Cook County Jail Settlement Issues Second Round of Payments

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Class Members who benefitted from a $55 million settlement over strip searching at Cook County Jail say they’ve begun to receive another round of payments.

Top Class Actions viewers who filed claims back in 2011 report they’re receiving checks in the amount of $300.66 from the Cook County Jail strip search class action settlement.

These payments are part of the second distribution from a settlement originally reached with Cook County Jail in 2010. Only Class Members who previously submitted a valid and timely claim for the first round of payments are eligible to receive payments in the current distribution.

The deadline to submit claims was Jan. 27, 2011. Class Members had a more recent opportunity to object to the settlement by Aug. 14, 2017.

Plaintiffs in the Cook County Jail strip search class action settlement challenged the jail’s blanket policy of conducting strip searches even on detainees awaiting bail for traffic violations and other minor infractions. Class Members submitted statements saying Cook County Jail guards subjected them to verbal abuse and insults about their race, sexual orientation, or anatomy.

The plaintiffs also challenged the practice of subjecting male detainees to strip searches in groups. Male detainees were allegedly searched shoulder-to-shoulder in groups as large as 100 at a time, with no privacy and in unsanitary conditions.

Plaintiffs and the county agreed to the Cook County Jail class action settlement in 2010, described by class counsel as the largest class action settlement of its kind. The settlement benefits two Classes covering around 250,000 Class Members who were subject to the allegedly abusive strip searches between Jan. 30, 2004 and March 30, 2009.

One Class covers men who were subject to a strip search or body cavity search as a new Cook County Jail detainee. The other Class covers detainees of any sex who were subject to such a search under misdemeanor charges or charges of a lesser offense not involving drugs or weapons.

Payments sent out in the first distribution ranged from around $500 to $1,000, depending on the claimant’s class membership.

The settlement agreement provided for a second round of payments to Class Members, conditioned on Cook County’s ability to recover funds from its insurer. The county reportedly reached a settlement with the insurer in May 2017, and the court granted final approval of the Cook County Jail class action settlement in September.

Strip searches at Cook County jail have since been limited in part due to the use of new full-body scanners. Detainees are now strip-searched only when scanner results indicate a more thorough search may be warranted, according to a spokesperson for the sheriff’s department. Screens have been installed to ensure detainees’ privacy during strip searches.

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The plaintiff Class is represented by attorneys from Loevy & Loevy.

The Cook County Jail Strip Search Class Action Lawsuit is Young v. County of Cook, Case No. 06-cv-00552, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.