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CASE ADDITIONS |
Nov. 14, 2009 |
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Coles v. City of Oakland
Case Category: Policing
Trial Docket: 3:03-cv-02961 (N.D. Cal.)
PN-CA-0018
Summary/Abstract not yet on record
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View Case Detail (PN-CA-0018) |
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CASE ADDITIONS |
Nov. 13, 2009 |
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Brantley v. Maxwell-Jolly
Case Category: Disability Rights-Pub. Accom.
Trial Docket: 09-3798 (N.D. Cal.)
DR-CA-0023
California recipients of Adult Day Health Care services brought this class action to enjoin California from reducing or eliminating the ADHC program, which would put the plaintiffs at risk of institutionalization. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California granted the plaintiff class a preliminary injunction in September 2009, forbidding California to modify it’s adult Day Health Care program until an appropriate alternative could be provided to prevent institutionalization of individuals in the plaintiffs’ class. |
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View Case Detail (DR-CA-0023) |
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CASE ADDITIONS |
Nov. 13, 2009 |
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Multi-Ethnic Immigrant Workers Organizing Network v. City of Los Angeles
Case Category: Speech and Religious Freedom
Trial Docket: 2:07-cv-03072-AHM-FFM (C.D. Cal.)
FA-CA-0002
This class action was brought by protesters at a 2007 immigration rally in Los Angeles who were victims of excessive force by police officers trying to disperse the rally. The 2009 settlement awarded the plaintiffs damages of over $12 million and attorneys’ fees of $3.7 million, as well as both structural reform of the LAPD. The structural reform placed limitations on the LAPD’s ability to interfere with nonviolent demonstrations, including issuing a declaration of unlawful assembly before any using force to break up the demonstration. The order also restricted the methods of disbursement the LAPD can use, including limitations on the use of less lethal weapons, batons, motorcycles and low-flying helicopters that would interfere with the demonstration. Additionally, the order stipulated that all LAPD officers receive annual training on the proper crowd control and disbursement techniques. |
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View Case Detail (FA-CA-0002) |
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CASE ADDITIONS |
Nov. 13, 2009 |
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Trujillo v. City of Ontario
Case Category: Policing
Trial Docket: 5:04-cv-01015-VAP-PJW (C.D. Cal.)
PN-CA-0017
This case concerns a video surveillance camera that was set up in 2004 in the Ontario (Cal.) Police Department locker room in response to a flashlight being stolen from one of the lockers. Police officers who used the locker room during the time of the surveillance filed a class action suit for invasion of privacy and unlawful search and seizure. The officers ultimately reached a settlement agreement with the Department, which agreed to pay $1.5 million to them and $1.2 million to their lawyers. |
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View Case Detail (PN-CA-0017) |
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CASE STUDIES |
Oct. 21, 2009 |
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"Courts and Kids: Pursuing Educational Equity Through the State Courts"
Case Category: Education
By: Michael Rebell (Columbia University, and Campaign for Educational Equity Faculty)
(University of Chicago Press, 2009)
Countering the recent slew of books by Eric Hanushek, Al Lindseth, Paul Peterson and other critics of education adequacy and sound basic education litigations, a new book by Michael A. Rebell argues that successful outcomes in these cases, which have been initiated in dozens of states, is essential ...
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View Case Study Detail |
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CASE ADDITIONS |
Oct. 19, 2009 |
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Young v. County of Cook
Case Category: Jail Conditions
Trial Docket: 1:06-cv-00552 (N.D. Ill.)
JC-IL-0009
On January 30, 2006, a Chicago civil rights law firm filed a class action civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The complaint challenged the Cook County Sheriff’s blanket policy of requiring a strip and body cavity search of every detainee that entered the Cook County Jail for booking/intake, irrespective of the nature of the charge against the detainee and of whether there was any reasonable suspicion that the detainee was concealing weapons or contraband.
On August 13, 2009, the case went to trial, and the following day, the jury reached a verdict. They found in favor of the plaintiffs, and held that county jail employees violated the law in the manner in which they conducted strip searches of detainees.
As of October 20, 2009, the issue of damages is yet to be determined, and the case is ongoing. |
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View Case Detail (JC-IL-0009) |
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CASE SUMMARIES |
Oct. 19, 2009 |
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Martinez v. Astrue
Case Category: Public Benefits & Services
Trial Docket: 08-4735 (N.D. Cal.)
PB-CA-0002
On October 15, 2008, public interest attorneys filed a national class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration (SSA) for revoking the retirement and disability benefits of over 100,000 poor, elderly and disabled Americans under an arbitrary and unlawful benefit suspension policy. Under a 1996 law, SSA must suspend the benefits of people who are "fleeing to avoid prosecution" for a felony. The plaintiffs alleged that thousands of elderly and disabled Americans who are not "wanted," and indeed, who may have been completely misidentified, have been caught up in the system that SSA has used to implement the law.
