2018 NEWS ARCHIVE
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OCTOBER 23, 2018
SHANIES LAW WINS FEDERAL JURY TRIAL IN GROUNDBREAKING TRANSGENDER CIVIL RIGHTS CASE
David B. Shanies and Joel A. Wertheimer, together with co-counsel from Hughes Hubbard & Reed LLP, recently won a groundbreaking civil rights case on behalf of a transgender inmate incarcerated at the Suffolk County jail on Long Island.
The jury held two Suffolk County jail doctors liable for violating Jessica Sunderland’s civil rights by refusing to provide her prescribed hormone therapy medications throughout her 16-month incarceration in the county jail. The jury assessed punitive damages against the jail’s medical director for his unconstitutional conduct. In his summation, David told the jury that the case was about “every person’s right to be treated with dignity and humanity and fairness,” a right, he added, “that does not stop when you walk through the door of a jail.”
The verdict was the first of its kind, in holding jail officials liable for violating the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution by denying hormone therapy medication to a transgender inmate.
OCTOBER 20, 2018
DAVID B. SHANIES SPEAKS AT FEDERAL BAR COUNCIL PRESENTATION ON LGBTQ+ DISCRIMINATION
David spoke on Saturday as part of a panel of judges and attorneys addressing the Federal Bar Council’s Fall Bench & Bar Retreat on the Second Circuit’s recent decision in Zarda v. Altitude Express, Inc., a case in which the en banc circuit court overruled its prior precedent to hold that sexual orientation-based discrimination violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
David coordinated the panel, which included Judge Victor Marrero of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Peter Barbur of Cravath Swaine & Moore, Erin Harrist of the New York Civil Liberties Union, and Marjorie Berman of Krantz & Berman LLP. The panel explored the Zarda decision, the treatment of sexual orientation under Title VII by other courts throughout the country, and other recent developments and trends involving sexual orientation and identity under Title VII anti-discrimination law.
JULY 27, 2018
SHANIES LAW SETTLES QUARTER MILLION DOLLAR FALSE ARREST CASE
The David B. Shanies Law Office, together with co-counsel from the Law Offices of Joel B. Rudin, recently settled a federal civil rights lawsuit against the City of New York and numerous police officers for a wrongful arrest in December 2012.
As reported in the New York Post, on Christmas Day 2012, NYPD detectives responding to a subway robbery arrested three young men who did not fit the victim's description and who the victim told police were not his attackers. While in custody at the station house, the men overheard one officer say he would not release them because “he needed to make overtime money in order to put a new roof on his house,” the Post reported. The District Attorney declined to prosecute the young men, but police continued to hold them in custody for hours longer. After fighting the case for years, the City settled on the eve of trial for a total sum exceeding a quarter million dollars.
The New York Post reported that two of the arresting officers coincidentally shared names with characters from Brooklyn Nine Nine, a Fox comedy series about a fictitious Brooklyn detective squad. “Jake and Amy would not approve,” David told the Post, referring to the TV comedy detectives who somehow show more professionalism than their real-life namesakes. “A group of New York City police officers arrested three young men for a crime they knew they did not commit . . . That wouldn’t be funny if it happened on a TV show.”
march 16, 2018
SHANIES LAW CLIENT DEFEATS DISMISSAL BID IN New Jersey WRONGFUL CONVICTION LAWSUIT
On March 14, 2018, the David B. Shanies Law Office received a favorable decision from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey in the case of Emmanuel Mervilus, a client who was wrongfully convicted of robbery in 2008 based on false polygraph evidence concocted by law enforcement agents in Union County, New Jersey. The federal court rejected all of the arguments Union County made in support of its motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
The decision was covered in the New Jersey Law Journal on March 16, 2018.
JANUARY 10, 2018
shanies law FILES SUIT IN TRANSGENDER INMATES' RIGHTS CASE
On January 10, 2018, the David B. Shanies Law Office filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on behalf of a transgender client formerly incarcerated at the Suffolk County Correctional Facility in Riverhead, New York. The suit alleges that the former inmate was "subjected to weeks of mistreatment" by the County Jail and its staff, including the denial of necessary medical care, punitive segregation solely on account of her transgender status, and both verbal and physical abuse. The suit is pending in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The filing was covered in New York Newsday on January 10, 2018.
