On August 11, 2016 , the Attorney General and Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) filed this lawsuit in the Southern District of Mississippi. The DOJ sued the State of Mississippi under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA). The DOJ asked the court to enjoin the State of Mississippi from discriminating against adults with mental illness and from failing to provide them with appropriate integrated community programs.

The DOJ claimed that Mississippi violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by "administering the State's mental health service system in a manner that denies qualified adults with mental illness the benefits of the State's mental health services." See Complaint. Further, the DOJ argued that State hospitals were segregated because they restricted contact with people without disabilities, and presented a lack of meaningful choice for patients in opportunities such as choosing friends, food, living space, activities, and employment.

On October 24, 2016, the State filed a motion to consolidate this case with Troupe v. Barbour, a case filed in the Southern District of Mississippi that commenced in 2010. In that case, four minor plaintiffs made claims against the State regarding its treatment of them as children with mental illness. On December 6, a magistrate judge found the cases to have common questions of law and fact and ordered their consolidation. But soon afterward, the plaintiffs in both cases filed a motion for reconsideration of the consolidation. On March 19, 2017, District Court Judge Henry T. Wingate vacated the December 6 consolidation order, finding that there were few common questions of fact between the cases and that consolidating them would result in undue delays and injustice to the plaintiffs.

After months of discovery, defendants moved for summary judgement on December 21, 2018, claiming that the plaintiffs lacked standing under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and had failed to prove that a reasonable modification of Mississippi's mental health system was available. The court denied the motion on May 13, 2019, finding that plaintiffs had standing and that they had met the burden of suggesting a plausible accommodation to the mental health system (Judge Carlton W. Reeves).

After four weeks of a bench trial, the court issued an opinion on September 3, 2019. The court found that Mississippi's health system fell short of the requirements established by law and that the state operated a system that unlawfully discriminated against persons with serious mental illness. As a remedy, Judge Reeves ordered that the parties propose three names of special masters to oversee the state's move to community-based care and set a hearing to discuss the potential special master. The master will be tasked to help the parties craft the appropriate remedy.

The hearing was set for December 2, 2019. The case was ongoing as of November 27, 2019.

Neil Tiwari - 10/04/2016
Lauren Latterell Powell - 10/27/2017
Cedar Hobbs - 11/27/2019


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