“The Cook County Board on Tuesday agreed to pay more than $1 million in taxpayer money to settle a federal lawsuit brought by female County Jail inmates who said their civil rights were violated during repeated weekend lockdowns at the massive detention facility. The bulk of the settlement — $850,000 — will go to attorneys who represented the four inmates in the nine-year court case. Two inmates won federal judgments totaling $143,000, and the county opted to pay two others $5,000 to end the suit. … In addition to the $1 million settlement, the county spent at least $732,144 over the years to pay an outside firm to defend it against the suit, according to county records.” The plaintiffs had failed in a bid for class action status. [Chicago Tribune]
2 Comments
Let’s see…. By my calculations, Cook County spent a total of $1,730,000 on this matter, of which $1,582,144 went to the lawyers (both sides) and $148,000 went to the poor suffering plaintiffs. Sounds like a winner to me!
Hey, plaintiffs’ lawyers have yacht payments too. Don’t hate.