2025 Grantees Submit First Quarter Case Reports
In accordance with the Foundation’s requirements for grant reporting, the five 2025 grantees submitted their first quarter case updates and timesheets. Their case updates appear below.
All grantees are meeting the requirements of their grant. The average amount of hours of attorney time spent by each grantee on their respective case was 434.096 hours with an average dollar value of $245,389.01.
In Jeremiah M. v. Crum, filed in 2022, A Better Childhood (ABC), Perkins Coie, Disability Law Center Alaska (DLCAK), and Northern Justice Project (NJP) are challenging Alaska’s Governor, Alaska’s Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), Alaska’s Office of Children’s Services (OCS) and several executives for violations of foster children’s constitutional and statutory rights. This case brings claims on behalf of a general class of children in foster care of over 3000 kids; and two subclasses: children in kinship placements that are unnecessarily disrupted and children who have disabilities whose needs for services are unmet. The case includes many Native American children, who are disproportionately represented in the foster care system. Plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief to enforce Alaska foster children’s constitutional and federal statutory rights. Issues in the system include children being shuffled across many placements, high child maltreatment rates, high caseloads for caseworkers, frequent inappropriate placements (including Native American children placed in non-Native American homes), lack of placements, lack of permanency plans, failing to meet the needs of kids with disabilities, and much more.
This lawsuit is brought asserting the violation of both federal statutory and constitutional rights, for which attorneys’ fees could be awarded if the case is successful.
ABC filed the case in May of 2022. A Motion to Dismiss was argued in the District Court for the District of Alaska in December 2022. In September 2023, the District Court ruled in Plaintiffs’ favor and found that the lawsuit had stated constitutional claims and could proceed. The District Court also upheld the children’s allegations that the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by placing children at serious risk of future institutionalization. The District Court dismissed the Plaintiffs’ claims under the Indian Child Welfare Act and with regard to failure to make foster care maintenance payments to unlicensed Kinship placements. The District Court also ruled that the State could immediately petition the Ninth Circuit to accept an appeal, however, the 9th Circuit declined the appeal in early 2024.
Since that time, Plaintiffs have conducted extensive depositions. In addition, an expert on child welfare systems was retained, who issued a strong report in support of ABC’s class action motion and who will also be Plaintiffs’ “merits” expert. An expert on the ADA claims has also been retained who will be able to visit some of the facilities that the State uses for children with behavioral needs that cannot be addressed in a foster home. ABC’s motion for class action status, filed in November, has still not been decided. Defendants have retained experts with limited knowledge about the Alaska system. To address the extraordinarily high turnover rate among caseworkers, the State has moved increasingly to what they called competency-based hiring, bringing on large numbers of workers without a college degree of any kind. The document discovery shows a system continuing to struggle with a lack of placements for all children but primarily for children with behavioral issues. The depositions that have been taken show a system with weak leadership, with no responsibility for failing to resolve the problems. The State’s defense is that Alaska is unique and can’t do any better. The trial date is set for the beginning of May.
Center for Public Representation
There is an acknowledged and ongoing crisis in Georgia’s children’s mental health system. Every day, Medicaid-enrolled children with significant mental health needs are deprived of necessary services in their homes and communities and subjected to unnecessary institutionalization because responsible state agencies systemically fail to provide three services to which they are entitled under federal law – Intensive Care Coordination, Intensive In-Home Services, and Mobile Crisis Response Services. Without access to these Remedial Services, children languish in facilities, or are subject to repeated, unnecessary institutionalization in violation of federal Medicaid law, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
Plaintiffs’ class action complaint, filed in January of 2024, Isaac A., by and through next friend, A.A., et al., v. Russel Carlson, et al. seeks to compel the Defendants to provide and arrange for timely access to Remedial Services necessary to effectively treat these children’s mental health conditions and to avoid their unnecessary institutionalization. The Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss on March 4, 2024. Plaintiffs’ Opposition, filed April 1, 2024, was supported by a Statement of Interest by the United States Department of Justice. Discovery is currently stayed pending the Court’s ruling on the Motion to Dismiss. Plaintiffs’ team continues to plan for the early stages of litigation, including class certification.
In Sagoonick v. State of Alaska II, eight young Alaskans who are already experiencing devasting harms from climate change are suing to stop the Alaska LNG Project, a fossil fuel megaproject that would more than triple the state’s greenhouse gas emissions for decades to come. Because the colossal levels of climate pollution that would result from the project will cause substantial harm to their lives, health, safety, their cultural traditions and identities, and substantially limit their access to the vital natural resources that they depend, the youth are challenging the state laws that require Alaska’s government to advance and develop the project as violating their due process and public trust rights under Alaska’s constitution. Plaintiffs ask the court to declare these laws unconstitutional and prohibit the State from moving forward with the project. The defendants in the case are the State of Alaska, the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC), and Frank Richards, in his official capacity as President of AGDC.
