Class action lawsuit accuses Tennessee Department of Children’s Services of mistreating disabled children • Tennessee Lookout

The Department of Children’s Services illegally and unconstitutionally locks children with disabilities in prison-like facilities where they are pepper-sprayed, beaten and denied access to education and health care, a new class action lawsuit says.

The comprehensive 114-page complaint, filed Wednesday in federal court in Nashville, describes page after page the “horrific experiences of juveniles in (DCS) custody.” Some of them include:

• a 17-year-old boy who was beaten more than 31 times

• a 15-year-old girl who was handcuffed, dragged across the floor and placed in a solitary confinement cell, where she was later sprayed naked with pepper spray.

• a single juvenile detention center in Middle Tennessee with 48 cases of pepper spray attacks per month.

• Children held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day, sleeping on bare bed frames in vermin-infested cells, without being offered any education or psychiatric care.

• Several DCS facilities that offer “bounties” to get children to attack other children, with special punishment given to those who filed complaints against staff or conditions. Ramen noodles were a popular reward for children who hit other children, the lawsuit says.

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“We have spent the last two years doing everything in our power to effect change in these systems, to no avail,” said Jack Derryberry, legal director of Disability Rights Tennessee, which is leading the legal challenge.

“At this point, we have no choice but to ask the courts to step in to protect those who cannot protect themselves,” he said.

The lawsuit, which also names DCS Commissioner Margie Quin and the Tennessee Department of Education and its commissioner Lizzette Reynolds, seeks class action status to represent what attorneys estimate may be more than 1,000 disabled youth in the state of Tennessee who were in state custody under the juvenile justice system.

She alleges that the state violated the Americans with Disabilities Act, the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which protects against excessive use of force, unjustified deprivation of liberty and denial of medical care, and the 8th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.

Amy Lannom Wilhite, a spokeswoman for Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, responded on behalf of DCS, saying the agency was aware of the lawsuit but declined to comment.

The lawsuit follows years of turmoil and chaos for children in DCS’s care as it struggled to find safe and appropriate homes for the children in Tennessee.

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Children have been forced to sleep on the floors of state office buildings and lounge around in hospital rooms for months after being released. Recently, DCS announced it plans to place children in group homes that have cared for adults with severe disabilities for more than a decade – a move that has raised concerns among relatives of adults who may have to move to make room for children, who have accused state officials of pitting one vulnerable population against another.

Children come into DCS care either because of allegations of neglect or abuse in their own homes or because they have gotten into trouble with the law, failed to attend school, or committed other offenses that bring them into juvenile court.

These are children with disabilities who come into the care of the DCS via the juvenile courts and whose protection is sought through the lawsuit.

At any given time, there are about 600 to 650 youth in DCS juvenile detention — a total of 1,200 to 1,400 per year — and national data suggests an estimated 65 to 85 percent of them live with a disability, DeBerry said.

These children are routinely denied legally required accommodations and receive little to no mental health or other health care – sometimes as a form of discipline, the lawsuit says. The children are denied psychotropic drugs as punishment for perceived rule violations and medical treatment for self-inflicted injuries, the lawsuit says.

Children in juvenile detention centers are also denied the appropriate education required by law, the lawsuit says.

The Youth Law Center and the law firm of Sanford Heisler Sharp, represented in this case by former federal judge Kevin Sharp, along with Disability Rights Tennessee filed the lawsuit and requested class action status.

06/26/2024 – DRT v. Tennessee DCS et al – Final Complaint