Nonsmoking current and former prisoners of a Washington, D.C. correctional facility complained about their exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke and stated that prison officials had failed to reprimand prisoners for smoking and denied transfer requests to no-smoking areas. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia issued a preliminary injunction forcing the city to enforce its smoking regulations, ruling that the city’s lack of enforcement was a reckless indifference for the health of the inmates and that irreparable injury would occur without the preliminary injunction. Arguing that the injunction should be lifted, the city has appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Nos. 96-7122, 96-7123, 96-7124, 96-7125, 96-7126 and 96-7127, D.C. App. (1996).