Recent Litigation

Opponents of the state’s plan to close a public psychiatric hospital sought to enjoin the closing. Residents of the hospital successfully intervened to ensure that they were not transferred to another hospital but instead were discharged to the community.

Class action case on behalf of almost 2000 persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities in nursing facilities.  The initial Settlement Agreement approved in 1999 required the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to provide community placement to 1100 persons and specialized services and active treatment to all persons while they remain in a nursing facility.  After several findings […]

Class action on behalf of 1200 persons with developmental disabilities in four Florida state institutions seeking integrated community services; settlement agreement entered June 2005 requiring the closure of two institutions and improved discharge planning procedures and increased placements at the two other facilities.

Damage action challenging the forcible intubation of a woman in an emergency room. The woman, who sought limited treatment in the hospital’s emergency department after experiencing an asthma attack, consented only to brief oxygen intervention. Family members, who accompanied her, also agreed only to this intervention. When the ER doctor sought to medicate her, she […]

New England Adolescent Research Institute and United States v. Massachusetts Housing Finance Authority:  This is a housing discrimination case under the 1988 Fair Housing Act Amendments challenging state housing financing agency’s decision to withdraw support for bond financing to school for adolescents with serious emotional disturbance, in response to opposition of local town officials to […]

Final Settlement Agreement approved in 2002 that establishes a plan for the development of community-based services as alternatives to incarceration in juvenile detention facility.

Class action seeking the discharge and appropriate placement of all residents of the Metropolitan State Hospital who no longer need to be institutionalized; case settled and hospital closed, with most residents placed in appropriate community settings.

Class action on behalf of residents of the G.P. Wood State Hospital in central Florida resulted in a consent decree to remedy unconstitutional conditions at the Hospital, phase down of the facility, and the creation of appropriate community supports for all class members.  In 2000, the US Department of Justice intervened in support of a […]

Ongoing litigation to challenge the use of physical aversives to modify behavior of severely disabled children. CPR represented several individual students in substituted judgment cases opposing aversives, as well as a several guardians and attorneys in the class action case concerning the Commonwealth’s efforts to regulate or prohibit electric shock devices.

Class action on behalf of 1500 residents of New Mexico’s two institutions for persons with developmental disabilities. After a lengthy trial, the Court issued a 202 page decision in 1990 finding violations of constitutional and statutory rights, and ordered the parties to negotiate corrective action plans.  In 1997, the State elected to close both institutions […]