Children’s Rights, an advocacy group based in New York has settled its class-action lawsuit with the state of Michigan over its for foster care system. The settlement took place just days before the case was scheduled for trial.
The settlement mandates "top-to-bottom reform and federal court oversight of Michigan's long-failing child welfare system." Edward Woods III, spokesman for Michigan Department for Human Services (DHS), said that these changes would cost about $50 million annually for the next four years. The money will be coming from state and federal funds and will be used to hire 700 new employees.
A class action lawsuit was filed against the city of Sioux Falls by owner and renters who suffered from flood damage in 2004. The lawsuit alleges that Sioux Falls did not keep up with storm and sanitary sewer maintenance, causing the water and sewage to back up into basements.
The owners and renters of the city suffered from flood damage in 2004 have mailed out almost 30,000 letters to the households in the area of Sioux Falls bordered by 57th street on the south, Russell avenue to the north, Kiwanis Avenue to the west and Southeastern avenue to the east. The letters will soon show up in thousands of Sioux Falls mailboxes. The letter explains how residents who had property damaged during the rainfall in May and June of 2004 can hold the city responsible.
In order to help the residents fight the Environmental Protection Agency and two paper chemical companies, an anonymous donor has pledged money to fund a class-action lawsuit.
A landfill located north of Cork Street between Burdick and Portage Roads in the heart of Kalamazoo is a property owned by a paper company and used years ago to dump toxic PCBs. Now, EPA and two paper companies are planning to dump another 4,400 pounds of toxic chemical at the site, forcing neighboring residents to be alarmed.
Since the city has expressed that it is powerless to stop the plan, an anonymous donor offers to give money to the city to help residents file a class-action lawsuit. However, City Commissioner Don Cooney said that the suit should be filed under the state’s nuisance law, making a claim that the trucks and toxic chemicals are so close to the neighborhoods that it would be a nuisance.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a class action lawsuit against Otay Mesa, an immigration jailhouse in San Diego. The complaint was filed due to the overcrowded and unsafe conditions of the immigration detainees who are crammed three to a cell in cramped cells built for two.
David Blair-Loy, legal director for the local ACLU said that the facility is basically stuffing people like sardines in tiny cells. The Union also contends that people being held for immigration violations, which are violations of civil laws and not criminal laws, are constitutionally entitled to better conditions than criminal defendants.
In 2003, Janet Lee, a freshman at Bryn Mawr College, was traveling home to Los Angeles for the holidays when she was arrested at the Philadelphia International Airport for allegedly carrying substances stuffed in three condoms in her suitcase, which airport screeners found, and law enforcement officials say tested positively for cocaine and opiates (two drugs not commonly mixed together).
Lee would end up spending Christmas behind bars, three weeks to be exact. While incarcerated she was under a $500,000 bail and was told that she was facing 20 years in prison for drug charges.
The young lady has stated that the condoms were actually filed with flour and used to squeeze to deal with exam stress. Lee thought the toys were funny, so she packed them to show to friends at home – facts she reasoned both to TSA screeners and the police when she was detained at the airport.
The deal was already struck. It's a new 600-bed lockup to be built on a piece of land near Pelley Road and new Kentucky 17, near the Liberty Orchard subdivision and the Summit View middle and elementary schools.
The Independence, KY neighbors not keen on the idea took their battle to court. Showing up in number, a class action lawsuit has been filed seeking to prevent the county from closing on the sale.
The rhetoric was intense with the lawyer representing the plaintiffs alleging that the site was secretly selected in a process akin to a Central Intelligence Agency operation, and saying: