In court: News

Court Asked to Order Effective Community Mental Health Services for California Foster Children
January 11, 2008--The Bazelon Center and California advocates renewed their request in the case known as Katie A. that the federal court order the State of California to provide effective community mental health services to all children with mental health needs who are in or at risk of entering foster care. Read more...

New Agreement Mandates Sweeping Changes in D.C. Special Education
December 13, 2007—District of Columbia officials announced that the city will make sweeping changes in its special education program to comply with a new consent decree in a 10-year-old class action, Blackman & Jones v. District of Columbia. When approved by the court, the decree will require the school system to address the needs of hundreds of students with mental or physical disabilities who await services. Read more...

Lawsuit Ends with Agreement to Create New Housing and Community Services for Seniors and People with Disabilities
Mark Chambers’ dream “to be part of the world outside” the nursing home he’s lived in for eight years will soon come true. Over the next five years, Chambers and several hundred other residents of the Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco will move to independent apartments linked to the supportive services they need, according to a settlement announced on November 27, 2007. Read more...

Appeals Court Favors Individual Determination of Voting Rights for Disenfranchised Citizens with Mental Disabilities August 23, 2007—The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit today held that Missouri law allows citizens who are under full guardianship to retain their voting rights if they demonstrate a capacity to vote. Read more...

Lawsuit Seeks to End Abuse of Girls in Mississippi Reform School
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. Read more....

Mayor Joins DCPS in Struggle to Meet Special Education Requirements
April 12, 2007-- This week lawyers from Mayor Adrian Fenty’s office joined DCPS lawyers at the second status hearing in months concerning Blackman and Jones v District of Columbia.  Lawyers for the Defendants told US District Judge Paul Friedman about a  “collaboration at the highest levels of DC government”in an effort to meet compliance targets set by the court-approved Consent Decree of July 2006. Read more...

Court Affirms States' Obligation to Provide Effective Mental Health Services to Foster Children
April 3, 2007--There is good news for children in California’s foster care system. On March 23, 2007, in Katie A. v. Bonta, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the state’s obligation to provide effective mental health services to foster children. The appellate court acknowledged compelling evidence that wraparound services and therapeutic foster care (TFC) are medically necessary for many children and that, without them, these children would face grave harm from unnecessary institutionalization. Read more....

Expert Panel Decries DCPS Failures
February 13, 2007 –The expert evaluation team appointed by the court to report on the District of Columbia Public Schools’progress on federal special education requirements has produced its first report early, due to the “gravity”of their findings. Read more…

Unjust Denial of Parental Rights Overturned
January 10, 2007—A Missouri appeals court has ruled 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…

Court Sets Three-Year Extension of Deadline for Reform of Arizona Mental Health System for Children
Washington, D.C., November 21, 2006 –Facing a 2007 deadline for reform of the mental health system serving 40,000 poor Arizona children, state officials and children’s advocates today agreed to a three-year extension of the terms of a settlement in the federal class-action lawsuit known currently as J.K. v. Gerard. Read more...

Federal Court Advances Challenge to Illinois Policy Warehousing Residents with Mental Illnesses
November 20, 2006--Thousands of people with mental illnesses who are, according to their advocates, “needlessly segregated and inappropriately warehoused”in large nursing homes in Illinois now have an opportunity to challenge the state policies that inhibit their access to life in the community. U.S. District Court Judge William Hart has granted class-action status to a lawsuit, brought by four individuals, charging that Illinois is in violation of federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), that entitle people with disabilities to choose community living. Read more...

Student and University Settle Lawsuit on Mental Health Issues
Washington DC, October 31, 2006—George Washington University and one of its former students, Jordan Nott, have reached an agreement to resolve the lawsuit filed by Mr. Nott last fall against the University and several other entities regarding his October 2004 mental health hospitalization, the University’s interim suspension and his subsequent withdrawal from GW. Read more...

Advocates Challenge Confinement in Huge Nursing Home; Say Funds Should Pay for Community Care Instead
October 11, 2006—Residents of Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco, California filed a lawsuit in federal court today to challenge their unnecessary continuing confinement at Laguna Honda Hospital, a 1,000-bed nursing home owned and operated by the city. The complaint asserts that, according to the city’s own assessment, “the vast majority” of the residents are capable of—and prefer—living in their own homes or in supportive community programs, and asks the court to require the city to offer and provide services in alternative community settings. Read more...

Court Approves Agreement in DC Special Education Case
August 29, 2006―A long-awaited agreement spelling out steps to end delays in District of Columbia students’ access to needed special education has received court approval. Read more...

Hunter College Settles Lawsuit by Student Barred from Dorm after Treatment for Depression
August 23, 2006—The City University of New York (CUNY) has agreed to pay $65,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a student who had been barred from her dormitory room at Hunter College because she was hospitalized after a suicide attempt. The college is also reviewing and planning to change its "suicide policy." Read more...

Student Punished for Getting Help
Jordan Nott was a straight-A sophomore at George Washington University (GWU) 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.  The Bazelon Center considers the university’s actions to be discrimination based on the perception that Nott had a disability, and is representing him in a lawsuit. Read more...

Woman Forcibly Stripped by Male Guards Sues Beth Israel Hospital
June 5, 2006—A lawsuit filed in federal district court today charges 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 suit requests damages to compensate Cassandra Sampson for “severe emotional and physical injuries”and reform of hospital policies that discriminate on the basis of psychiatric disability. Read more...