by David M. Reutter
On June 2, 2021, a federal district court in New York approved an agreement by Montgomery County to pay $1 million to resolve a federal class-action lawsuit alleging it provided inadequate nutrition to people held at its jail. The agreement includes an additional $317,083.22 in fees ...
A lesson in why privatized prison health care is the wrong answer
by David M. Reutter
On Friday, January 18, 2022, three days before sentencing in a pay-to-play bribery and corruption scandal involving health care at the city jail in Norfolk, Virginia, attorneys for disgraced former sheriff Bob McCabe filed ...
by David M. Reutter
On March 17, 2021, a federal district court in Tennessee awarded a $500,000 default judgment, plus another $60,863.75 in attorney’s fees, to a woman who alleged in a lawsuit that her probation officer sexually assaulted her.
The order from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern ...
Just in Time for the ‘Omicron Winter’
by David M. Reutter
On November 10, 2021, one day before first detection of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, a federal district court in Hawaii approved a settlement in a lawsuit filed over the response to the pandemic by ...
by David M. Reutter
On October 12, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a district court’s judgment in favor of Michigan prisoners who sought a kosher meal with meat and dairy on the Jewish Sabbath and four important Jewish holidays, as well as cheesecake on ...
by David M. Reutter
Under a settlement agreement reached on August 23, 2021, officials at the Prince George’s County Jail in Maryland agreed to a raft of safety protocols overseen for at least four months by an independent monitor in order to protect detainees and prisoners from COVID-19.
The agreement ...
by David M. Reutter
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit held on August 25, 2021, that a district court erred in dismissing a state prisoner’s pro se lawsuit by failing to make a finding that the plaintiff willfully abused the judicial process or otherwise conducted the litigation ...
by David M. Reutter
On August 26, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit agreed with a district court that an Ohio state prisoner must be transported to a medical center for neurological imaging that may bolster his challenge to his capital murder conviction.
The prisoner, Raymond ...
by David M. Reutter
A federal district court in Indiana awarded $21,525 to a prisoner on May 30, 2021, after granting partial summary judgment in a civil rights action he filed alleging battery by a guard at the state’s Pendleton Correctional Facility.
The lawsuit was filed pro se in U.S. ...
by David M. Reutter
After guards at the Lake County Jail (LCJ) in Illinois were sued for using excessive force by tasering an unresisting prisoner, the parties reached a settlement for $90,000 on June 30, 2021.
The prisoner, Christopher Davis, was held at LCJ while awaiting sentencing and housed in ...
