Armstrong

Defendants, state officials responsible for the operation of the California Department of Corrections (“CDC”) and the California Board of Prison Terms (“BPT”), appeal an award of attorney’s fees to Plaintiffs, a class of present and future California state prisoners and parolees with disabilities, who prevailed in their action under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, 42 U.S.C. § 12101 (“ADA”) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (“RA”). We affirm the decision of the district court.

Background

Plaintiffs brought this action in 1994 to challenge California’s treatment of disabled inmates and parolees. In 1996 all defendants except the officials of the BPT stipulated that adequate emergency evacuation plans for disabled prisoners were lacking in some facilities, that a smaller range of vocational programs was available to disabled prisoners than to non-disabled prisoners, and that sentence reduction credits had been improperly denied to some disabled prisoners. Armstrong v. Wilson, 124 F.3d 1019, 1021 (9th Cir.1997). These defendants (“CDC defendants”) asserted, however, in a summary judgment motion, that the ADA and RA did not apply to…