On October 23, 2023, Superior Court Judge Niki Arbittier of Cumberland County (NJ) issued a preliminary approval for a Master Settlement Agreement intended to resolve a 2020 lawsuit brought by inmates who claimed that they were unlawfully strip searched upon being admitted to the county jail for non-indictable offenses. Further details on this were covered […]
Egg Harbor Township school board paid $175,000 to settle former custodian’s racial harassment and hostile work environment lawsuit.
On May 16, 2023, the Egg Harbor Township Board of Education (Atlantic County, NJ) agreed to pay $175,000 to a former custodian who claimed that coworkers racially harassed him by placing a teddy bear with a noose around its neck in the breakroom. In his lawsuit, Patrick Dawson, an African-American, said that he started his […]
Millville paid out $110,000 to settle police K-9 attack, excessive force lawsuit.
On June 9, 2023, the City of Millville (Cumberland County, New Jersey) agreed to pay $110,000 to a Florida man who said that police used excessive force by unnecessarily releasing a police dog upon him, severely injuring his right leg. In his suit, Tyler Beniston, claimed that on July 13, 2019, Officer John Butschky, a […]
Weehawken school board quietly paid $700,000 to settle student’s 1979 sex-assault claims.
On May 16, 2023, the Weehawken Board of Education discreetly settled a lawsuit for $700,000 with a male student who alleged he was sexually abused by his art teacher during the 1978-79 academic year at Woodrow Wilson Junior High School. The plaintiff, now 58 and residing in California, identified his eighth-grade art teacher as Janis […]
Cumberland County paid out $195,000 to settle female inmate’s claim that male jail guards forced her “into numerous non-consensual sexual acts.”
On August 14, 2023, Cumberland County (New Jersey) settled a 2022 lawsuit filed by a Millville woman who claimed that four male corrections officers coerced her into having sex with them while she was a county jail inmate between 1997 and 2014. In her lawsuit, Katonya Patterson, who was 51 when the suit was filed, […]