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Superior Settles Excessive Force Lawsuit Filed Against Police…

Attorneys for Natasha Lancour, the insurer for the officers and the city reached an agreement and informed a federal magistrate on Oct. 3; the magistrate dismissed the case that had been set for trial Oct. 31. “During the mediation part of the process, the parties obviously saw fit to resolve it short of going to trial,” Superior City Attorney Frog Prell told Wisconsin Public Radio. The …


Voter Lawsuit on Target: Strike Deceptive Ballot Language

It may yet be that Gov. Nathan Deal and his supporters in the General Assembly won’t get away with the attempted deception of voters concerning the proposed constitutional amendment authorizing the state to take over public schools deemed to be failing. A group of voters has filed a class action lawsuit asserting the ballot language for Amendment 1 is “misleading, subjectively worded and …


Connecticut’s School Funding Lawsuit Headed to State Supreme Court

After a Connecticut judge called his state’s school funding system “irrational” and “unconstitutional,” an eleven-year-old school funding lawsuit is now headed to the state supreme court for final adjudication. In 2005, a coalition made up of municipalities, parents and education advocacy groups and calling itself the Connecticut Coalition for Justice in Education Funding filed a lawsuit …


‘Gotta Cover Our Ass’: Connecticut Police Made Up Charges, ACLU Lawsuit Charges

“Our client is a guy who is very concerned with privacy, and who protests DUI checkpoints around the capital region here in Hartford, Connecticut,” the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement on the lawsuit. “He feels they’re both unconstitutional and a waste of money. He has done public records investigations, for example, and recently found that for every two man hours put into a …


Cops Accidentally Record Themselves Fabricating Charges Against Protester, Lawsuit Says

Michael Picard was filming a protest near a police DUI checkpoint in West Hartford, Conn., in Sept. 2015 when troopers confiscated his camera. The ACLU says this recording proves the officers fabricated criminal charges against Picard. (ACLU-CT) Three Connecticut state troopers fabricated criminal charges against a man protesting at a DUI traffic checkpoint, according to a lawsuit filed against …


Detroit Schoolchildren Denied Right to Literacy

Seven Detroit schoolchildren, represented by a California public interest law firm, sued state officials Tuesday in what attorneys say is an unprecedented attempt to establish that literacy is a U.S. constitutional right. The suit, brought against Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder and several education officials, claims the state has …


Is It OK to Segregate Students With Disabilities? Separate Springfield and Georgia Cases Race to Decide

In August the Department of Justice announced they were suing Georgia for “unnecessarily segregating students with disabilities.” A similar lawsuit has been going on in Springfield since 2014. On June 27, 2014, a parent of a student at the Springfield Public Day School, a school specifically for children with disabilities, filed a federal class suit against the city of Springfield and the …



Lawsuit Against City of Austin Alleges Misuse of Taxpayer Dollars

The Texas Public Policy Foundation in conjunction with the Goldwater Institute filed a lawsuit against the City of Austin Wednesday, claiming the city’s collective bargaining agreement with the Austin Firefighters Association violates the Texas Constitution “gift clause” provision. The lawsuit comes at …


Court Filings Offer Window Into Life at Springfield Public Day Schools as Discrimination Lawsuit Heads Toward Next Hearing

The parties in a federal discrimination lawsuit involving the city’s three public day schools for children with mental health disabilities have filed hundreds of pages of emails, affidavits and other documents this summer as the two sides argue whether the case should be certified as a class-action lawsuit. The two sides in the case have also filed testimony from special education …