Inmate whose hearing aid batteries weren't promptly replaced allowed to sue FacebookTwitterEmail Pedestrians walk past the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. The court said an inmate whose hearing aide batteries weren’t replaced for month had adequately alleged “deliberate indifference” to his rights.Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle A federal appeals court reinstated a lawsuit Monday by a hard-of-hearing prisoner who said that when the batteries on his hearing aid died, officers waited as long as 74 days to replace them. When the batteries first went out in September 2017, Raymond Whitall said, nursing and mental health staff at Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad told him they would be replaced immediately but they weren’t. He was taken to a hospital, returned to his cell nine days later, and said he learned that the batteries had been available right away but were not provided to him.