HRDC Wins Massive New Mexico Records Trove from Centurion
This month’s PLN cover story covers documents pried loose from Centurion Correctional Healthcare of N.M., LLC, which held the contract to provide medical care for the state Corrections Department (NMCD) in 2020, when a request was filed under the state Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA), NM Stat § 14-2-1 (2023), by the Human Rights Defense Center (HRDC), nonprofit publisher of PLN and Criminal Legal News (CLN).
HRDC sent IPRA requests in August 2020 to both NMCD and Centurion for documents related to litigation over prisoner healthcare that cost $1,000 or more to resolve. NMCD in turn asked Centurion whether it wanted to respond or send the documents to the state it could forward them. Importantly, Centurion replied that it had received the IPRA request and would respond.
But Centurion ignored HRDC’s request; it later claimed that it’s not a “public body” under IPRA so not obligated to respond. Meanwhile, NMCD notified HRDC on August 19, 2020, that it had no records responsive to the request and that it had not gotten any from Centurion. With that, the state considered the request closed.
HRDC then filed suit in the state’s First Judicial District Court for Santa Fe County in 2021, accusing NMCD and Centurion of violating IPRA with the denied records request. NMCD continued to shrug its shoulders, since all responsive records were in Centurion’s possession. The company continued to insist that it wasn’t obligated under IPRA to respond. Centurion also claimed that it had never been properly served with HRDC’s complaint. Both HRDC and Centurion moved for summary judgment.
On August 30, 2024, the Court granted HRDC’s motion and denied Centurion’s cross-motion. The Court first swatted down Centurion’s claim that it wasn’t properly served, pointing to that early exchange with NMCD proving the firm received the request. Next the Court looked at Centurion’s obligations under IPRA, which specifies that requests must be sent to a records custodian designated by the state. NMCD had a records custodian, but no records. Centurion had records, but no custodian—not least because its contract with NMCD failed to cover this point.
However, an NMCD attorney admitted during deposition that Centurion’s contractual relationship with the state materially satisfied the nine-factor test to determine whether a private entity has assumed a public function, laid out by the state Court of Appeals a dozen years ago in State ex rel. Toomey v. City of Truth or Consequences, 2012-NMCA-104. “Certainly the spirt and intent of IPRA would be violated to just stop here and say that NMCD did all they could and they cannot force [Centurion] to turn over the records,” the Court opined.
Instead it found that the Court of Appeals also provided guidance in a similar case against Corizon Health, Centurion’s predecessor in providing NMCD healthcare. Quoting N.M. Found. for Open Gov’t v. Corizon Health, 2020-18 NMCA-014, the Court said that although Centurion was a private entity, it “ha[d] a clear legal duty to provide public records” since it “acted on behalf of a public entity [NMCD] by providing medical care to inmates at various New Mexico correctional and detention facilities.” Finding no other reason to exempt the records from disclosure, the Court ordered Centurion to release them.
HRDC moved for sanctions, and on September 23, 2024, the Court agreed that Centurion owed $100 a day for the denied request, from August 28, 2020—after the 15-day statutory response window closed following HRDC’s initial request—until the documents were sent on September 16, 2024. For that 1,480-day delay, Centurion could owe $148,000 in sanctions, plus attorney’s fees and additional contempt sanctions that HRDC has requested. HRDC is ably represented by attorneys Adam C. Flores, Laura Schauer Ives, Alyssa D. Quijano, Henry A. Jones and Andrew J. Pavlides of Ives & Flores, P.A. in Albuquerque. See: Hum. Rts. Def. Ctr. v. Centurion Corr. Healthcare of N.M., LLC, N.M. 1st Jud. Dist. (Santa Fe Cty.), Case No. D-101-CV-2021-01620.
Related legal case
Human Rights Defense Center v. Centurion Correctional Healthcare of New Mexico
| Year | 2021 |
|---|---|
| Cite | Case No. D101-CV-2021-01620, State of New Mexico First Judicial Circuit Court (County of Santa Fe 2021) |
| Level | State |