On August 3, 2007, a person held in Cook County Jail (CCJ) filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1983 and 1988, and 28 U.S.C. § 1343 and 2201 against Cook County. The plaintiff, represented by civil rights attorneys, asked the court for compensatory damages, claiming that the jail's policies and procedures that denied prescribed medications to prisoners violated the Fourteenth Amendment.

The plaintiffs specifically alleged that the defendant's policy allowed medical technicians to deny medications to detainees solely on the basis of a brief and cursory interview. Technicians failed to inquire about detainees' medical histories and made their decisions without consulting a physician. With respect to psychotropic medications, the plaintiffs alleged that CCJ routinely provided antidepressants to individuals as a less expensive replacement of their medically-required psychotropic medications, which lead to behavioral problems including suicide attempts. With respect to non-psychotropic medications, the plaintiffs alleged that the county's policy permitted technicians to cut off drug treatments for a wide range of conditions, including enlarged prostate, heart disease, acid reflux, congestive heart failure, asthma, hepatitis C, chronic pain and surgical wounds. As a result, the plaintiffs suffered a wide range of adverse medical consequences.

On August 16, 2007, the plaintiffs filed the first amended complaint requesting class certification. On March 31, 2008, the plaintiffs filed the second amended complaint. On May 21, 2008, the defendants filed motions to dismiss the second amended complaint for failure to state a claim for which relief can be granted. The defendants argued that the plaintiffs failed to allege that a policy, custom, or practice for the Sheriff of Cook County was responsible was a cause or contributing cause for their alleged constitutional injury.

On October 24, 2008, Judge Matthew F. Kennelly granted class certification to current and former inmates confined to the Cook County Jail who were denied prescribed drug therapies within 24 hours by the facility, rejecting the defendant's adequacy-of-representation argument that asserted felons cannot serve as class representatives. Parish v. Sheriff of Cook Cnty., 07 4369, 2008 WL 4812875 (N.D. Ill. Oct. 24, 2008).

The court reassigned the case to Judge John Lee on June 1, 2012.

The plaintiffs moved for summary judgment on July 2, 2012, and the defendants moved to decertify the previously certified class on July 5, 2012. The defendants filed a cross-motion for summary judgment one month later. After several hearings on the motion and supplemental briefing, the court denied the defendants' motion to decertify the class on March 31, 2016, concluding that there were no material changes in circumstance or the law requiring decertification. 2016 WL 1270400. On April 17, 2018, the court denied a motion by defendants to bar the testimony of four of the plaintiffs' expert witnesses. 2018 WL 1811330.

On May 30, 2019, Judge John Lee addressed the parties’ motions for summary judgment. He granted in part and denied in part the defendants' motions and denied the plaintiffs’ motion. The court granted summary judgment in favor of defendant Cook County, finding that it was not directly liable for the allegedly unconstitutional intake policies at the jail. However, the court held that Cook County remained an indispensable party to the litigation because of their statutory role of funding the sheriff’s office. Addressing the claims against the Sheriff, the court granted the defendant’s motion as to claims asserting constitutional violations prior to 2008 and claims based on medical conditions other than asthma, diabetes, depression, and other various illnesses. The court permitted the plaintiffs’ remaining claims against the Sheriff to proceed. 2019 WL 2297464.

Beginning in summer 2019, the parties began settlement discussions. The lead plaintiffs submitted a preliminary settlement agreement on December 20, 2019. The agreement directs the defendants to pay $7,500,000. Judge Lee granted preliminary approval of the settlement agreement on December 17, 2019.

Upon notification, several members of the class filed objections to the settlement agreement. However, proceedings were delayed in early 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic; no final certification has been granted. The case is ongoing.

Jessica Kincaid - 03/29/2014
Elizabeth Heise - 11/12/2018
Lily Sawyer-Kaplan - 11/06/2019
Ellen Aldin - 06/07/2020


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