PRACTITIONER BLOG
Read our analyses of developments in Impact Litigation and stay current on class action law
SNAP Lawsuit Dismissed - Mission Accomplished: Increased Food Security For 40M!
Shortly after Plaintiffs initiated the lawsuit, the USDA implemented a key accounting policy change that was requested in the class action complaint. The new policy provides protection for SNAP recipients by ensuring that benefits continue for one month after a lapse in federal appropriations. However, while this ensured SNAP benefits were not suddenly interrupted, because Congress continued to pass only short-term budget resolutions, class members faced ongoing uncertainty whether their benefits would be allocated on a longer-term basis. Plaintiffs reported trying to conserve their SNAP benefits by rationing funds, distracting themselves from hunger with water and sleep, and choosing between food and other basic necessities such as gas, hotel rooms for homeless plaintiffs and vital medications.
Impact Fund Supports Groundbreaking Class Action Litigation For Colorado's Transgender Prisoners
In Colorado’s prisons, trans women have been fighting to survive and fighting for their rights for years. Kandice Raven lives with permanent injuries that she sustained in multiple severe beatings carried out by groups of transphobic men. Jane Gallentine has been trafficked, treated as property and repeatedly sexually abused, including by one man who tattooed his name on her neck to convey “ownership,” and by another man employed as a prison guard. Amber Miller has again and again requested officials’ help in escaping her abusers and found that the only way to get a response is to break prison rules or engage in self-harm to keep herself safe. In response to their fearless self-advocacy, the Colorado prisons have responded by transferring Kandice, Jane, and Amber to a series of more and more restrictive—and more and more dangerous—prisons and prison units.
Rule 23 Amendments Update: What’s Still on the Table and What Fell Off
For more than a year, a subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules has been soliciting and vetting ideas for amending Rule 23, the federal class action rule (see previous post here). These hardy souls (Judge Robert M. Dow, Professor Robert Klonoff, Elizabeth Cabraser and John Barkett) have criss-crossed the country, attending more than a dozen conferences to hear from practitioners across the spectrum. The Impact Fund’s 2015 Class Action conference in Berkeley was one of the subcommittee’s whistlestops.