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Awards to Hundreds in Two ACLU Suits
After years of litigation, the ACLU finalized settlements in two historic class action lawsuits and money awards to class members have been distributed in both cases in the last month.
The first case, Torres and Peralta v. Metropolitan Dade County and City of Miami, is a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of approximately 500 Hispanic day-laborers who were arrested in Miami on a peculiar charge of "loitering for purposes of temporary employment." A settlement between the county and the ACLU provided that the county would pay up to $998,000 to the day laborers, based on a calculation of $2,000 per arrest. The City declined to settle on similar terms and class action is continuing against it in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta.
Pottinger v. City of Miami is a nine-year lawsuit filed on behalf of a class of 5,000 homeless persons who sued the City of Miami in 1988 for arresting and harassing them, based on little more than their public presence, in order to drive them out of the city or otherwise render them invisible. The settlement, reached originally in December 1997, provided that the City would pay up to $600,000 in total to class members. In addition, the settlement provided a mandatory protocol for police treatment of the homeless in Miami that has since become a national model.
Now that the long settlement process in each of these cases has been completed, the state office of the ACLU has been working to distribute the settlement money. In the Torres case, the state office of the ACLU just finished distributing money in November to class members with qualifying arrests under the terms of the settlement. In the Pottinger case, the settlement provided that the City of Miami would distribute the settlement money, and the state office has been busy notifying class members of the status of their claims and in collecting their settlement money. Beginning Monday, November 8, the settlement money became available for pickup and the class members have finally begun receiving their checks.
But the money is doing more than simply providing compensation for the unconstitutional action of the City for illegally arresting the homeless and the County for illegally arresting the Hispanic day-laborers. In the Torres case, for example, Carlos Torres, lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, is using some of the money to help pay medical expenses for his mother and son in Cuba as well as to buy a used truck for his work doing odd jobs in carpentry and painting. He received $10,000 for his five arrests by the County. Torres told the ACLU that he is "extremely grateful" for the organization's coming to his defense. Dalton Ledford, another Torres class member, has plans to open up a small cafeteria-style restaurant in Miami with the $8,000 he received from the lawsuit. Many of the Torres plaintiffs live at or below poverty level, and the settlement money will help get them on their feet or go to support family members both in the United States or in their native countries.
Similarly, in the Pottinger case, Apryl Jenkins, once homeless, now holding a part-time job as a janitor and mother of a five year old girl, will use her portion of the settlement money to buy a used car and Christmas presents for her daughter. Ronald Sippio plans to open up a savings account with the money. One class member told the ACLU he is planning to use the settlement money to help other homeless individuals who are still on the street. Others are planning to use the money for home repairs or security deposits.
But regardless of how the money will be put to use, two things are certain - Miami officials are paying a significant price for wide scale unconstitutional actions against indigent and usually unrepresented people, and the class members, after years of litigation, are finally getting just compensation thanks to the efforts of the ACLU and its cooperating attorneys.
