Illinois Landmark Legal Settlements
Walgreen pays $24M to settle discrimination suit
Walgreen Co. reached a $24 million settlement with about 10,000 black employees who alleged in a class-action lawsuit that the Illinois-based drugstore chain engaged in systemic discrimination.
The 2005 suit alleged that black employees were passed over for promotions to higher store management positions in spite of experience, seniority and qualifications.
The suit also alleged that black management employees often were steered to work at stores in low-income areas where profitability was lower than in other stores.
Council approves $16.5 million police civil rights settlement
In 2010 the Chicago City Council approved a $16.5 million settlement of a class-action lawsuit accusing the police department of mistreating suspects.
The federal civil rights case was filed in 2004 on behalf people who claimed they were subjected to an "institutionalized system of police torture" that included being deprived of adequate food and water.
The awards are estimated to fall between $90 and $3,000, and more than a half-million people could be eligible.
According to the lawsuit, people were arrested without warrants, shackled to a wall or metal bench and given infrequent meals, few bathroom breaks and no bedding.
Settlement relocates Illinois’ mentally ill nursing-home residents
Thousands of psychiatric patients will move out of nursing homes and into community-based settings in the next five years under a 2010 landmark legal settlement aimed at fixing Illinois' long-term care system.
The agreement laid out a schedule for state officials to offer approximately 4,500 mentally ill nursing home residents the choice to move out of two dozen large facilities and into smaller settings that experts say are more appropriate and less expensive.
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