Second Circuit Holds PLRA Fee Cap Inapplicable To So-ordered Stipulated Dismissals
by Bob Williams
In a case of first impression, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has held that the fee cap provision of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), which limits attorney fees to 150 ...
Texas Prison Slaves No Savings for Direct Marketing Firm; Data Mining Results in $ 15 Million Settlement Fund
by Michael Rigby
A class action lawsuit involving thousands of women who received threatening letters from prisoners employed to process data for a private company has settled for amounts ranging from $100 ...
Loaded on
June 15, 2006
published in Verdict1
June, 2006, page 30
Correctional Services Corporation (CSC) has settled a $38 million judgment that held the company responsible for the 2000 death of Bryan Dale Alexander, an 18 year old prisoner at a Texas boot camp. The terms are confidential, but according to an online article accessed February 6, 2006, CSC paid $2.7 ...
New York Brutality Settlement Affecting Twenty Two Prisoners, Fourteen Units Settles for $2.2 Million
by Gary Hunter
Settlement of a 4-year-old lawsuit, between brutalized prisoners and the guards who attacked them, was achieved on February 17, 2006. Most notable was the $2.2 million in damages that will be divided between ...
Connecticuts Mistreatment of Mentally Ill Prisoners and Detainees Enjoined
by John E. Dannenberg
The Connecticut Department of Corrections (CDOC) entered into a settlement agreement in September 2005 that specified extensive changes to its policies for confining and treating mentally ill prisoners and detainees. In response to a 42 U.S.C. § ...
by John E. Dannenberg
Upon remand from the U.S. Supreme Court (Johnson v. California, 125 S.Ct. 1141 (2005)), the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) entered into a settlement agreement with plaintiff prisoner Garrison Johnson wherein CDCR agreed to end using race as the sole determinative criterion in double-celling ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2006
published in Verdict1
March, 2006, page 10
The County of Los Angeles (L.A.) agreed to pay $700,000 to the mother, and $200,000 to the father, of a 20 year old county jail prisoner murdered in his cell by a free-roaming prisoner against whom he had just testified in a murder trial.
Raul Tinajero, a car thief, had ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2006
published in Verdict1
March, 2006, page 15
A Michigan federal district court has approved a settlement awarding $855,000 in a class action alleging the conditions of confinement for women at the Livingston County Jail were disproportionate to that of men held at the jail. The suit also involved privacy concerns.
The suit was brought initially filed by ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2006
published in Verdict1
March, 2006, page 17
by John E. Dannenberg
On April 27, 2005, the City of New York agreed to settle a federal court class action 42 U.S.C. § 1983 civil rights suit with 57,634 past misdemeanant prisoners at its city jails, paying $750 to each person unlawfully strip-searched upon their post-arraignment jail admission in ...
Loaded on
March 15, 2006
published in Verdict1
March, 2006, page 31
In April 2005, York County, Maine, agreed to settle for $3,300,000 a class action lawsuit alleging the county maintained an unconstitutional policy of strip-searching all pre-arraignment detainees in the York County Jail regardless of the charge against them.
Plaintiffs Michele Nilsen end Michael Goodrich contended that upon being placed in ...