The Geo Group, Inc., Florida Correctional Finance Corporation, South Bay Correctional Facilities Financing Corporation and the Florida Department of Corrections paid $35,000 to settle a prisoner’s negligence claim. The settlement came in a lawsuit filed by prisoner Edward Milner.
In his amended complaint, Milner alleged that the Defendants created a ...
The Wackenhut Corrections Corporation paid $75,000 to settle a prisoner’s negligence claim. The settlement came in a lawsuit filed by Florida prisoner Thomas Less Stevens.
Stevens alleged in his complaint against Wackenhut that on December 21, 1999, while working under the supervision of a prison employee in the food service ...
The Geo Group paid $250,000 to settle an auto accident claim. The settlement came in a lawsuit filed by Elsworth Noel Seals.
In her complaint, Seals alleged that on March 1, 2006. While approaching an intersection in her vehicle in the city of South Bay, Florida, Eades, a Geo Group ...
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation and the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC) paid $35,000 to settle a discrimination and retaliatory practices lawsuit.
In his civil complaint, ex-FDOC senior psychologist Majid A. Shams, who is of Iranian descent, claimed he was hired at Glades Correctional Institution (GCI) in December 1990 as a senior ...
The GEO Group Inc. paid $20,000 to settle a car accident suit with injuries.
In his complaint, plaintiff Keven Freeze claimed on May 1, 2006, that Harold Eades, an employee of the GEO Group, was operating a motor vehicle in a reckless manner causing an auto crash. Freeze was a ...
A California Federal District Court granted defendant’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit alleging violation of a civil detainee’s Fourth Amendment rights.
Civil detainee John T. Sundquist was at the Atascadero State Hospital under the California Sexually Violent Predator Act when on October 12, 2004, he was transported by Transcor America to the Humboldt County Correctional Facility (HCCF) for a civil recommitment proceeding. As he was transported, he was not isolated from criminal prisoners. When he arrived at HCCF, he was strip searched with a visual body cavity search and housed 72 days with a criminal prisoner in a two-man cell in the protective custody unit.
Sundquist filed a suit against Transcor America for transporting him with prisoners and Sheriff Gary Philp for housing him with a prisoner and for the illegal strip search.
The court held on March 28, 2008, that a jury could find that the use of local law enforcement facilities and HCCF blanket policy allowing strip searches with “any” detainee that comes in contact visit with any person outside HCCF is legal. The court granted the defendant’s summary judgment motion. See: Sundquist v. Philp, U.S.D.C. Cal., 2008, Case No. 06-3387, WL 859452.
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation paid $29,900 to settle a lawsuit claiming sexual harassment.
In her complaint, Marsha Senatti claims fellow Wackenhut employee Lee Jackson did unlawfully touch, in a sexual manner, her private parts and genitalia, including “rubbing his penis against her buttocks.”
Prior to subjecting Senatti to sexual harassment and ...
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation paid $32,500 to settle a negligence lawsuit filed by Florida prisoner Michael Wyzykowski.
In his complain, Wyzykowski claimed he was ordered to cut “maiden cane” with a weed whacker that was altered by Wackenhut guards, replacing the original head and string with an eight inch saw blade, ...
Wackenhut Corrections Corporation paid $300,000 to settle a wrongful death suit filed by the minor children of prisoner Lisa Ann Lowdermilk.
The complaint alleged that while at Broward County work release, Lowdermilk died due to the negligence of Wackenhut employees Kenneth Day, Joseph Cox and Claudia Barramanse, who failed to ...
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals vacated its own affirmation of the dismissal of a prisoner’s civil rights complaint after the Supreme Court found that the circuit’s imposition of the prerequisite to properly exhaust administrative remedies before filing a complaint was “unwarranted.”
Before the court was the appeal of prisoner L.C. Cohen, arguing a Michigan Federal District Court erred in dismissing his civil rights complaint for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies prior to filing his complaint.
After the Sixth Circuit affirmed that dismissal, Cohen sought and was granted certiorari with the Supreme Court. On remand, the Sixth Circuit was required to consider Cohen’s appeal under Jones v. Bock, 127 S.Ct. 910 (2007).
In Jones, the court held that the Prison Litigation Reform Act does not require a prisoner to specifically plead or exhaust his complaint. Furthermore, it held “exhaustion is not per se inadequate simply because an individual later sued was not named in the grievance.”
Accordingly, the matter was remanded to the district court for further proceedings. See: Cohen v. Corrections Corporation of America, 588 F.3d 299, (Sixth Cir. 2008).