On March 30, 2009, the parties reached a settlement in the case. Under the terms of the settlement, the defendants agreed to reinstate the payments of those who had been wrongfully denied their benefits. |
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View Case Detail (PB-CA-0002) |
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CASE ADDITIONS |
Oct. 19, 2009 |
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Acks v. City and County of Denver
Case Category: Speech and Religious Freedom
Trial Docket: 09-CV-8007 (State Court)
FA-CO-0001
On August 19, 2009, the ACLU filed a lawsuit on behalf of a group of people who had been detained by police during a political demonstration during the Democratic National Convention. The lawsuit asserts that Denver carried out an arbitrary and groundless mass arrest, without probable cause, of 96 individuals, knowing that the group included numerous innocent persons, including the eight individual Plaintiffs in this case. The lawsuit seeks damages for the eight Plaintiffs who were falsely arrested in violation of their rights under the First and Fourth Amendments. Pursuant to a Colorado statute that requires jailers to allow arrestees to meet with attorneys, C.R.S. § 16-3-404, the ACLU lawyers also sued on behalf of all individuals who were ensnared in the mass arrest on 15th Street and detained at Denver’s detention facility. |
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View Case Detail (FA-CO-0001) |
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CASE ADDITIONS |
Oct. 19, 2009 |
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Martinez v. Astrue
Case Category: Public Benefits & Services
Trial Docket: 08-4735 (N.D. Cal.)
PB-CA-0002
On October 15, 2008, public interest attorneys filed a national class action lawsuit against the Social Security Administration (SSA) for revoking the retirement and disability benefits of over 100,000 poor, elderly and disabled Americans under an arbitrary and unlawful benefit suspension policy. Under a 1996 law, SSA must suspend the benefits of people who are "fleeing to avoid prosecution" for a felony. The plaintiffs alleged that thousands of elderly and disabled Americans who are not "wanted," and indeed, who may have been completely misidentified, have been caught up in the system that SSA has used to implement the law.
On March 30, 2009, the parties reached a settlement in the case. Under the terms of the settlement, the defendants agreed to reinstate the payments of those who had been wrongfully denied their benefits. |
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View Case Detail (PB-CA-0002) |
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CASE STUDIES |
Oct. 19, 2009 |
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"Have Angels Done More? The Steel Industry Consent Decree"
Written: Jan. 1, 1983
By: Casey Ichniowski (MIT, Sloan School Student)
Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Vol. 36, No. 2 (Jan., 1983), pp. 182-198
This study analyzes the consent decree of 1974 that reformed plant seniority systems in basic steel to resolve problems of equal employment opportunity. The author argues that the major factors leading to the negotiation of this industry-wide decree were the large number of plant-level suits being ...
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View Case Study Detail |
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CASE STUDIES |
Oct. 16, 2009 |
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"The Law Transmission System and the Southern Jurisprudence of Employment Discrimination"
By: Alfred W. Blumrosen (Rutgers Faculty)
6 Indust. Relations L.J. 313 (1984)
This article uses the history of the nationwide steel industry consent decrees, entered in 1974 against nine of the 10 largest steel manufacturers, to assess law transmission. The abstract explains: During the past seven years, the Supreme Court has restricted the expansive reading given Title ...
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View Case Study Detail |
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CASE STUDIES |
Oct. 16, 2009 |
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"Have Angels Done More? The Steel Industry Consent Decree"
By: Ichniowski
36 Indus. & Lab. Rel. Rev. 182 (1983)
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View Case Study Detail |
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CASE STUDIES |
Oct. 16, 2009 |
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"Steel Industry Consent Decrees—A Model for the Future"
By: Moore
3 Employee Rel. L.J. 214 (1977)
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View Case Study Detail |
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LINKS TO THE CLEARINGHOUSE |
Sep. 21, 2009 |
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Featured Website Reviews: Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse
National History Education Clearinghouse
Written: Sep. 20, 2009
A good place to begin is the "Featured Cases" section on the website's homepage, which highlights cases from the collection that are being litigated currently and/or that are particularly relevant to current events. Cases are fully searchable by name, type, issue, district, circuit, state, causes ...
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View Link Detail
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CASE STUDIES |
Sep. 2, 2009 |
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"Judicial Policymaking and Juvenile Detention Reform: A Case Study of Jimmy Doe et al. v. Cook County"
By: Emily N. Winfield (University of Iowa Law Student)
12 J. Gender Race & Just. 225 (Fall 2008)
[From the introduction:] In 1889, the nation's juvenile court system originated in Cook County with the passage of the Juvenile Court Act. Now this system, once heralded for its innovation, finds itself unable to account for its failure to provide even the most basic protection for juveniles ...
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View Case Study Detail |
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CASE STUDIES |
Sep. 2, 2009 |
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"Legal Accountability in the Service-Based Welfare State: Lessons from Child Welfare Reform"
Case Category: Child Welfare
By: Kathleen G. Noonan, Charles F. Sabel, William H. Simon (Center for High Impact Philanthropy , Columbia Law School and Stanford Law School Faculty)
34 Law & Soc. Inquiry 523 (Summer 2009)
Current trends intensify the longstanding problem of how the rule of law should be institutionalized in the welfare state. Welfare programs are being redesigned to increase their capacities to adapt to rapidly changing conditions and to tailor their responses to diverse clienteles. These ...
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View Case Study Detail |
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CASE STUDIES |
Aug. 25, 2009 |
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"Jones v. Mayer Revisited"
By: Mira Tanna (Metro St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council)
57 Cleveland State Law Review No. 2 (2009)
The article traces the history of the landmark fair housing case that came out of the St. Louis area and was heard before the Supreme Court in 1968. The case was taken by the Greater St. Louis Committee for Freedom of Residence, an open housing organization that was headed by Ruth Porter. The ...
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View Case Study Detail |
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The Clearinghouse has been generously supported by the National Science Foundation.
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