In re: Tehum Care Services, Inc.

Corizon is one of the nation’s largest providers of correctional health care services, at one point responsible for delivering health care to over 300,000 people incarcerated in state prisons and county jails across the country. For over a decade, Corizon maximized profits by systematically providing substandard care—and sometimes no care at all.

Facing mounting liability for that pattern of unlawful conduct, in mid-2022, Corizon exploited a quirk in Texas corporate law to do what is now colloquially known as the “Texas Two-Step.” Step One: Corizon splits itself into two new corporate entities: Corizon dumps all its outstanding liabilities and one million dollars into one company and put all assets into the other company. Step Two: one company declares bankruptcy while the other—with all the assets—rebrands itself as YesCare and continues business as usual, free from most debt and liabilities.

By declaring bankruptcy, this new corporate entity, Tehum Care Services, Inc., will avoid paying money it owes its creditors. Those creditors include incarcerated people, in particular pro se plaintiffs, who have brought lawsuits against Corizon for their unlawful healthcare practices.

A number of civil rights organizations, led by Public Justice, and including Rights Behind Bars, The American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Roderick & Solange MacArthur Justice Center, and the Southern Center for Human Rights submitted an Amicus Curiae Brief in the Tehum Care Services, Inc. bankruptcy proceeding in support of Pro Se litigants. We argue that the court must ensure that pro se incarcerated creditors—of which there may be hundreds if not thousands—are properly notified, given an equal opportunity to participate in the proceedings, and have their interests adequately represented before the Court.