On May 14, 1985, Lillian Robbins (administratrix of the estate of Kathy Robbins, deceased) filed a lawsuit against Glenn County, California. under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California. The plaintiff, represented by the Youth Law Center, alleged that the civil rights of 15 year-old runaway Kathy Robbins had been violated during her detention at the Glenn County Jail because the jail administrators had refused to contact her family, subjected her to a strip search, refused to release her into her parents' custody, refused to place her into an available juvenile detention facility, failed to provide her with adequate clothing, authorized adult inmates to have direct contact with her, failed to adequately medically and psychologically examine her, failed to notice evidence of her previous suicide attempts, failed to deliver her phone messages and reading materials from her mother, harassed and psychologically abused her, failed to provide her opportunities for exercise or recreation, and failed to adequately monitor her. On August 29, 1984, Kathy Robbins committed suicide by hanging herself in her cell. The plaintiff asked the court for monetary general and punitive damages as well as attorney's fees. For injunctive purposes, the parties stipulated that the action could proceed as a class action on behalf of all juveniles who were or would be confined in the Glenn County Jail. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California (Judge Raul A. Ramirez) entered an undated consent decree stating that defendants agreed to stop confining juveniles at the Glenn County Jail.

Additionally, as part of a seemingly separate settlement agreement, plaintiff's parents were to be paid $125,000 in consideration of a full and final release of their claims in the matter. We have no further information about this case.

Kristen Sagar - 10/29/2007


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