A prisoner in California filed a civil rights action, alleging that prison officials violated the Eighth Amendment when they failed to correct a defective ventilation system in his housing unit which exposed him to ETS and various communicable diseases.  The district court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment.  The U.S. Court of appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the summary judgment, ruling that Vaughn had failed to provide evidence to support his claim of deliberate indifference to his health.  A former correctional counselor stated that Vaughn had chosen not to move to a nonsmoking dorm and had told him that the inmates in his building had agreed to abide by the prison’s smoking policy and that the ventilation system in the building’s designated smoking room adequately removed the smoke from the smoking room.

1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 6431