintiffs are represented by Disability Rights Advocates, Disability Rights Tennessee, Disability Law United, and Fox & Robertson. 

In July 2024, a federal judge in the Middle District of Tennessee granted partial summary judgment to multiple plaintiffs finding that TDOC violated federal law by failing to provide sign language interpreters in connection with prison programming, medical appointments, religious services and legal processes such as discipline or parole, and by failing to provide videophones to deaf prisoners.

In her opinion, Judge Aleta A. Trauger stated: “The plaintiffs have identified hundreds of high-stakes interactions in which interpreters were not provided, many of which involved situations—such as receiving medical care—in which effective communication is an inherently vital component.” Further, “While there may be room for disputing whether certain specific listed encounters fall within the scope of TDOC’s violations, there is no longer any basis for disputing that such violations generally existed and were manifestations of a continuous, ongoing policy or practice.” Read the order granting partial summary judgment.

While the decision resolved several of the major claims in the case, the Court will later need to decide the remaining claims, in addition to a remedy for these violations as well as damages for individual plaintiffs. A trial is set for January of 2024. Some individual Plaintiffs and claims were dismissed under this most recent order, largely based on statute of limitations or because the Court found that the individuals had not sufficiently exhausted the prison system’s grievance process.