On December 20, 2013, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau and the United States Department of Justice filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against a bank, alleging that it engaged in discriminatory lending practices. The plaintiffs alleged that, as a result of the defendant's policies and practices, African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic borrowers unfairly paid higher prices for their automobile loans than non-Hispanic White borrowers. The complaint asked the court for a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief and monetary damages. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendant allowed its automobile dealers to set wholesale loan prices unrelated to credit risk characteristics and loan terms. The defendant did not require automobile dealers to justify or document the reasons for the amount of broker fees and prices set above the par rate; failed to monitor for disparities based on race or national original because of its policies and practices; and created a financial incentive for automobile dealers to charge higher fees and interest rates. The plaintiffs filed a proposed consent order that was entered by the Court (Magistrate Judge Mark A. Randon) on December 23, 2013. Under the consent order, the defendant agreed to implement policies and procedures designed to ensure that the dealer markup on automobile retail installment contracts was negotiated in a nondiscriminatory manner. In addition, the defendant would compensate certain African-American, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander borrowers through the establishment of an $80 million dollar settlement fund. The consent order was to remain in effect dependent on defendant compliance - essentially 2 years if the defendants were in compliance, or 3 years if they were not. On August 2, 2017, the court dismissed the case with prejudice, finding the consent decree completed.

Summary: On December 20, 2013 the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau working alongside the United States Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan against a bank, alleging that it engaged in discriminatory lending practices. The plaintiffs alleged that as a result of the defendant's policies and practices, African-American, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic borrowers unfairly paid higher prices for their automobile loans than non-Hispanic White borrowers. The court entered a consent decree on December 23, 2013, under which the defendant agreed to implement policies and procedures designed to ensure that the dealer markup on automobile retail installment contracts is negotiated in a nondiscriminatory manner. In addition, the defendant will compensate certain African-American, Hispanic, and Asian/Pacific Islander borrowers.


On March 24, 1988, individual nonimmigrant aliens and various immigration rights organizations filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, challenging certain INS policies and regulations relating to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Specifically, plaintiffs challenged the interpretation of the requirement that to qualify for legalization under the IRCA the nonimmigrant must have lived continuously and unlawfully in the U.S. since January 1, 1982, and that their unlawful status was "known to the government." The IRCA established a one-time only amnesty program through which aliens could apply for lawful temporary resident status and then, after a one-year waiting period, apply for permanent residency. 8 U.S.C. §1255a. To qualify for this program, the alien must have (1) applied for such adjustment within the 12-month period between May 5, 1987, and May 4, 1988; (2) lived continuously and unlawfully in the U.S. since January 1, 1982 with their unlawful status "known to the government"; and (3) been continuously physically present in the United States except for ''brief, casual, and innocent absences,'' since November 6, 1986. Plaintiffs challenged the INS' regulations 8 C.F.R. §§ 245a.1(d), 245a.2(b) (1992) which interpreted the IRCA's "continuous unlawful residence since 1982" and "known to the government" requirements. Plaintiffs alleged that the regulations violated the plain meaning of the IRCA, as well as the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fifth Amendment. Plaintiffs sought class certification and declaratory and injunctive relief. They were represented by attorneys with various advocacy groups, including the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, as well as private counsel. This case was one of several major lawsuits filed throughout the country, challenging different policies and practices used by the INS to implement the IRCA amnesty program. 8 U.S.C. § 1255a. See Ayuda, Inc. v. Meese, No. 1:88-cv-00625-SS (D.D.C.) [IM-DC-0003]; Catholic Soc. Servs. v. Attorney General, No. 2:86-cv-01343-LKK-JFM (E.D. Cal.) [IM-CA-0011]; Zambrano v. INS, No. 2:88-cv-00455-EJG-PAN (E.D. Cal.) [IM-CA-0008] and League of United Latin Am. Citizens v. INS, No. 2:87-cv-04757-WDK-CW (C.D. Cal.) [IM-CA-0019]. Like the other cases challenging the INS' interpretation of 8 U.S.C. § 1255a, this case resulted in litigation which spanned over a decade and produced a very complicated procedural history of appeals and remands from the Ninth Circuit and Supreme Court. A brief synopsis of that history follows. On August 29, 1988, plaintiffs filed an Amended Complaint, which the INS moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The District Court granted the motion as to the individual plaintiffs, but denied it as to the organizational plaintiffs, finding that they had standing in the case in that they alleged the challenged regulations impaired their goals of helping immigrants and caused a financial burden on their resources. Class certification was denied. On March 7, 1989, the District Court (Chief Judge Barbara J. Rothstein) granted in part plaintiffs' motion for summary judgment, dismissed certain plaintiffs from the case and denied the defendants' motion to dismiss or for summary judgment. The Court declared that the regulations were unlawful and issued an injunction, which was narrower than requested by plaintiffs. Immigration Assistance Project of the L.A. Cnty. Fed'n of Labor (AFL-CIO) v. INS, 709 F. Supp. 998 (W.D. Wash. 1989). The judgment was amended on June 3, 1989, see Immigration Assistance Project of the L.A. Cnty. Fed'n of Labor (AFL-CIO) v. INS, 717 F.Supp. 1444 (W.D. Wash.1989); affirmed in part and reversed in part by the Ninth Circuit, see Legalization Assistance Project of the L.A. Cnty. Fed'n of Labor (AFL-CIO) v. INS, 976 F.2d 1198 (9th Cir. 1992); and vacated and remanded by the Supreme Court for reconsideration in light of Heller v. Doe, 509 U. S. 312 (1993), and Reno v. Catholic Social Services, Inc., 509 U. S. 43 (1993) [IM-CA-0011], see INS v. Legalization Assistance Project of the L.A. Cnty. Fed'n of Labor, 510 U.S. 1007 (1993). On remand, the plaintiffs sought leave to file a Second Amended Complaint, which again sought class certification and declaratory and injunctive relief. The District Court preliminarily certified the case as a class action, and entered a TRO. A series of orders and appeals followed. (See Immigrant Assistance Project of the L.A. Cnty. Fed'n of Labor (AFL-CIO) v. INS, 306 F.3d 842 (9th Cir. 2002), for a more detailed procedural history). Ultimately, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court's reinstatement of its class certification order and its modified reinstatement of its TRO. Id. The case was remanded to allow plaintiffs to amend the complaint to cure any jurisdictional and venue defects. After five more years of litigation, the case was settled. Simply stated, the settlement allowed certain individuals, who were turned away when they attempted to apply for legalization or "amnesty" under the Immigration to Reform and Control Act of 1986, to apply for legalization. The settlement also allowed certain individuals who had filed applications and whose applications had been denied to move to reopen their applications with the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS). Under the settlement, the parties agreed to class certification. The requirements for class membership were quite complex, and prospective class members were required to fill out a detailed Class Member Worksheet. A copy of the Stipulation for Settlement and its attachments is part of the collection of documents we have for this case. The District Court (Judge James L. Robart) approved the settlement, along with attorney's fees and costs, on September 9, 2008.

Summary: On March 24, 1988, individual nonimmigrant aliens and various immigration rights organizations filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, challenging certain INS policies and regulations relating to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA). Specifically, plaintiffs challenged the interpretation of the requirement that to qualify for legalization under the IRCA the nonimmigrant must have lived continuously and unlawfully in the U.S. since January 1, 1982, and that their unlawful status was "known to the government." After two decades of litigation, the case was settled in 2008.


This is a conditions of confinement suit brought by the putative class of prisoners at the Vienna Correctional Center ("Vienna"), a minimum security Illinois state prison, against the Illinois Department of Corrections. The case was filed by private counsel and the Uptown People's Law Center, on June 13, 2012. It alleges disgusting and crowded conditions in violation of the Eighth Amendment-1900 prisoners housed in a facility meant for 925, rampant vermin, contaminated food, heat and ventilation problems, and endemic mold and mildew. By April 2013, the parties had engaged in settlement discussions. In August of 2013, the plaintiffs filed an unopposed motion for class certification for settlement purposes. However, District Judge J. Phil Gilbert held that, as the named plaintiffs had all been released from Vienna, the proposed class was not adequately represented by the current named plaintiffs. The Court reserved ruling on the motion until plaintiffs either found a suitable class representative, or made a compelling argument to the Court that the current named plaintiffs were adequate class representatives. Boyd v. Godinez, Civil Action No. 3:12-cv-704-JPG-PMF, 2013 WL 5230238 (S.D. Ill. Sept. 16, 2013). Plaintiffs subsequently amended their complaint to add a named plaintiff who was currently incarcerated at Vienna, but also argued that the "inherently transitory" exception to the mootness doctrine should apply in this case. Judge Gilbert held that the plaintiffs had not adequately explained their inherently transitory argument, especially in light of the fact that they had successfully found a putative class representative and added him to their complaint. Nevertheless, having secured an adequate class representative, the Court granted the plaintiffs' unopposed motion to certify a class for settlement purposes. In light of the progress made toward settlement, the District Court vacated the pretrial schedule in December 2013. The parties engaged in settlement discussions for several years, but in May 2016 they notified the Court that the discussions had stalled and they desired to proceed with litigation. On June 7, 2016, the case was reassigned to Chief Judge Michael J. Reagan. Judge Reagan scheduled a jury trial for March 26, 2018. On August 15, 2016, the Court issued an order directing the plaintiffs to file a brief supporting their need to keep their September 2012 class certification motion pending on the docket. Seventh Circuit and Supreme Court precedent called into doubt the ongoing need for plaintiffs to file early class certification motions to avoid mootness. The plaintiffs submitted a brief arguing that the Court had already implicitly ruled on class certification for settlement purposes, or at the very least that settlement certification removed any mootness concerns. Judge Reagan, however, disagreed. On the first point, he explained that the defendants had agreed not to oppose the second motion for class certification on the condition that certification was only for settlement purposes. However, Judge Reagan agreed that the settlement certification, without subsequent decertification, was enough to protect the plaintiffs from mootness issues; once certified, the class achieved a legal status separate from the interest asserted by the named plaintiffs. Thus, the Court found that there was no longer a need to keep the original motion for class certification on the docket to safeguard plaintiffs from any mootness problem and denied that original motion without prejudice on September 22, 2016. On December 9, 2016, the plaintiffs filed a voluntary motion to dismiss the action in its entirety. The motion stated that the Illinois Department of Corrections had made significant improvements to the living conditions at Vienna that resolved the unconstitutional conditions. Magistrate Judge Reona J. Daly ordered that notice of the dismissal be provided to the settlement class. The notice informed the class that they could file objections or comments, but none were filed. After holding a fairness hearing, Magistrate Judge Daly issued a recommendation of dismissal to the District Court, noting that dismissal was a fair, reasonable, and adequate resolution of the litigation. Thus, on September 7, 2017, the District Court dismissed all claims without prejudice. The case is now closed.

