Arizona Landmark Legal Settlements
ASARCO Parent Pays $1.79 Billion in Record Environmental Bankruptcy Settlement
Arizona-based American Smelting and Refining Company, ASARCO, in 2009 paid $1.79 billion to fund an environmental cleanup following the largest environmental bankruptcy in U.S. history.
ASARCO, a copper mining, smelting and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, allegedly contaminated land, water and wildlife resources on federal, state, tribal and private land in 19 states.
The money from environmental settlements in the bankruptcy will be used to pay for past and future costs incurred by federal and state agencies at the more than 80 sites contaminated by the company's mining and smelting operations.
In Landmark Racial Profiling Settlement, Arizona Agrees to Major Reforms
Arizona police in 2005 agreed to make sweeping reforms to prevent racial profiling by highway patrol officers along the state's roadways and streets in response to a class action lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The settlement came in response to a 2001 class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 11 minority motorists who complained that law enforcement officials had engaged in a continuing pattern and practice of race-based traffic stops, detentions and searches.
Landmark settlement in ASU rape case
In an unprecedented legal settlement, a former Arizona State University student who was raped in her dorm room in 2004 by one of the school's football players collected $850,000.
Also under the settlement, the Arizona university system agreed to establish a "women's safety czar" for all three major campuses -- ASU, the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.
The settlement resolved a civil lawsuit filed in 2006 by the woman against Arizona State, the Arizona Board of Regents, then-head football coach Dirk Koetter and Darnel Henderson, the player who allegedly raped her.
Arizona To Improve Children’s MH Care
The state agreed to overhaul its mental health system to settle a class-action lawsuit that complained Arizona had failed to provide children with the mental health services required by Medicaid.
The state agreed to restructure its managed mental health system as part of the settlement of a 10-year-old, class-action lawsuit. The settlement benefited an estimated 20,000 children covered by Medicaid in Arizona.
The lawsuit was filed in 1991 by a father who claimed he was unable to obtain recommended services for his son under Medicaid, which led to the son’s suicide attempt and psychiatric hospitalization.
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