Florida v. HHS
January 2012
This is one of the cases challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the health reform law passed by Congress. Florida and 25 other states are challenging the constitutionality of ACA's expansion of Medicaid eligibility to individuals whose income is 133% of the poverty level or less. This expansion accounts for about half (14 million people) of those newly insured as result of the ACA. The Bazelon Center supports the ACA and is part of the effort before the Supreme Court to defend ACA's Medicaid expansion.
Troupe v. Barbour
March 2010
This lawsuit seeks to improve Mississippi's mental health system for children, who are denied access to home- and community-based services and unnecessarily institutionalized.
U.S. v. Georgia
February 2009
The Bazelon Center assisted a coalition of stakeholders in requesting that the U.S. District Court in Atlanta withhold approval of a settlement that would have ended a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit challenging abuse and neglect of patients in Georgia state hospitals. The groups asserted that the settlement failed to comply with the Olmstead mandate for the provision of services in the most integrated setting consistent with individuals' needs. A new settlement calls for the State to create such services for individuals with mental illnesses or developmental disabilities.
Chambers v. San Francisco
October 2006
Over the next five years, several hundred residents of the Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco will move to independent apartments linked to the supportive services they need, according to the settlement in a class-action lawsuit approved by the court in September 2008. The case was resolved by agreement between the city and five advocacy groups representing recipients of California’s Medicaid benefits, called Medi-Cal, who live at Laguna Honda, are in San Francisco General Hospital and eligible for discharge to Laguna Honda, are on the waiting list for the nursing home or have been discharged from it within the past two years.
Sampson v. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
June 2006
This lawsuit filed in federal district court in June 2006 and settled in March 2009 charged that Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and one of its nurses, without justification, had five male guards forcibly strip a woman with a history of sexual abuse who had gone to the emergency room for treatment of migraine headaches. The hospital adopted new policies to comply with the ADA.
Office of Protection and Advocacy v. State of Connecticut
February 2006
This lawsuit asks the court to order state agencies to develop suitable community-living alternatives for more than 200 people with mental illnesses who are “needlessly segregated and inappropriately warehoused” in three Connecticut nursing homes.
Williams v. Quinn
August 2005
Residents of Illinois nursing homes charge that they and many others with mental illnesses are “needlessly segregated and inappropriately warehoused” in violation of federal laws including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Disability Rights New Jersey (DRNJ) v. Velez
May 2005
This class action challenged the illegal confinement of nearly 1,000 individuals in New Jersey’s four state psychiatric hospitals. The Bazelon Center asserted that the state’s commissioner of human services has failed to ensure that community services are available to these residents and instead has warehoused them for years after they are ready for discharge.
Disability Advocates, Inc. (DAI) v. Cuomo
July 2003
The lawsuit challenged New York State's illegal segregation of approximately 4,300 residents of large "adult homes" which lack the staff, resources and mandate to provide integrated housing and services to promote community living. As of June 2011, the landmark decision mandating the development of supported housing for all who want to move is on appeal before the 2nd Circuit.
Katie A. v. Bonta
July 2002
This lawsuit challenges the longstanding practice of confining abused and neglected children in costly hospitals and large group homes instead of providing mental health services that would enable them to stay in their own homes and communities.
Blackman v. District of Columbia
November 1997
This 1997 class action lawsuit found the District of Columbia to have violated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that guarantees children with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education.
J.K. v. Humble
November 1996
This lawsuit challenges Arizona's failure to provide mental health services to poor children.