Summary: On June 13, 2012, a putative class of prisoners at the Vienna Correctional Center, a minimum security Illinois state prison, filed a conditions of confinement suit against the Illinois Department of Corrections in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel and the Uptown People's Law Center, alleged disgusting and crowded conditions in violation of the Eighth Amendment-1900 prisoners housed in a facilty meant for 925, rampant vermin, and endemic mold, to name a few. In October 2013, District Judge J. Phil Gilbert certified the plaintiff class for settlement purposes only. Settlement discussions, which had proceeded for several years, stalled in May 2016 and the case was set for trial in 2018. However, on September 7, 2017, the District Court granted the plaintiffs' voluntary motion to dismiss the action in its entirety given that significant improvements had been made to the living conditions at Vienna, resolving their unconstitutionality. The case is now closed.


On November 8, 2007, the plaintiff brought a complaint against the Clatsop County Jail and Clatsop County, on behalf of himself and thousands of others pursuant to 42 U.S.C. §1983, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. The complaint challenged the jail's policy of strip-searching all individuals entering the county jail and then placing them in jail clothing. Represented by private counsel, the plaintiff asked the court for declaratory and injunctive relief. The plaintiff contended that all people, even those convicted of minor crimes and misdemeanors, were strip-searched upon their entry into the jail. Judge Garr M. King granted plaintiff's motion for leave to file an amended complaint on September 18, 2008. The amended complaint joined six new plaintiffs to the action who had all been stripped and cavity-searched. Discovery continued until January 26, 2009. During that time, the plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed all but two of the plaintiffs. On February 27, 2009, the defendants moved for summary judgment. The defense argued that the searches were constitutional because the plaintiffs met established criteria for strip searches and the defendant officer was shielded by qualified immunity. On May 5, 2009, Judge King entered summary judgment for the defendants. We are not able to obtain a copy of the order entering summary judgment.

Summary: An Oregon plaintiff brought a class action suit against an officer and the county, claiming the county was conducting illegal strip and cavity searches for misdemeanor offenses. After all but two plaintiffs left the case voluntarily, the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon granted summary judgment for the defendants.


On March 1, 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The EEOC, on behalf of a gay employee, sued Scott Medical Health Center under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The EEOC asked the court for a permanent injunction and compensatory and punitive damages. In the complaint, the EEOC claimed that the Center engaged in unlawful employment practices in violation of Title VII, including harassing conduct, sex discrimination, and employment termination based on sex. Specifically, the EEOC claimed that a gay male employee at the Center was subject to a continuing course of unwelcome and offensive harassment from a supervisor, including derogatory name-calling and offensive statements concerning the employee’s sexual practices. The work environment was so hostile that the employee eventually resigned, which the EEOC claimed amounted to a constructive discharge based on sex. This is a somewhat novel claim, in that the EEOC claimed that discrimination based on the employee's sexual orientation was sex discrimination. The employee, by virtue of his sexual orientation, did not conform to sex stereotypes. Prior to filing suit, the EEOC attempted to resolve the discrimination through informal methods. The EEOC was unable to secure an acceptable conciliation agreement from the defendant. On May 9, 2016, Scott Medical moved to dismiss the case. On November 4, 2016, the District Court denied Scott Medical’s motion to dismiss. The court rejected the defendant’s claim that Title VII did not protect discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, holding that “Title VII’s ‘because of sex’ provision prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.” 217 F.Supp.3d 834. The parties made a brief attempt at Alternative Dispute Resolution, but they were excused from it on January 5, 2017. On May 3, 2017, the Court scheduled a jury trial for December 4 of that year. On September 13, 2017, all three of Scott Medical’s lawyers sought to withdraw as counsel, and the Court gave them leave to do so. Scott Medical did not seek new counsel. (Scott Medical had recently filed for bankruptcy and likely could not afford to pay its lawyers.) The next day, the EEOC sought default judgment, as Scott Medical had no intention or ability to defend against the EEOC’s action without legal representation. On September 25, 2017, the Court granted the motion for default judgment. On November 16, 2017, the Court granted judgment in favor of the plaintiff and found that by a preponderance of the evidence, the plaintiff was entitled to back pay, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and injunctive relief. 2017 WL 5493975. Scott Medical had to pay a total of $55,500.43 to the plaintiff. The Court also required Scott Medical to send the EEOC a written report on every sex harassment complaint, allegation, and charge made by any Scott Medical employee for the next five years. Until the injunction period is over, the Court retains jurisdiction in the event of a compliance dispute. The EEOC presumably continues to monitor Scott Medical’s compliance.

Summary: On March 1, 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. The Commission alleged sex discrimination under Title VII on behalf of a gay male previously employed at Scott Medical Health Center. In November 2017, the Court entered a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff, awarding $55,500.43 in damages and requiring Scott Medical to send regular reports to the EEOC about every sex harassment allegation by employees for the next five years.


On December 4, 2017, several pretrial detainees representing the class of affected detainees in Lake County Adult Correctional Facility filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The plaintiffs sued the County of Lake, its sheriff, the Chief of Corrections at the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, and other correctional officers and supervisors at the Lake County Jail under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, sought compensatory damages, claiming violations of their rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed by the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments. The plaintiffs alleged that Lake County turned off the water for three days at Lake County Jail without notifying the detainees housed there. Plaintiffs were limited by Defendants to five water bottles per day for all personal needs. Requests for additional water bottles were denied or resulted in the detainees being placed on lockdown. Defendants also implemented a policy of prohibiting detainees from flushing the toilets in their cells unless feces were present, and detainees were not allowed to flush their toilets overnight. Defendants did provide a communal barrel of water to be used for bathing, cleaning cells, and flushing toilets. Attempts to flush toilets when feces were present were often unsuccessful, and feces and urine remained in the toilets. The detainees remained in the cells with urine and feces festering for prolonged period of times. This festering produced a putrid aroma that caused detainees to become sick, sleep deprived, and agitated. It also attracted insects. Detainees suffered from a variety of ailments, including dehydration, migraine headaches, sickness, dizziness, constipation, and general malaise. The Defendants moved to dismiss the complaint on February 22, 2018. They argued that the Plaintiffs had failed to state a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and that they were entitled to qualified immunity due to their employment and thus should be shielded from liability. On July 23, 2018, District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman denied in part and granted in part Defendants’ motion. She held that the Plaintiffs had sufficiently pled a § 1983 claim under the Fourteenth Amendment, but that the Eighth Amendment had been held to not apply to pretrial detainees. Thus she denied the Defendants’ motion to dismiss, but dismissed the portion of the Plaintiffs’ allegations that concerned the Eighth Amendment. She also held that the Defendants were not shielded from liability, and so denied the Defendants’ motion for qualified immunity. 2018 WL 3533254. On August 3, 2018, Defendants petitioned to appeal Judge Coleman’s decision denying Defendants’ motion for qualified immunity to the 7th Circuit. On August 14, 2018, Defendants filed a motion to voluntarily dismiss Defendants Lake County and Lake County Sheriff’s Office from the appeal. This motion was granted, and the appeal remained active for all other parties. On August 12, 2019, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals denied Defendants’ motion for qualified immunity, affirming the district court’s decision to reject the defense (Chief Judge Diane Wood and Circuit Judges Joel Flaum and Diane S. Sykes). 933 F.3d 816. A status hearing was held before Judge Coleman on September 30, 2019. At the status hearing, the plaintiff stated that he would file a motion for class certification. On November 8, the plaintiffs moved to certify a class. The next substantive docket entry did not appear until July 2020, as the case appears to have taken a hiatus due to Coronavirus from March, 2020 until July. On November 17, 2020, the Court granted the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Subclasses were defined as all persons present in the Lake County Adult Correctional Facility between November 8, 2017, and November 10, 2017, being held as (A) pretrial detainees and as (B) post-conviction inmates. The Court also left open the possibility for individualized damage calculations at a later stage. 2020 WL 6747018. On January 4, 2021, the case was referred to Magistrate Judge Young B. Kim for discovery and settlement. Defendants were ordered on January 6 to produce a complete list of class members and their last known contact information. By January 20, the defendants had identified 577 class members, and had passed this information on to counsel for the class. The case remains ongoing.

