Disabled Prisoner Who Won $1.85 Million After Fall in Chicago Jail Secures Class Certification for Separate ADA Challenge to Jail Conditions
by Chuck Sharman
On September 2, 2025, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted class certification to a complaint filed by disabled state prisoner Eugene Westmoreland against Cook County and its Sheriff, Tom Dart. It was at Dart’s jail where Westmoreland claims he was held without accommodations for his disability while awaiting trial in 2019 for assaulting two students in the band class he taught in Chicago Public Schools. Westmoreland, now 64, was also denied a lower bunk and was injured in a fall from his top bunk in 2019, for which he secured a $1.85 million settlement in 2023.
Incarcerated in the state Department of Corrections (DOC) since pleading guilty in 2023, Westmoreland has managed an impressive docket of litigation over his confinement there and at the Cook County Jail (CCJ) in Chicago. Having suffered polio as a very young child, which left him with extreme weakness in his lower extremities, Westmoreland was assigned at intake into CCJ to a jail area that was designated compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. ch.126 § 12101, et seq.
A physician with jail medical provider Cernak Health Services, Dr. Haman, testified that he didn’t also designate Westmoreland for a lower bunk because he had noted in the jail’s computerized database that the detainee used a cane to walk, explaining that “[t]he cane order that was in place in … our directives to [Cook County] DOC means that a patient with a cane order should be housed on a lower bunk. So for me to assess if he could—could or could not go up to a high bunk was, I’d say, medically unnecessary.”
But it was. A guard named Arreguin testified that when it came to bunk assignments, “detainees usually decide that amongst themselves.” He further testified that he had never been instructed that detainees with canes get lower bunks. Westmoreland testified that the guard pointed him to the top bunk when he was escorted into the cell. He further testified that he complained at once, and that Arreguin promised to bring a complaint form but never did.
Fall, Injury, Lawsuit
and Settlement
Unsurprisingly, Westmoreland fell trying to climb into the bunk, hitting his neck on the edge of a metal desk and landing on the floor. His cellmate woke up and alerted a guard, who came with a nurse and a wheelchair. But the wheelchair wouldn’t fit through the cell door, so they ordered Westmoreland to crawl to it. When he couldn’t, the nurse falsely recorded that he refused medical attention, and she took the wheelchair away. Westmoreland remained on the floor another two hours until shift change brought more humane staff on duty, who returned with another wheelchair, and fellow detainees helped load Westmoreland into it.
He was then taken to a hospital, where he underwent spinal surgery that left him confined to a wheelchair—permanently, an expert testified. Westmoreland filed suit in August 2021, blaming the injury on Dart’s failure to accommodate his disability, in violation of the ADA and the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701, et seq. In a ruling on June 29, 2023, the district court certified that he “was a qualified individual with a disability; was denied access to the program or activity of sleeping; and that the denial was on account of his disability.” Whether that caused his injury was left for a jury to decide. See: Westmoreland v. Dart, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112301 (N.D. Ill.).
On October 21, 2023, just before trial, the parties advised the district court that they had reached a settlement. The Board of County Commissioners then approved a $1.85 million payout on January 25, 2024. Westmoreland was represented by attorneys Patrick W. Morrisey and Thomas G. Morrisey of the latter’s eponymous Chicago firm, along with Michael L. Gallagher of Gallagher Law Offices LLC, also in Chicago. See: Westmoreland v. Dart, USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 1:21-cv-04330.
Taking the Fight
to the Next Level
Westmoreland didn’t stop there. With the aid of the Morriseys, he filed another suit in 2023 accusing state DOC Director Latoya Hughes of failing to provide him access to an ADA-compliant shower at the Northern Reception and Classification Center (NRCC), where he was transferred after his conviction. They filed a third suit that same year accusing the Sheriff and the County of failing to install ADA-required ramps in CCJ’s Residential Treatment Unit—the area that was supposed to be ADA-compliant.
The first suit was dismissed in May 2024, when the district court determined that Westmoreland’s claims for prospective and injunctive relief were mooted by his transfer from the NRCC to Taylorville Correctional Center; that decision was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on July 17, 2025. See: Westmoreland v. Hughes, 144 F.4th 952 (7th Cir. 2025).
But the ADA suit against Dart and the County proceeded to secure certification for a class including “[a]ll Cook County Jail detainees who have been assigned to a wheelchair and use a wheelchair to traverse the RTU ramps from March 24, 2021, to the date of entry of judgment.” The district court approved a Class Notice on October 21, 2025, providing Class Members until December 15, 2025, to opt out by notifying Class Counsel, the Law Office of Thomas G. Morrissey, 10257 South Western Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60643.
No trial has yet been docketed, so the class is still open to collect more members. There has also been no determination of Defendants’ guilt, nor any damages they may owe the Class. The case remains pending, and PLN will update further developments as they unfold. See: Westmoreland v. Dart, USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 1:23-cv-01851.
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Related legal case
Westmoreland v. Dart
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (N.D. Ill.), Case No. 1:23-cv-01851 |
| Level | District Court |