In response to the youth plaintiffs’ complaint, defendants filed a motion asking the Court to dismiss the case, arguing that all state laws and actions involving resource development present “political questions” that are immune from constitutional review. Defendants mischaracterized the youth plaintiffs’ targeted challenge to the Alaska LNG Project as identical to two previously dismissed cases that challenged the State’s overarching approach to climate change and asked the Court to order the state to comprehensively eliminate Alaska’s climate pollution by a date certain.
In response, plaintiffs raised three main points. First, their challenge to the Alaska LNG Project is directly responsive to the Alaska Supreme Court’s guidance in the two previous climate cases, wherein the Court instructed that Alaska’s youth may challenge “specific actions by Alaska’s legislative and executive branches.” Second, their claims are fundamentally different from the claims the Court dismissed in the previous cases. And third, established Alaska Supreme Court precedent is clear that natural resource policies and actions are not immune from constitutional review, and it is the Courts’ duty to determine whether state laws infringe on fundamental rights. Thus, plaintiffs asked the Court to deny the defendants’ motion and allow the youth to continue to trial.
On October 15, 2024, the parties presented oral argument on the motion to dismiss before Judge Dani R. Crosby of the Superior Court of Alaska regarding defendants’ motion to dismiss the case. Plaintiffs, their guardians, and supporting members of the community filled the courtroom. Judge Crosby noted the strong turnout and appreciated the youth presence. Outside, members of Alaska Youth for Environmental Action waived signs in support of the case moving forward.
At the hearing, the State’s attorneys repeated their arguments from the motion to dismiss. In response, attorneys for plaintiffs expounded on how their claims are directly responsive to the Alaska Supreme Courts’ opinions in prior climate cases and how defendants’ arguments to insulate resource development laws from constitutional review are inconsistent with established precedent and the duty of courts to serve as a check on the unconstitutional conduct of the other branches.
Under Alaska law, Judge Crosby must rule on the motion to dismiss by April 15, 2025, though a decision may come sooner.
At the same time that defendants filed their motion to dismiss, they asked the court to put a pause on discovery until their motion to dismiss is resolved. The Court granted the requested pause on discovery. However, since that time, AGDC has announced that it is finalizing agreements to transfer ownership and control of the project to a private third-party developer. Given these developments, plaintiffs filed a motion to partially lift the pause on the discovery so that plaintiffs can obtain information and documents from defendants regarding the status and timing of the transactions involving AGDC’s transfer of ownership and control of the project. Plaintiffs’ motion is currently pending before the Court.
Our Children’s Trust attorneys continue to monitor further developments with the project and prepare for discovery and future motions.
National Immigration Litigation Alliance
In Mansor v. USCIS, the District Court certified a nationwide class of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) applicants who are seeking declaratory relief to enforce their statutory right to work permits while they wait for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) to adjudicate their TPS applications. Plaintiffs and the certified class are represented by the National Immigration Litigation Alliance (NILA), Northwest Immigrant Rights Project (NWIRP), and Kurzban, Kurzban, Tetzeli & Pratt, P.A.
In September 2024, the discovery period closed. Thereafter, the parties engaged in briefing cross-motions for summary judgment. Plaintiffs argued that USCIS violates their rights under the TPS statute, regulations, and the U.S. Constitution by failing to issue TPS applicants temporary work authorization documentation upon receipt of a TPS application, despite clear statutory language requiring them to do so. The parties completed summary judgement briefing in December 2024. Plaintiffs expect that the District Court will either set oral argument on the summary judgment motions or issue a decision without argument.
In October and November, the parties in Montana Conservation Voters v. Jacobsen filed cross-motions for summary judgment. On December 4, the Court granted partial summary judgment to Plaintiffs on standing and the application of strict scrutiny but ruled that there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to whether the legislature intended to discriminate against voters because of their political beliefs. The Court denied Defendant’s summary judgment motion.
Trial took place from December 10–13. Earlier in the year, the Court decided that it would empanel an advisory jury. Plaintiffs objected, noting that no jury has ever before been empaneled in a constitutional redistricting case. Following the trial, the jury advised in a 9-3 vote that it did not believe discrimination was the legislature’s primary purpose in redistricting the Public Service Commission map. Because the jury was advisory, both parties submitted post-trial briefing to the judge, who must now make independent findings of fact and conclusions of law and enter judgment in the case. Plaintiffs urged the Court to disregard the advisory jury’s advice because the evidence shows that the legislature intended to discriminate and because the bill sponsor asserted legislative privilege, which meant that Plaintiffs were unable to call him to testify at trial. As a result, the advisory jury drew an improper inference against Plaintiffs. The Court’s ruling is expected in the next several weeks.