Summary: In 2017, pretrial detainees at Lake County Adult Correctional Facility filed this class action complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The Plaintiffs alleged that by shutting down the water in the facility for three days without notice, their rights under the 8th and 14th Amendments had been violated. In 2018, Defendants appealed to the 7th Circuit the decision denying them qualified immunity. The 7th Circuit affirmed the district court's decision to reject the defense. In November, 2020, the trial court certified a class. As of March 2021, the case is ongoing.


On April 1, 2020, the Baltimore Board of Estimates approved a contract between the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) and Persistent Surveillance Systems, LLC (PSS) for an “Aerial Investigation Research” (AIR) pilot program in Baltimore, Maryland. The pilot program was to take place for six months during which PSS would fly planes over the city for approximately twelve hours per day. While in flight, the planes would use advanced wide-angle camera systems to collect images of the city that would be reconstructed as slow-frame-rate video recordings of pedestrians and vehicles to be used by BPD. Eight days after the contract was approved, on April 9, 2020, the plaintiffs, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle (a self-described “grassroots think tank” that advocates for policy change to improve conditions for Baltimore’s black community) and two individual activists, filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland (in Baltimore). Represented by the ACLU of Maryland, the plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief against the BPD for two types of Constitutional violations. The first set of claims arose under the Fourth Amendment. The plaintiffs argued that AIR violated the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement because its ability to capture images of pedestrians and vehicles amounted to indiscriminate searches that lacked “individualized suspicion or judicial approval.” The use of these images by the BPD similarly violated the Constitution, according to the plaintiffs, because the police could analyze information from the planes without warrants. The second claim was based on the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of association. The plaintiffs claimed that planes' ability to capture aerial images of 90 percent of the city every second during their 12 hour flights was “constant and inescapable” monitoring that violated the Constitutional right to association. For example, the plaintiffs cited the effect that the surveillance would have on one of the named plaintiffs who regularly visited Baltimore neighborhoods affected by street violence to meet with community members shortly after events like murders occurred as part of her work as an activist. This plaintiff was apprehensive about how her work would be unjustifiably scrutinized by police because the AIR program would be likely to generate an individualized report of her movements based on the frequency that she visited these high-crime areas. Because the contract between BPD and PSS established an official municipal policy under color of state law, the plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. §1983. The plaintiffs asked the district court to: 1) declare the AIR program to be violative of the First and Fourth Amendments; 2) permanently enjoin the BPD from operating the AIR program or collect any images from it; 3) to order the BPD to expunge all records of plaintiffs gathered as a result of AIR surveillance; 4) award them attorneys’ fees. District Judge Richard Bennett was assigned to the case. On the same day that they filed the complaint, the plaintiffs moved for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to prevent the defendants from operating the AIR pilot program and using any of the data collected from it. District Judge Bennett held a telephone hearing on the afternoon of April 9, 2020. On the same day Judge Bennett entered an order prohibiting any AIR program flights to collect, retain, or access photographic imagery of Baltimore until a hearing on the preliminary injunction could take place on April 21, 2020. However, the District Judge did allow the BPD to continue undertaking preparatory activities for the launch of the AIR program. On April 21, 2020 the court conducted a telephone hearing and heard arguments on the motion for a preliminary injunction. On April 24, 2020 Judge Bennet issued an opinion denying the plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction. He held that the AIR program did not constitute a “search” under the Fourth Amendment or violate the First Amendment, that the balance of the equities weighed against the grant of a preliminary injunction, and that it was not within the public interest to grant a preliminary injunction. 456 F. Supp. 3d 699. Because the plaintiffs did not succeed on their motion for a preliminary injunction, Judge Bennett entered an order allowing the AIR pilot program to proceed. On the same day, the plaintiffs filed an appeal on the denial of their motion for a preliminary injunction to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. While the parties were awaiting the Fourth Circuit’s decision on the preliminary injunction, the BPD filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim on August 12, 2020. Before the plaintiffs could file a response to this motion, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the denial of the preliminary injunction on November 5, 2020. Circuit Judge Harvie Wilkinson wrote a majority opinion for a three judge panel. In the opinion, Circuit Judge Wilkinson held that District Judge Bennett did not abuse his discretion in denying the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction because the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on the merits of their claims that: 1) the AIR program violated the Fourth Amendment’s protection of a reasonable expectation of privacy, 2) the AIR program violated the Fourth Amendment under a balancing test, or 3) the AIR program violated the plaintiffs’ right to association under the First Amendment. Furthermore, Circuit Judge Wilkinson held that the equitable balance weighed against the issuance of a preliminary injunction, noting that the high-crime rate in Baltimore and newness of the pilot program supported the BPD’s effort to implement a technological innovation to stem violence. Chief Judge Roger Gregory wrote a dissenting opinion in which he disagreed with the majority’s characterization of the AIR program as a form of short-term surveillance and pointed to the program’s capacity to track individuals over time to reveal their “most intimate associations and activities” to support his conclusion that the AIR program violated the Fourth Amendment. 979 F.3d 219. However, the November 5 decision was not the end of the battle over the preliminary injunction. On December 22, 2020, the Court of Appeals granted the plaintiffs’ petition for a rehearing en banc. A 15-judge panel heard arguments from both parties on March 8, 2021. Following an eight-seven vote, the Fourth Circuit overruled its prior decision and reversed the district court’s denial of the preliminary injunction on June 24, 2021. Chief Judge Gregory wrote the majority opinion supported by two separate concurrences. The first concurrence by Chief Judge Gregory himself was joined by Circuit Judges Wynn, Thacker, and Harris. The second concurrence was written by Circuit Judge Wynn and joined by Circuit Judges Motz, Thacker, and Harris. The minority filed three separate dissents. The first dissent was written by Circuit Judge Wilkinson and joined by Circuit Judges Niemeyer, Agee, and Quattlebaum, and joined in part by Circuit Judges Diaz, Richardson, and Rushing. Circuit Judges Niemeyer and Diaz filed their own independent dissenting opinions which no other Judges joined. 2021 WL 2584408. One of the issues on appeal was whether the case was moot due to the fact that the Board of Estimates voted to terminate the AIR program on February 3, 2021. According to the majority opinion, while AIR program planes stopped flying over Baltimore on October 31, 2020, BPD submitted requests to RSS for analysis of data collected during the pilot program up until December 8, 2020. On February 2, 2021, BPD and PSS announced that they had deleted most of the data (all but 14.2 percent of images collected) that had been collected over the course of the AIR program. Because the remaining data that the BPD had access to documented thousands of hours of public movement and were being used in around 150 open criminal investigations, the Fourth Circuit held that the preliminary injunction sought by the plaintiffs was not moot as the requested relief, a prohibition on the usage of RSS data by police, could still be granted. 2021 WL 2584408. On the merits of the plaintiffs’ claim for preliminary injunctive relief, Chief Judge Gregory’s analysis was similar to that in his dissenting opinion from November 5, 2020. Here, the Fourth Circuit found that District Judge Bennett erred in holding that the AIR program was capable only of short term tracking, pointing to the fact that the information collected by RSS from its planes was even more precise than GPS and cellphone tracking data. Further, Chief Judge Gregory wrote that the AIR program went beyond an “augmentation” of ordinary police capabilities. Instead, he described the data collected by the program as “record[ing] the movements of a city” in a way that can be readily analyzed to identify the locations of individuals over an extended period of time. The majority held that police access of AIR program data constituted a search and as a result, warrantless collection and analysis of the data violated the Fourth Amendment. The case was remanded to the district court for proceedings consistent with the en banc opinion. 2021 WL 2584408. The case is ongoing.

Summary: In April 2020, two Baltimore activists and a local grassroots think tank filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The plaintiffs alleged that the Baltimore City Police Department’s contract with a private surveillance company to fly panes that captured images of the city for use in police investigations violated the First and Fourth Amendments of the Constitution. The district court denied the plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction a few weeks after the lawsuit was filed. The plaintiffs appealed to the Fourth Circuit and were initially unsuccessful as the Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the motion in November 2020. However, after an en banc rehearing of the case in March 2021, the Fourth Circuit overturned its prior decision in an eight to seven vote and reversed the denial of the motion for a preliminary injunction on June 24, 2021. The case is ongoing.


