Docket of current cases

Here you can find information on our past Supreme Court cases and our current cases dealing with these issues:

• Children's mental health
• Parental rights
• Education
• Community services
• Emergency Services
• Criminalization and release planning
• Fair housing
• Voting rights

Children’s Mental Health Issues

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Forest Grove v. T.A.
The legal issue before the Supreme Court in this case is whether parents may require a school system to reimburse them for their child's private school tuition under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). However, the Bazelon Center's work on the case promotes an end to the use of public funds for restrictive, expensive residential placements that do not meet children's mental health or education needs. Read more...

A.K.
On Dec. 20, 2007, Washington State’s highest court reversed a lower court’s imposition of extended detention of children who had run away from their foster care placements. The court issued a fragmented decision with multiple opinions, drawing heavily on an amicus brief filed by the Bazelon Center and mental health advocacy groups. The outcome, however, is that a juvenile court cannot use its contempt authority to incarcerate foster care runaways unless it has first explored statutory alternatives and also has ensured that needed mental health and substance abuse services have been provided. Read about the case...

J.A. v. Barbour
July 11, 2007—Troubled teenage girls in a state-run reform school in Mississippi have suffered “horrendous” physical and sexual abuse, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court today. The complaint asks the court to require the state to provide federally required mental health and rehabilitative treatment to girls confined in the Columbia Training School. Find out more about this case...

Katie A. v. Bonta
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.  Find out more about this case here.

J. K. v. Eden
This lawsuit challenges Arizona's failure to provide mental health services to poor children. Find out more about this case here.

Parental Rights

In Re C.W. (amicus)
A Missouri appeals court ruled on January 10, 2007 that general conclusions about a mother’s mental disorder, based on stereotypes about her ability to care for a child, cannot support termination of her parental rights. The Bazelon Center’s amicus brief offered support for what is an altogether too rare decision. Read more…

Education

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Blackman v. District of Columbia
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. On August 29, 2006, the long-awaited agreement spelling out steps to end delays in District of Columbia students’ access to needed special education received court approval. A December 2007 agreement committed the city to take specific steps and expend significant resources to implement the agreement. Find out more about this case here.

Settled Education Cases

Nott v. George Washington University
Jordan Nott was a straight-A sophomore at George Washington University in the fall of 2004 when he sought emergency psychiatric care for depression.  When they learned of Nott’s hospitalization, university officials charged him with violating the school code of conduct, suspended him, evicted him from his dorm and threatened him with arrest for trespassing if he set foot on university property. In March 2006, the Bazelon Center filed a complaint on Nott's behalf in October 2005, with the hope that settlement discussions will lead to development of a model policy for educational institutions. The case was settled in October 2006. Find out more about this case here.

Jane Doe v. Hunter College
This lawsuit (settled on August 23, 2006) was brought by a student who had been barred from her dormitory room at Hunter College because she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. Find out more about this case here.

Community Services

U.S. v. Georgia
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 end a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit challenging abuse and neglect of patients in Georgia state hospitals. The groups assert that the settlement fails to comply with the Olmstead mandate for the provisionof services in the most integrated setting consistent with individuals' needs. See the press release for discussion and links to relevant documents.

Chambers v. San Francisco
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 announced on November 27, 2007. 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. Find out more about this case...

Williams v. Quinn
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). Read more...

Office of Protection and Advocacy v. State of Connecticut
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. Find out more about this case here .

Disability Advocates, Inc. v. Paterson
The lawsuit addresses New York State's illegal segregation of approximately 4,000 residents of large "adult homes" which lack the staff, resources and mandate to provide integrated housing and services to promote community living. Find out more about this case here.

New Jersey P&A v. Velez
This class action challenges the illegal confinement of nearly 1,000 individuals in New Jersey’s four state psychiatric hospitals. The Bazelon Center asserts 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. Find out more about this case here.

Pierce County v. State of Washington
Caught in the vicious cycle that’s all too common across the U.S. today, hundreds of people with serious mental illnesses, have been committed to this hospital for short-term interventions, then discharged to a community with inadequate resources to meet their needs, only to lapse into crisis and be recommitted to the hospital or taken to jail—over and over again. Find out more about this case here.

Emergency Services

Sampson v. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
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. Read more about the case.

Criminalization and Release Planning

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Bravo v. Board of Commissioners of Doña Ana County
Filed in federal court in New Mexico, Bravo challenges the lack of mental health services and release planning in the county jail and discriminatory arrest practices by local law enforcement officers. According to the complaint: “The predictable result is often recidivism and a cycle of arrests and detentions, at a great personal cost to the individual and at a great financial and social cost to the public at large.” Find out more about the case here.

William G. v. Pataki
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of parolees with serious mental illnesses and substance abuse problems who are languishing in jail, waiting for state-funded treatment services to become available. State officials have told them that they can be released for treatment, but not enough treatment facilities exist to help them. Find out more about this case here.

Voting Rights

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Missouri P&A and Scaletty v. Carnahan
This suit, originally filed as Prye v. Blunt, challenged Missouri's practice of denying the right to vote to people who are under court-ordered guardianship. Find out more about this case here.

Supreme Court Decisions

Goodman v. Georgia
In a narrow decision that leaves many questions unanswered, the Supreme Court has ruled that Congress has the authority to apply the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to state prisons, at least insofar as it reaches conduct that could also be challenged under the Fourteenth Amendment. Find out more about this case here.

Tennessee v. Lane
This lawsuit resulted in an important ruling that states can be sued for money damages under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act for failing to provide people with disabilities access to the courts. Find out more about this case here.

University of Alabama v. Garrett
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that state employees seeking money damages under Title I of the Americans with Disabilities Act are barred by the Eleventh Amendment. Find out more about this case here.

Olmstead v. L.C.
In this decision, the Court held that the unnecessary segregation of individuals with disabilities in institutions constitutes discrimination based on disability. Find out more about this case here.