Recent Litigation

Focus Areas

Community Integration •  Criminal & Juvenile Justice • Education • Employment • Health Care • Involuntary Interventions • Legal Capacity

For more than five decades, CPR has used litigation to enforce rights, enhance individual choice, expand community supports, and reform service systems for people with disabilities.  It has filed injunctive cases, class action lawsuits, civil commitment appeals, individual damage actions, and amici briefs in many of the most important disability rights cases in the nation.  As a result of CPR’s litigation, tens of thousands of children receive supports in their homes and home communities; thousands of people have left psychiatric, developmental disability and nursing institutions and now live and receive support in integrated settings in the community; and new rights and standards of care have been established that elevate individuals’ independence and respect their right to make basic life choices.  

CPR also provides training and technical assistance to disability rights, public interest, and private attorneys throughout the country to represent people with disabilities, and expand their opportunities to live independently in the community.

Case List

  • Arnold v. Sarn
    Maricopa, AZ Superior Ct, 1982

    Class action lawsuit on behalf of 23,000 people with serious mental illness in Maricopa County, Arizona, many of whom are homeless or living in unregulated congregate board and care homes.  After the Arizona Supreme Court held that a state statute requires the provision of community mental services to all persons with serious mental illness, the […]

  • Evans v. Bowser
    D.D.C. 1976

    Long standing class action that challenged the unconstitutional conditions of confinement and lack of community supports for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities in the District of Columbia.  Filed in February of 1976, the case ended January 10, 2017, when the Court held the District finally was in substantial compliance with multiple court orders.  Originally, […]

  • Brewster v. Dukakis
    D. Mass. 1976

    Consent decree mandated creation of comprehensive system of less restrictive alternatives for all residents of the Northampton State Hospital resulting in the closing of the institution.  Litigation concluded January 4, 1992.

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