TSA and DEA seized and confiscated $82,373 in cash from the plaintiff’s carry-on as she boarded a domestic flight in Pennsylvania in August 2019. Visiting her father for the weekend, she had learned that he had stored his life savings, in cash, in numerous envelopes hidden in his home. She offered to deposit the money in a new account she planned to create for him, but the cash was seized before she could deposit it. On January 21, 2020, she and her father filed this lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, alleging that the agencies had confiscated her father's property without suspecting or accusing her of a crime. The plaintiffs, represented by the Institute for Justice, claimed that TSA had acted beyond its statutory authority (49 U.S.C. §114 and §§44901-2), and that both TSA and DEA had violated her Fourth Amendment rights, by confiscating her property without probable cause. The case was assigned to Magistrate Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan. The plaintiffs sought certification of two classes: a “TSA Class” of air travelers from January 15, 2014 onward whose property or person was seized by TSA because of a "large amount" of currency in their possession; and a “DEA Class” of air travelers from January 15, 2014 onward whose property was seized by DEA because they were traveling with at least $5,000 in currency. For both classes, the plaintiffs sought class-wide declaratory and injunctive relief against the agencies. Individually, they sought the return of the $82,373, along with compensatory damages and costs and fees. In February 2020 DEA offered, without explanation, to return the money. On May 29, 2020, both agencies moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction and failure to state a claim. As of June 9, 2020, those motions are pending.

Summary: The plaintiffs filed this putative class action litigation against TSA and DEA, claiming that the agencies acted illegally and violated class members' Fourth Amendment rights by seizing and confiscating currency without reasonably suspecting them of a crime.


On September 26, 2007, ten individuals who had been arrested by the Danbury, Connecticut police for alleged civil immigration violations, represented by attorneys and law student interns with the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization of the Yale Law School, filed a civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut alleging discriminatory and unauthorized enforcement of federal immigration laws against Latino residents of Danbury, in violation of the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Connecticut Constitution and state common law. They sued the Mayor and Chief of Police of Danbury, local officers, and ICE officials. Specifically, Plaintiffs alleged that the Mayor and the Danbury Police Department engaged in an unlawful campaign against immigrant and Latino communities, which included targeting Latinos for pretextual traffic stops for the purpose of investigating their immigration status. Plaintiffs alleged that officers would search detained drivers' names in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, arrest them for civil immigration violations, and then turn the arrestees over to ICE for deportation. Plaintiffs further alleged that, as part of the Mayor's plan to rid the city of immigrants, the Danbury Police Department conducted a September 19, 2006 immigration raid with ICE officials, during which eleven Latino day-laborers (the "Danbury 11") who had gathered at a Danbury park were arrested, detained, and turned over to ICE. Nine of the eleven arrested laborers were plaintiffs in the instant lawsuit. Plaintiffs alleged that the eleven men were racially profiled and arrested without probable cause. Plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief and compensatory and punitive damages for the alleged violations. An Amended Complaint was filed on November 26, 2007. The case was referred to Magistrate Judge Donna F. Martinez for entry of a scheduling order and to supervise discovery. On February 1, 2008, Defendants filed a motion to disqualify Plaintiffs' counsel because the Jerome N. Frank Legal Services Organization had advised another organization with which the Mayor had been affiliated. On July 3, 2008, Judge Martinez denied Defendant's Motion to Disqualify. Following that, both parties filed numerous motions regarding various issues in discovery that Magistrate Judge Martinez resolved. A Second Amended Complaint was filed on October 1, 2009. On February 22, 2011, the case was dismissed without prejudice as both parties reported that this action had been settled in full. The terms of the settlement are not available at the time of this writing.

Summary: Individuals who had been arrested by Danbury, Connecticut police for civil immigration violations sued the city and ICE under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging violations of the U.S. Constitution and state law. The parties reached a settlement agreement, and the court dismissed the case. The settlement's terms are unknown.


On May 7, 2008, a black New York City resident filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The plaintiff, represented by attorneys from the New York Civil Liberties Union, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as damages and attorneys' fees, alleging that the City of New York's "stop and frisk" policy violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, as well as various rights under the New York State Constitution and laws. This case is related to Floyd v. City of New York, 08-cv-1034 (PN-NY-0009 in this Clearinghouse). The facts giving rise to the lawsuit occurred on November 28, 2007 when plaintiff was stopped, frisked, and taken to and detained at the 49th Precinct. Plaintiff was issued two summonses for disobeying a lawful order and making unreasonable noise, both of which were ultimately dismissed. On September 24, 2008, the parties settled all of plaintiff's claims. Plaintiff received $15,001 and attorneys' fees of $9,000.00, and the City of New York agreed to treat the record of his detention as sealed.

Summary: On May 7, 2008 a black New York City resident filed this lawsuit against the City of New York alleging that his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated when he was detained and searched pursuant to New York City's "stop and frisk" policies. This case is related to Floyd v. City of New York, 08-cv-1034 (PN-NY-0009 in this Clearinghouse). On September 24, 2008 the parties settled all claims; the plaintiff received $15,001 in damages, $9,000.00 in attorneys' fees, and an agreement that the record of his detention would be sealed.


A woman incarcerated at Pennsylvania’s Berks County Jail filed this lawsuit against the County and several county officials and jail officials. Her complaint, filed November 30, 2018 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, alleged that the jail violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by discriminating against her on the basis of her sex: her “Trusty” security classification did not qualify her for lower-security housing in the off-site Community Reentry Center, but male inmates with the same security classification did qualify for such off-site housing, with increased freedom of movement, work-release privileges, and expanded educational opportunities. She sued on behalf of herself and others similarly situated. For the entire class, she sought declaratory judgment (under 28 U.S.C. §§2201-2202), as well as injunctive relief requiring the County to give female “Trusty” inmates housing, privileges, and programming comparable to those granted to their male counterparts. Individually, she alleged that jail officials had retaliated against her for filing grievances, and sought monetary damages. She was represented by the Pennsylvania Institutional Law Project. The case was assigned to Judge Mark A. Kearney. In December 2018, the plaintiff twice sought a preliminary injunction and was twice denied. On January 15, 2019, the court granted her third request for a preliminary injunction, 355 F. Supp. 3d 239 (E.D. Pa. 2019). Two days later, the Third Circuit stayed the injunction in part. The First Amended Complaint, on January 17, joined as plaintiffs two other women incarcerated at the Berks County Jail, similarly unable to qualify for housing and privileges commensurate with their “Trusty” security classification. Together, the three plaintiffs moved for class certification, which the court denied. In February 2019, the court dissolved the preliminary injunction of January 17; the lead plaintiff and one of her co-plaintiffs had been released from custody, and the third plaintiff had not properly exhausted administrative remedies. 2019 WL 653788. On April 5, 2019, the court partially granted the County’s motion to dismiss. 2019 WL 1507769. Discovery could proceed on: injunctive relief to prohibit the disparate treatment; the lead plaintiff’s damage claims against the non-immune individual defendants; some of the lead plaintiff’s First Amendment retaliation claims; and the sex discrimination claim under the Pennsylvania Constitution. The court dismissed all other claims. Two weeks later, the lead plaintiff filed the Second Amended Complaint, replacing the original co-plaintiffs with two other women similarly incarcerated at the Jail. They moved for a preliminary injunction on April 24, and the injunction was granted on May 20. In the meantime, one of the new co-plaintiffs had, without explanation, dismissed all of her claims with prejudice. On June 3, the two remaining plaintiffs moved for class certification. The same day, the court denied the County's motion to stay all proceedings. 2019 WL 2368579. The court granted class certification on July 8, 2019: “All current and future female inmates committed to the Berks County Jail System who have the Trusty custody-level classification but denied assignment to the Community Reentry Center (“CRC”) and denied access to the privileges and services available to men assigned to the CRC.” 2019 WL 2950171. The same day, the court granted partial summary judgment to the County. While the Fourteenth Amendment claim was allowed to proceed, all other claims were dismissed. Several individual defendants were also dismissed. On July 11, 2019, the court held Berks County in civil contempt for failure to comply with the May 20 preliminary injunction. 2019 WL 3068991. The lead plaintiff was granted compensatory sanctions and attorneys fees. However, this contempt finding was later reversed by the Third Circuit, which found that the May 20 preliminary injunction had not included an explicit needs-narrowness-intrusiveness finding as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The injunction was thus invalid and could not be a basis for a contempt finding. Throughout the litigation, the County brought a total of 5 interlocutory appeals (Third Circuit docket numbers 19-01329, 19-02193, 19-02648, 19-02695, and 19-03060). Only the appeals regarding the May 20 preliminary injunction and the July 11 contempt order were successful. On October 17, 2019, the court granted partial summary judgment to the plaintiffs. 2019 WL 5266147. The court found that "Berks County violated [the plaintiffs'] rights when it discriminated against them in disparate treatment as to freedom of mobility, access to privileges, and visitation on the basis of their sex in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution." However, there remained questions of material fact as to whether the County provided equal access to furloughs for female "Trusty" inmates. This question, along with the question of a permanent injunction and the lead plaintiff’s individual damages, would be decided at trial. The week before the trial, the County announced that the Community Reentry Center had been closed and that all male inmates had been returned to the jail proper. The 3-phase trial was held from Tuesday, November 12 through Friday, November 15, 2019. In the first phase, the jury found that Berks County had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by providing the plaintiffs less access to furloughs than their male counterparts. In the second phase, the jury found that the County’s violation of the Equal Protection Clause had caused the plaintiff emotional pain, and awarded the lead plaintiff $2,800 in damages. The third and final phase was tried without jury; the court ordered a permanent injunction against the County. 2020 WL 236911. {DID IT INCLUDE PLRA FINDINGS?} The court entered judgment on April 7, 2020, and ordered the County to pay approximately $510,000 in costs and attorneys’ fees. 2020 WL 1694600. As of June 15, 2020, no appeal had been filed.

