‘Likely thousands’ of Pierce County inmates now part of jail sewage class action
The legal battle over a plumbing issue in the Pierce County Jail that former inmates claim administrators ignored for decades while sewage backups and fumes affected dozens of cell blocks hit a turning point June 23.
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Zilly granted class certification to all the jail’s detainees who have been incarcerated in cell blocks with unremedied plumbing defects that led to allegedly unsanitary living conditions since May 2020, and all detainees who will be held in those cell blocks in the future.
Zilly, adopting federal Magistrate Judge S. Kate Vaughan’s previous report and recommendation, appointed two former inmates, Echota C. Wolfclan and Zakery Bonds, as class representatives. In class actions, one or a few people sue on behalf of a group or class of people who have similar claims.
The cutoff of May 2020 for class members is due to the statute of limitations for the claims. Vaughan’s report noted that there are about 550 inmates at the jail in downtown Tacoma at any time and thousands are detained there annually. Vaughan said “likely thousands” fell into the proposed class that Zilly adopted.
Attorneys for Wolfclan and Bonds are seeking an injunction to force Pierce County to fix the jail’s infrastructure issues. It’s unclear how much that could cost. A county spokesperson recently told The News Tribune that it would cost $95 million to renovate the county’s minimum security jail next to the Main Jail that the lawsuit centers on.
A 2014 engineering report that recommended a broader overhaul of the jail’s plumbing and replacing toilets estimated it would cost $3.1 million. An injunction could leave the county vulnerable to liability in over two dozen stayed or consolidated federal lawsuits that also make claims about poor conditions in the jail.
The attorneys also have asked the court to award Wolfclan and Bonds compensatory and punitive damages in an amount to be determined at trial and attorneys fees and costs for the entire class. Class-actions in other states over jail conditions have led to multi-million dollar settlements.
The defendants have sought to dismiss the case by arguing in part that backups into cells can be caused by inmates intentionally or accidentally clogging toilets rather than a plumbing defect, and that odors can come from inmates refusing to shower or spreading feces around their cells during mental health episodes or when upset.
Zilly also decided to exclude the testimony of a former contractor that the county sought to call as an expert witness, Dan Rapp. That will make it more difficult for the county to counter experts called by Wolfclan and Bonds. Rapp had given the opinion in court documents that backups at the jail were nearly impossible without a clog in the vertical riser.
“We are thrilled that Judge Zilly adopted Judge Vaughan’s well-reasoned and thorough decision certifying the class and excluding the testimony of the Defendants’ primary expert,” said Jenna Poligo, an attorney for Wolfclan, Bonds and the entire class. “We look forward to continuing to litigate to fix the Jail’s plumbing on behalf of all class members.”
Adam Faber, a spokesperson for the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office, which defends the county from lawsuits, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.
Defendants in the lawsuit include Pierce County and the County Council, former Chief of Corrections Patti Jackson, former Sheriff Ed Troyer, former corrections Capt. Matthew Dobson and corrections Sgt. Anthony Mastandrea.
Now that Zilly has decided the long-running case can proceed as a class action — the lawsuit was filed in 2023 — the next steps will decide the outcome of the case, either through motions to the court or at trial.
Wolfclan has been a defendant in 18 Pierce County criminal cases since 2004, according to Vaughan’s report, which has led to repeated periods of incarceration at the jail. Bonds was detained there for about three years while he awaited trial for DUI vehicular homicide and vehicular assault, for which he was sentenced to 27 years in prison.
In declarations filed in court, both men have described toilets overflowing with raw sewage in their cell blocks when neighboring inmates flushed. Wolfclan has claimed contact with the sewage left him with an uncomfortable rash that remained for two weeks, and that the stench of the sewage gave him headaches and nausea.
Jail staff have also filed repeated complaints about the sewer gas smell, according to Vaughan’s report. Vaughan said temporary fixes such as dumping water down sewage pipes and spraying air freshener were used instead of funding remediation.
An employee who worked for 32 years in Facility Management testified, according to Vaughan, that most people in the maintenance department knew about the backflushing and odor issues since at least 2013 and that the issues persisted until he retired in 2022.