Summary: A woman incarcerated in the Berks County Jail (Pennsylvania) was discriminated against because of her sex. Alleging that the County had violated her Fourteenth Amendment and First Amendment rights, and her rights under the Pennsylvania Constitution, she sued the County for class-wide injunctive relief and for individual damages. The litigation concluded with a 4-day trial. The jury found that the County had violated the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, and awarded the plaintiff $2,800 in damages. The court ordered a permanent class-wide injunction, and awarded the plaintiff nearly $510,000 in costs and attorneys' fees.


On February 26, 2009, inmates at Donaldson Correctional Facility filed this class action lawsuit against Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) and relevant officials under 42. U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. Represented by Southern Center for Human Rights (SCHR) and private counsel, the plaintiffs alleged that overcrowded facility resulted into serious physical violence and denial of plaintiff’s basic human needs. This, they alleged, violated the Eight and Fourteenth Amendments. The plaintiffs sought declaratory, injunctive, monetary relief, as well as class action certification. The plaintiffs defined the class as “all persons who are now or will in the future be incarcerated at Donaldson Correctional Facility.” This case was assigned to district Judge William Keith Watkins. After a year of engaging in discovery, the parties each moved for summary judgment in February 2010. Judge Watkins denied the motion for class certification without prejudice on September 16, 2010. After a settlement conference on February 23, 2010, parties continued to engage in settlement negotiations and finally settled this case on April 19, 2011. The remedy included a payment of attorneys’ fees and costs of $66,860.10 to the plaintiffs’ counsel. The settlement agreement specifically required the ADOC officers to be physically present 24 hours per day in many of the prisons dorms and revise its use of force policy significantly. The ADOC agreed to end the practice of triple-bunking prisoners in cells built for two men and to solicit technical assistance from the National Institute of Corrections for help in reducing the presence of weapons and other contraband at Donaldson. The agreement required the ADOC to forward to SCHR documentation regarding violent incidents at Donaldson. The court granted the parties’ joint motion to stay the case on April 20, 2011. The action was stayed for over a year to allow defendants to improve conditions at the prison. The plaintiffs did not file any motion to lift the stay. Judge Watkins dismissed this lawsuit without prejudice on March 30, 2012.

Summary: On 2009, inmates at Donaldson Correctional Facility filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama. The plaintiffs alleged that the defendants' overcrowded facility resulted into serious physical violence and denial of plaintiff’s basic human needs. They sought declaratory, injunctive, monetary relief, as well as class action certification. The parties reached a settlement agreement on 2011.


On October 15, 2013, seven Michigan prisoners under the age of 18 but confined in adult correctional institutions filed this putative class action in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan. The plaintiffs brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and 18 U.S.C. § 1591 against the Michigan Department of Corrections, the Governor of Michigan, and a number of named correctional officers and administrators. Represented by private counsel, the plaintiffs alleged that they were sexually assaulted or harassed by adult prisoners and guards while confined in adult correctional institutions run by the Michigan Department of Corrections. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged that the policy and practice of placing juveniles in adult prisons without taking adequate steps to protect them from known harm constituted deliberate indifference to their safety in violation of rights guaranteed by the Fourth Amendment, Eighth Amendment, Fourteenth Amendment, and various international treaties. The plaintiffs sought injunctive and declaratory relief as well as monetary damages. In addition to this lawsuit, the plaintiffs also filed a complaint in state court for damages based on the same alleged facts. A summary of that lawsuit is available here. On December 20, 2013, the defendants moved to dismiss the case. Two months later, they also moved for summary judgment, claiming that the plaintiffs lacked standing because they were no longer minors, and that the claims were moot because minor prisoners were no longer housed with adults. The following month, the United States submitted a statement of interest clarifying its position on the Prison Rape Elimination Act. It stated that the defendants were incorrect in their assertions (1) that the PREA did not apply to states, and (2) that the “alleged risk” of harm to youthful offenders became moot when the MDOC changed its practices and began separating youthful offenders from adults. The U.S. instead stated that the PREA did apply to state institutions and compliance alone did not render a claim moot. On May 28, 2014, District Court Judge Robert H. Cleland granted in part and denied in part the motion to dismiss. He held that the plaintiffs did have standing, despite no longer being underage, as standing is determined at the time the complaint is filed. As for mootness, the court held that the defendants' voluntary cessation of the practice of housing minors with adults was not enough to render the case moot. The practice was still permissible under state law and the defendants themselves had characterized their compliance with this provision of PREA as voluntary. However, the court did grant the defendants summary judgment on the plaintiffs' claims under the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and customary international law. The court dismissed these claims because none of the treaties created an independently enforceable right and because there was no peremptory norm of international law against housing youth and adults together in correctional institutions. 2014 WL 2207136 (E.D. Mich. May 28, 2014). The defendants filed an additional motion to dismiss, alleging that the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment claims should be dismissed because the issues were better suited for Eighth Amendment analysis, and that the defendants were entitled to qualified immunity. The court denied this motion on August 5, 2014. For the next few years, much of this litigation focused on whether the plaintiffs had exhausted their administrative remedies as required by the Prison Litigation Reform Act. First, in May 2014, the defendants moved for summary judgment as to Plaintiff John Doe 3. They filed an additional motion in May 2015, which the court granted in part and denied in part on February 8, 2016. The court granted summary judgment for the claims by all of the named plaintiffs except for John Doe 3, whose claim could go forward because there was a triable issue of fact related to whether defendants had thwarted his previous efforts to grieve. 2016 WL 465496 (E.D. Mich. Feb. 8, 2016). The plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on March 15, 2016, adding five new John Doe plaintiffs. Several of the plaintiffs dismissed under the February 2016 order subsequently exhausted the administrative remedies and filed a separate case in the same court (docket number 16-13765). Judge Robert Cleland consolidated the cases on May 8, 2017. Meanwhile, the defendants filed another motion for summary judgment based on exhaustion. On March 14, 2017, the court granted in part and denied in part the motion. It dismissed two plaintiffs and allowed one to remain. The defendants then moved for summary judgment twice more, which the court denied on February 21, 2018 and then later granted in part on November 5. In response to the defendants’ attempts to dismiss plaintiffs from the case, the plaintiffs moved to apply a single John Doe exhaustion to the entire putative class. The court denied this motion on February 21, 2018, holding that it was not the appropriate time to determine the imputed exhaustion question because the plaintiffs had not yet shown actual exhaustion by any class representative. On November 5, 2018, the court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss some of the claims, finding that some of the John Doe plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their administrative remedies. The court explained that these plaintiffs could not demonstrate exhaustion by compliance with the defendants' PREA grievance process because these plaintiffs' claims arose before MDOC adopted that process. The court also dismissed the Michigan Department of Corrections from the case on sovereign immunity grounds. 2018 WL 5786199 (E.D. Mich. 2018). Judge Cleland terminated the case without prejudice on March 20, 2020. Judge Cleland noted that the state court case settled, so he therefore terminated this case. More information can be found with regards to the state court adjudication and eventual settlement here: PC-MI-0039.

Summary: In 2013, seven individuals under the age of 18 confined in adult correction institutions, filed suit against the Michigan Department of Corrections, Governor of Michigan, and a number of named correctional officers and administrators alleging sexual assault by adult prisoners and guards while confined in adult correctional institutions run by defendants. After multiple summary judgment motions chipped away at the plaintiffs' case and a successful dismissal of the Michigan Department of Corrections as a defendant, few claims survive and the case is ongoing.


On September 28, 2009, the EEOC filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against Creative Networks LLC under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). The EEOC alleged that Creative Networks LLC violated the ADA by failing to provide reasonable accommodations to deaf and hard of hearing job applicants through its policy of capping the money spent on accommodations for job training at $200. The EEOC argued that such caps were both a violation of the ADA and had the effect of discriminating against deaf and hard-of-hearing applicants. On January 14, 2011, the EEOC filed a motion for partial summary judgement. The court denied that motion without prejudice on April 8, 2011 finding that the parties should conduct further discovery. In December 2011, both parties moved for summary judgement. On September 20, 2012, the court granted the EEOC's motion to partial summary judgment and denied the defendant's motion. The court found that Creative Networks did not provide sufficient evidence to create a issue of disputed fact as to whether the Defendant denied the charging party a reasonable accommodation in violation of the ADA. On September 19, 2013, the District Court (Judge David A. Ezra) approved a Consent Decree, which included [1] an injunction that orders the Defendant to not discriminate against persons with disabilities, not to retaliate against those who complained of discrimination, [2] monetary relief for the woman discriminated against in the amount of $57,500, [3] Defendants will change their policies including removing any cap on spending for accommodations, [4] Defendants will train their employees in disability awareness and accommodations, and [5] Defendants will report on progress to the Regional District Attorney for the EEOC for Arizona during the term of the Decree. The Decree lasted for two years. It has since run its course without any further litigation. The case is now closed.

Summary: On September 28, 2009, the EEOC filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona against Creative Networks LLC, alleging it violated the ADA by failing to provide reasonable accommodations to deaf job applicants through its policy of capping the money spent on accommodations for job training at $200. The court approved a monetary settlement of $57,500 and a two-year Consent Decree where the defendant was required to adopt non-discriminatory policies.


On April 19, 2000, a woman formerly employed by Rent-A-Center filed this action in the U.S. District Court of Western Illinois against her employer alleging sexual harassment, sexual discrimination, and retaliation. Her claims were brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and Missouri state law. Specifically, the plaintiff alleged that she was sexually and physically harassed by her manager. The manager called the plaintiff several sexually explicit names, made explicit comments, and told her that women did not belong in the workplace. In one incident, the manager intentionally caused the plaintiff to cut her face while she moved furniture. Neither the local manager nor Rent-A-Center’s regional manager responded to the plaintiff’s repeated complaints about her treatment. In addition to the harassment, the plaintiff also alleged that she was paid less than similarly situated male employees, offered fewer promotional opportunities, assigned different job duties, and assessed by different standards of conduct because of her sex. Finally, the plaintiff alleged she was fired because of her sex, and in retaliation for her repeated complaints about the work environment. The plaintiff sought back pay, front pay, compensatory and punitive damages. The plaintiff filed an amended class action complaint on December 18, 2000, brought on behalf of herself and other women who were subjected to similar harassment while employed by Rent-A-Center. The amended complaint sought declaratory relief, injunctive relief, and monetary damages under the same claims as the initial compliant. It alleged that Rent-A-Center engaged in a pattern of sex-based discrimination by creating a hostile work environment, paying women less, and systemically denying female employees the same opportunities for advancement as male employees. In particular, the plaintiffs claimed that Rent-A-Center had imposed an arbitrary seventy-five pound lifting requirement for all new hires for the purpose of hiring fewer women. In addition to narrowing the pool of potential hires, the plaintiffs claimed that the lifting policy created a trickle-down effect that reduced the representation of women at all levels of the company. The plaintiffs also alleged that Rent-A-Center systemically retaliated against women who complained about the discrimination and that, by disbanding its Human Resources department, Rent-A-Center made it more difficult for women employed by the company to obtain relief from the hostile workplace environment. Following the filing of the amended complaint, Rent-A-Center filed a motion to dismiss or to compel arbitration on January 2, 2001, claiming that the plaintiffs had signed an arbitration agreement as a condition of their employment. Rent-A-Center also filed a motion for transfer of venue. On May 1, Judge Ortrie D. Smith ordered the parties to file additional briefing on whether the arbitration agreement was effective only during employment or extended after the plaintiff had left her job with Rent-A-Center. Judge Smith granted the motion to compel arbitration on July 18, and stayed the proceedings until arbitration was complete. Judge Smith found that, while the arbitration agreement could be narrowly read to only cover grievances during employment, such a reading was not consistent with the intentions of either party when signing the contract. On September 14, Judge Smith denied the motion for transfer of venue. On August 13, the plaintiffs moved for a reconsideration of Judge Smith’s order to compel arbitration. The plaintiffs asserted that the arbitration agreement was invalid under Missouri state law. On November 9, Judge Smith granted the plaintiffs' motion to reconsider and stayed the case during arbitration, which was not opposed by Rent-A-Center. The plaintiffs and Rent-A-Center filed a motion for preliminary approval of a settlement agreement on October 31. Part of the proposed settlement was an injunction barring any other class certification in similar lawsuits against Rent-A-Center. The settlement was opposed, however, by a group of women formerly employed by Rent-A-Center who were pursuing a similar class action case against Rent-A-Center in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois at the same that this case was being litigated in Missouri. This group, the objectors, filed a motion to oppose the settlement in the Bunch case on November 5. The objectors alleged that their case was almost identical to this case, but that they, and not the plaintiffs in this case, were the “legitimate representatives” of the class of women who were discriminated against by Rent-A-Center. Further, the objectors alleged that the proposed settlement was designed by Rent-A-Center to end the class action on more favorable terms than Rent-A-Center would be able to obtain from the objectors. In particular, the objectors pointed to the fact that the settlement in this case was filed the day after the objectors filed their motion for class certification. On November 9, the objectors filed a motion to intervene to oppose both class certification and the settlement agreement in this case. Judge Smith granted the objectors’ motion to intervene to challenge the preliminary injunction against other class action certifications on November 29. On the same day, Judge Smith approved the preliminary settlement between the plaintiffs in this case and Rent-A-Center, while denying the objectors’ motion to oppose the settlement. Judge Smith held that the objectors’ opposition to the settlement was premature and would be more appropriate later in the proceedings. In a third order on November 29, Judge Smith also granted the motion for class certification in this case. The class was defined as “[a]ll females who worked at, applied for work, and/or who attempted to apply but were affirmatively discouraged by the Defendant from applying for work at any Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center, Inc., or Renters Choice, Inc. store in the United States or any of its territories, at any time between April 19, 1998 and October 1, 2001 . . . except that the Class does not include any female employed as a Market Manager and/or Regional Director nor any female who previously entered into a written settlement agreement with Rent-A-Center, Rent-A-Center, Inc., or Renters Choice, Inc. which releases claims of gender discrimination.” On December 3, the objectors appealed Judge Smith’s decision to deny their motion to intervene on the settlement approval process. The appeal was denied on December 11. On January 18, 2002, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a motion to intervene in the settlement proceedings, on the grounds that Title VII is administered by the Commission and the federal agencies have a right to intervene in cases that rely on a statute administered by that agency. The Commission moved to intervene to “protect absent class members and to subject this settlement to heightened scrutiny,” among other reasons. The motion to intervene was opposed by both the Bunch plaintiffs and Rent-A-Center. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s motion to intervene was granted by Judge Smith on February 28. The objectors again moved to intervene to object to the proposed settlement on January 25. Prior to this filing, the objectors had been appointed as class representatives in their class action in Illinois against Rent-A-Center. They argued that the Bunch plaintiffs did not adequately represent the interests of the objectors' class in this proceeding. Intervention was opposed by both the Bunch plaintiffs and Rent-A-Center, on the grounds that the objectors had already opted out of the class settlement that had been proposed in this case. On February 28, Judge Smith denied the objectors' motion to intervene. Judge Smith ruled that the objectors had no substantial interest in this litigation, because they had preserved their right to litigate separately by opting out of the settlement in this case. Judge Smith further held that the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, whose intervention was approved on the same day, would adequately represent the objectors’ interests in ensuring a fair settlement in this case. On March 26, the plaintiffs moved for final approval of a settlement agreement. The settlement included monetary damages for all class members, an alternative dispute resolution fund where class members who were dissatisfied with the offered sums could seek different monetary compensation, and a consent decree compelling Rent-A-Center to take measures to improve gender equity within the company. The settlement was endorsed by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on April 9, by the Impact Fund and the National Organization of Women Foundation on April 11, and by Rent-A-Center on April 16. Before the settlement was approved, however, the objectors announced a separate settlement with Rent-A-Center in their own lawsuit. The objectors’ settlement preempted the settlement in this case because of the near total overlap in class members, but that settlement did not include an alternative dispute resolution process. On July 15, Judge Smith held that the alternative dispute resolution process in this case would supplement the objectors’ settlement, and that class members who were dissatisfied with the compensation offered by the objectors’ settlement could utilize the alternative dispute resolution process in this settlement. 2002 WL 35645390 (W.D. Mo. July 15, 2002). Judge Smith issued an order approving an amendment to the alternative dispute resolution plan on December 13, 2002. Judge Smith also approved the arbiter’s ruling on distribution of funds On December 5, 2003 (2003 WL 27382901) and issued a correction to that ruling on December 12 (2003 WL 27382900). The case was dismissed on February 25, 2004, after the adjudication of all claims by class members who opted to participate in the alternative dispute resolution process. The case is now closed.

Summary: In 2000, a former employee of Rent-A-Center brought this class action in the Western District of Missouri alleging pervasive sexual harassment against female employees. The plaintiffs brought claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and state law. In 2002, the parties reached a settlement creating a process for adjudicating claims arising from the harassment. After extensive litigation regarding the fairness of the settlement, the settlement was finally approved and the case is now closed.


The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on August 31, 2006 against Albion River Inn, Inc., on behalf of an Arab restaurant manager who was fired for refusing to apologize to a customer he asked to leave the restaurant. Because the customer allegedly used racial epithets, slurs, and violent language toward the manager and a Tunisian employee, the EEOC sued for race- or national-origin-based retaliation and discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. sections 2000(e) et seq. The EEOC sought monetary and injunctive relief for the employee, including back pay, benefits, compensation for emotional harm, punitive damages, and revision of antidiscrimination policies. The EEOC also sought its costs. On February 9, 2007, the employee intervened in the case with the approval of the Court seeking monetary relief. His complaint included the Title VII charges but added claims under state law for discrimination and retaliation in violation of California's Fair Employment and Housing Act, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and wrongful termination. During discovery the parties had a dispute about whether mediator privilege (the right to keep discussions with a mediator confidential) extended to a friend of the owners of Albion River Inn, who was a certified financial planner and whose help the owners requested in resolving financial and management disputes. The Court (Judge Susan Illston) held that no privilege applied, because the "mediator" was not part of the court's official program and was mediating, if at all, between the defendants rather than between adverse parties to a lawsuit. 2007 WL 2667430 (N.D. Cal. 2007). The Court denied Defendant's later request to reconsider the issue. 2007 WL 2560718 (N.D. Cal. 2007). The parties participated in official mediation on May 8, 2007, but did not reach a settlement. The parties eventually did decide to settle, reaching agreement on February 4, 2008, the first day of trial, before the trial began. (The Court later ordered the parties to pay the costs of empaneling a jury for the first day of trial.) The Court entered their settlement agreement as a consent decree on February 27, 2008. The decree contained both monetary and injunctive relief. The employee was to be paid $165,000, inclusive of $75,000 for attorneys' fees and $15,000 for costs. Under the injunctive terms of the decree Albion River Inn was required to revise its anti-discrimination policies and complaint procedure, to post notice of settlement and the complaint procedure, to give employees anti-discrimination training, to report completion of training to the EEOC, and to communicate discipline policies as well as the duty to actively monitor the workplace for discrimination to managers and supervisors. The decree was to remain in effect for three years. No further Court involvement appears on the docket, and the case is now closed.

Summary: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a race-or-national-origin retaliation and discrimination lawsuit against Albion River Inn, Inc., on behalf of an Arab restaurant manager who was fired for refusing to apologize to a customer he asked to leave the restaurant. The customer allegedly used racial epithets, slurs, and violent language toward the manager and a Tunisian employee under him. The EEOC sought monetary and injunctive relief for the employee and also sought its costs.The employee intervened in the case adding state-law claims and seeking monetary relief. The parties eventually did decide to settle, agreed to settle on February 4, 2008, the first day of trial. The Court later ordered the parties to pay the costs of empaneling a jury for the first day of trial. The Court (Judge Susan Illston) entered their 3-year settlement agreement as a consent decree. The decree contained both monetary and injunctive relief. The employee was to be paid $165,000, inclusive of $75,000 for attorneys' fees and $15,000 for costs. No further Court involvement appears on the docket, and the case is now closed.


On September 8, 2015, the Disability Law Center, a non-profit organization that advocates on behalf of individuals with disabilities, and three individuals who were charged with criminal offenses but declared incompetent to stand trial, filed this class-action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah. The plaintiffs sued Utah, the Utah Department of Human Services, the Utah Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, and the Utah State Hospital, under 42 U.S.C. §1983. Represented by Disability Law Center attorneys and private counsel, the plaintiffs sought declaratory and injunctive relief, claiming that the state violated their rights under Article I Section 7 of the United States Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and parallel provisions in the Utah Constitution. Specifically, they alleged that criminal defendants who were declared incompetent in Utah were forced to wait for an average of 6 months in county jails, without appropriate treatment, before they could receive competency restoration treatment (each named plaintiff had waited in a county jail for 5 to 6 months). This was because the Utah State Hospital, the only facility in Utah authorized to provide competency services, was past its capacity. Criminal defendants in jail while awaiting treatment were often placed in protective custody or solitary confinement. The state moved to dismiss the complaint on October 30, 2015. On April 7, 2016, District Judge Robert J. Shelby denied the state’s motion to dismiss, holding that a pretrial detention amounted to punishment and thus violated the plaintiffs’ substantive due process rights when their detention was not reasonably related to a government interest. 180 F. Supp. 3d 998. On September 17, 2015, the plaintiffs sought to certify a class. A year later, on September 27, 2016, the court granted certification, defining the class as: “All individuals who are now, or will be in the future,

charged with a crime in Utah,
are determined by the court in which they are charged to be mentally incompetent to stand trial, and
are ordered to the custody of the executive director of [DHS] or a designee for the purpose of treatment intended to restore the defendant to competency but remain housed in a Utah county jail.”
 The state sought permission to appeal the class certification; the Tenth Circuit denied the request in November 2016. Having reached a settlement agreement, the parties moved on June 12, 2017 for the court to approve their agreement. It was approved on July 12, 2017, with Dr. Patrick Fox appointed as monitor. The state agreed to transmit a monthly status report to the monitor and to the Disability Law Center; to conduct a screening of every mentally incompetent criminal defendant within 72 hours after the Department of Human Services received a custody order; to gradually reduce the maximum allowable wait time to 14 days by March 31, 2019; to establish offsite forensic facilities for treatment outside of the Utah State Hospital; and to implement an outreach program to treat class members housed in detention facilities. The court retained jurisdiction over the implementation and enforcement of this agreement for 5 years, with monitoring to continue until July 12, 2022. Each party agreed to bear their own litigation costs. As of July 2020, monitoring continues.

Summary: This lawsuit was filed in 2015 by pretrial detainees who were declared incompetent to stand trial but forced to wait in jail for months for competency restoration treatment. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, the complaint alleged that such detention violated the detainees' rights under Article I Section 7 of the Constitution, the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Utah Constitution. In 2017, the parties reached a settlement agreement requiring the state to reduce waiting times for competency services, to provide in-jail treatment while a detainee is waiting for competency services, and to submit regular status reports to a monitor and the plaintiffs. The monitoring was to continue until July 2022.


COVID-19 Summary: This is an action brought by immigrant detainees particularly susceptible to a serious COVID-19 infection in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi, alleging unconstitutional conditions of confinement and requesting release due to COVID-19. The case was dismissed on April 6 for lack of jurisdiction.
 On April 1, 2020, seventeen immigrant detainees, who are are highly vulnerable to serious injury and death if they contract COVID-19, filed this action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Represented by the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Loyola Law Clinic, and private counsel, the plaintiffs sued U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the New Orleans ICE Field Office, and the wardens of 5 ICE detention centers across Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. Plaintiffs filed this suit under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 551 et seq, the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 701 et seq, and the federal habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2241, alleging violations of the APA, the Rehabilitation Act, and their Fifth Amendment rights. Specifically, they alleged that the defendants had failed to implement social distancing and hygiene measures, which amounted to punitive conditions of confinement given the threat of COVID-19. The plaintiffs sought a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that release from detention was the only appropriate remedy to the unconstitutional conditions. The case was assigned to Judge Greg Gerard Guidry and Magistrate Judge Karen Wells Roby. The plaintiffs simultaneously filed an emergency motion for temporary restraining order, requesting the court to order the defendants to immediately release the plaintiffs from custody. On April 4, the defendants filed a response in opposition to the temporary restraining order, arguing primarily that the court could not grant habeas relief because none of the plaintiffs or detention facilities were located within the territorial jurisdiction of the Eastern District of Louisiana. On April 6, Judge Guidry dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, acknowledging that the plaintiffs from each state could file claims separately in the appropriate district court. 2020 WL 1674129. Plaintiffs counsel did just that and filed an action on behalf of the Louisiana plaintiffs on April 14,  found here in the Clearinghouse.

Summary: Immigrant detainees in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi brought this action in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, requesting release from their respective detention facilities because they were not being adequately protected from COVID-19. The case was dismissed for lack of jurisdiction on April 6.


On May 29, 2007, a fair housing focused nonprofit organization filed a lawsuit against the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development ("HUD") under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1437(f) and 3608(e)(5) in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas. Plaintiff, represented by private counsel, asked the court for injunctive relief, claiming that HUD should use smaller rental housing market areas, instead of large multi-county regions, as a basis for determining Fair Market Rents ("FMRs"). Specifically, plaintiff alleged that HUD's practice of using a large multi-county region as the starting point for determining FMR violated both 42 U.S.C. § 1437(f), which requires HUD to base FMRs on "market area," and the Fair Housing Act of 1968, 42 U.S.C. § 3601, et seq., which imposes an affirmative duty on HUD to promote fair housing policies. Under its housing subsidy programs, HUD contracted with local public housing agencies and private landlords to pay the difference between the FMR and the amount paid by the tenant (roughly 30% of the tenant's income.) The lower the FMR, the less likely it was for a low-income tenant to be able to find an affordable unit. The "market area" used by HUD to determine FMRs in the Dallas rental housing market was comprised of eight counties. HUD, however, applied rent levels calculated using a twelve-county region. Plaintiff alleged that this practice resulted in lower FMRs for the Dallas rental housing market area, thereby precluding the Housing Choice Voucher Program participants from obtaining rental housing in more affluent, Caucasian areas. On October 2, 2007, defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that plaintiff lacked standing and that plaintiff's claims were barred by the doctrine of sovereign immunity. On September 29, 2009, the Court (Judge Reed O'Connor) granted defendant's motion on the ground of sovereign immunity with respect to plaintiff's claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1437(f), but denied the motion in all other respects. On October 26, 2009, plaintiff amended its complaint and sought relief under 42 U.S.C. § 3604(a) and 42 U.S.C. § 3608(e)(5), arguing that the state's practice violated equal protection incorporated in the Fifth Amendment. HUD filed their answer to the amended complaint a month later. The parties then appeared to enter into settlement negotiations. On May 4, 2010, the Court ordered the parties to submit a settlement by June 4th. When this deadline passed without a settlement agreement, the Court temporarily closed the case. It reopened the case in 2012 to officially dismiss the case after the parties apparently filed a settlement agreement. The agreement is not publicly available, and the case is now closed.

Summary: This case was brought by a nonprofit fair housing organization against the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development challenging the way HUD determines "fair market rent" in the Dallas area. Plaintiff claims that the method unfairly reduces FMR, resulting in fewer affordable units for low income renters. The case was closed by a stipulated dismissal, and we have no information about a settlement agreement.


On December 27, 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), on behalf of a female cook diagnosed with breast cancer, filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District Court of North Carolina under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, ("ADA") and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 against Britthaven, Inc. The EEOC sought injunctive relief, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees and costs, claiming that the defendant discriminated against one if its employees based on her disability when it terminated the employee's employment while she was on medical leave for chemotherapy treatments. The employee began working as a full-time cook for the defendant on September 25, 2009 and was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months later. She immediately notified the defendant of her diagnosis and her treatment plan. The employee received chemotherapy treatment until about October 2010, where she underwent surgery related to her breast cancer. She gave the defendant a doctor's note requesting four to six weeks of medical leave for the surgery. The defendant responded it would be glad to have the employee return back to work on December 10, 2010. However, on November 29, 2010, the employee received a call from her supervisor saying she was going to get fired for not coming into work. The employee was given the option of resigning, but when she refused to do so, the defendant terminated her employment. On January 9, 2014, the District Court (Judge William Earl Britt) issued a consent decree where, among other things, the defendant agreed to pay the employee $50,000. The decree was entered in 2014 and scheduled to last 2016. No further docket entries exist, so the case is closed.

Summary: On December 27, 2012, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"), on behalf of a female cook diagnosed with breast cancer, filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District Court of North Carolina under the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, as amended, ("ADA") and Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1991 against Britthaven, Inc. The EEOC sought injunctive relief, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and attorneys' fees and costs, claiming that the defendant discriminated against one if its employees based on her disability when it terminated the employee's employment while she was on medical leave for chemotherapy treatments. On January 9, 2014, the District Court (Judge William Earl Britt) issued a consent decree where, among other things, the defendant agreed to pay the employee $50,000.


On August 31, 2011, prisoners at Jefferson County Jail filed a class action lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama, under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, against the Sheriff of Jefferson County and the Commissioner of Jefferson County, in their official capacities, and against Jefferson County. The plaintiffs, represented by private counsel, sought declaratory and injunctive relief, alleging violations of RLUIPA, and the First, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged overcrowding, indecent living standards, restrictions on mail, ineffective segregation, and the prohibition of religious materials from inmates had led to numerous constitutional and statutory violations. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint on November 8, 2011 to include discussion of a related state court case, Hale v. Jefferson County, CV-09-2041 (JC-AL-0025 in the Clearinghouse). In Hale v. Jefferson County, an Alabama state court enjoined Jefferson County from implementing budgetary cuts that would have affected the Office of the Sheriff. On June 13, 2014, the parties to the present case entered a joint stipulation regarding proposed class settlement. Under the terms of the settlement, the following actions had been taken or were in the process of being taken, by the defendant: enforcing limits on the number of inmates housed in each cell, creating a new employment position to monitor the inmate housing blocks, increasing staffing throughout the jail, offering inmates access to recreational activities and improved sanitation, reporting, and paying plaintiffs' attorneys fees. Pursuant to the June 2014 settlement agreement, the court dismissed the case with prejudice on January 5, 2016, finding that no further proceedings were needed to address conditions in the jail.

Summary: In August 2011, inmates at Jefferson County Jail filed a class action lawsuitagainst Jefferson County and several jail officials. The plaintiffs alleged overcrowding, indecent living standards, restrictions on mail, ineffective segregation, and the prohibition of religious materials from inmates had led to numerous constitutional and statutory violations. In June 2014, the matter was settled; the county agreed to limit the number of prisoners in each cell, increase staffing, and improve access to recreational activities, among other things. The court dismissed the case with prejudice on January 5, 2016.


On November 12, 2009, The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the ACORN Institute, and the New York ACORN Housing Company filed filed a case in the District Court for the Eastern District of New York challenging Congress's defunding of the organization. ACORN is a non-profit Arkansas Corporation headquartered in Brooklyn. It is dedicated to organizing and assisting low-income people through voter registration, home loan and foreclosure counseling, public housing and food stamp awareness, and other programs. The ACORN Institute, Inc. a non-profit corporation headquartered in New Orleans, and the New York ACORN Housing Company are not subsidiaries of ACORN but work closely with the nationwide organization. All three organizations collaborate with federal, state, and local governments and other institutions, and receive federal funding. In September 2009, anti-ACORN activists posed as prostitutes and secretly videotaped ACORN employees. The tapes purportedly showed employees giving the activists tax advice on running illegal businesses including sex trafficking. ACORN's complaint denied the allegations and said it fired the employees. In response to the video, Congress enacted specific prohibitions against funding ACORN in several "continuing resolutions," which Congress enacts when the new fiscal year is about to begin and they have not yet enacted a regular appropriations act. These temporary acts authorized administrative agencies to distribute grants but contained an express condition forbidding grants to ACORN or any organization related to it. For example, Section 163 read: "None of the funds made available by this joint resolution or any prior Act may be provided to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now ("ACORN"), or any of ACORN'S affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations." The Office of Management and Budget issued a memo on October 7, 2009, warning all agency heads not to appropriate funds to ACORN and its affiliates in 2009 or 2010, even if the agency had already appropriated the funds to ACORN. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, in response, suspended funding to ACORN. According to the complaint, the cryptic language of the appropriation's acts ("any of ACORN's affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations") made ACORN a pariah. Banks, universities, and other organizations who had partnered with ACORN feared this broad language would bring them under congressional scrutiny as well. State agencies and private parties cancelled contracts. ACORN alleged the acts deprived it of grants and forced it to lay off up to 85 percent of its staff. Plaintiffs allege that: (1) by singling out ACORN specifically, the appropriation acts were unconstitutional bills of attainder, violating Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution; (2) the acts violated ACORN's First Amendment rights and those of its past partners because the language "any affiliates, subsidiaries, or allied organizations" was vague and overbroad; and (3) the acts violated the Fifth Amendment because in dealing with ACORN the agencies did not follow due process procedures to withholding grants from criminal or fraudulent enterprises. On November 13, 2009, the court (Judge Nina Gershon) denied plaintiffs' motion for a temporary restraining order. However, on December 11, 2009, the court granted ACORN a preliminary injunction. Furthermore, on March 10, 2010, the court granted a declaratory judgment and a permanent injunction in favor of the plaintiffs. The court found that the appropriations acts were unconstitutional bills of attainder because the acts functioned as "punishment," which is a function reserved solely to the judicial branch. Deprivation of future funding opportunities, according to the court, was "punishment." The Court held that the remarks of Congress and the fact that there was no investigation of ACORN demonstrated congressional intent to punish. The court issued a declaratory judgment that the appropriations acts were unconstitutional bills of attainder. The court also found that reputational injury to ACORN alone was enough to warrant a permanent injunction, which enjoined agency personnel from enforcing the conditions in the acts and ordered Director Orszag of the OMB to draft a new memorandum advising agencies that the acts were unenforceable. The defendants moved to stay the injunction pending appeal, which motion the district court denied on March 31, 2010. However, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, (Judge Gerald Lynch), approved a temporary administrative stay on April 2, 2010. Then, a three judge panel consisting of Judges Roger Miner, Jose Cabranes, and Richard Wesley issued a stay of the declaratory judgment and the permanent injunction on April 21, 2010. On August 13, 2010 the 2nd Circuit unanimously reversed the district court's decision on the Bill of Attainder victory. The court found ACORN had standing but no bill of attainder claims. They sent the case back to the District Court to look at First Amendment and Due Process violations. Due to their struggles with their bankruptcy proceedings, the Plaintiffs agreed to dismissal of the case (with prejudice) on August 1, 2011.

Summary: On November 12, 2009, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) filed a complaint against the United States and several federal officials, alleging that congressional appropriations acts singled out ACORN and ordered federal agencies to deny it and its affiliates any funding. This came in the wake of the "undercover pimp video" scandal, in which opponents of ACORN secretly videotaped employees allegedly giving advice on running illegal businesses. ACORN succeeded in obtaining a permanent injunction against the defendants from enforcing the anti-ACORN terms in the appropriations acts. However, the defendants appealed and the Court of Appeals stayed the injunction. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court's bill of attainder ruling and remanded for consideration of the First Amendment and Due Process claims. Due to their struggles with their bankruptcy proceedings, however, the Plaintiffs agreed to dismissal of the case (with prejudice) on August 1, 2011.