Cooper v. Clancy
No. 21-cv-6296 (W.D.N.Y.)
In November 2023, Josh Moskovitz and David Rankin won a $9.25 million verdict in the NDNY on behalf of the family of Terry Cooper, Jr., who was killed by New York state corrections officers in 2016. The verdict is the highest-ever jury award in a civil rights case in the Northern District of New York.
The officers claimed to have used minimal force on Mr. Cooper, and denied striking him with any objects, a claim supported by a faulty autopsy report. But photographs from the autopsy revealed evidence of significant injuries, including baton wounds on Mr. Cooper’s body and head.
The State of New York waived an appeal and agreed to pay $8,900,000 to Mr. Cooper’s estate.
NYS Senator Julia Salazar (Senate District 18) later introduced Senate Bill S9315, known as the Terry Cooper Autopsy Accountability Act. The law would require autopsy photos, tissue slides, and other items to be provided to the NYS Commission on Correction whenever there is a death in a New York state jail.
Sierra v. City of New York
Wood v. City of New
York
Nos. 20-cv-10291, 20-CV-10541 (S.D.N.Y.)
Sierra and Wood arose out of the NYPD’s brutal crackdown on the demonstrations that took place across New York City during the summer of 2020 in response to the murder of George Floyd.
Focused on the NYPD’s violent kettling and assault on hundreds of protesters in the Bronx neighborhood of Mott Haven, the Sierra and Wood cases were successfully consolidated before reaching an unprecedented settlement with the City of New York.
More than 320 people were eligible to receive payments of $21,500 each. The settlement stands as the highest per-person settlement anywhere in the country for a mass arrest class action lawsuit.
The legal team was led by Joshua Moskovitz, Michael Spiegel, Rob Rickner of Rickner PLLC, and Ali Frick and Doug Lieb of Kaufman Lieb Lebowitz & Frick, LLP
Hall v. Warren
No. 21-cv-6296 (W.D.N.Y.)
After decades of unchecked violence by the Rochester Police Department against people of color and people protesting the Department’s racist policing practices, ten individuals, Free the People Roc, and the Rochester Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild filed this class action lawsuit to end the Police Department’s decades’ long pattern of excessive force and biased policing.
Filed one year after Rochester police officers killed Daniel Prude, and 150 years after the passage of one of the most important federal civil rights laws still in use (42 U.S.C. § 1983), Hall v. Warren seeks broad injunctive relief to stop the Rochester Police Department’s unconstitutional policies and customs. The lawsuit also demands reparations for the injuries caused by the Department’s past practices.
In June 2022, the Northern District of New York federal court largely denied the Defendants’ motions to dismiss and allowed Plaintiffs’ claims to proceed, including racial discrimination claims based on the Rochester Police Department’s practice of using disproportionate use of force against people of color.
Representing the Plaintiffs along with The Law Office of Joshua Moskovitz, P.C., are Roth & Roth, LLP; Neufeld Scheck & Brustin, LLP; Easton Thompson Kasperek Shiffrin LLP; and Baker & Hostetler LLP.
Sughrim v. New York
No. 19-cv-7977 (RA) (SDA) (S.D.N.Y.)
This Class Action lawsuit challenges a practice of religious discrimination by the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) against Corrections Officers who wear beards as part of their religious beliefs.
In 2023, District Judge Ronnie Abrams granted class certification and granted Plaintiffs’ motion for partial summary judgment with respect to their claim that DOCCS has an unconstitutional practice of denying requests for religious accommodations based on a determination that wearing a beard is not a tenet of a believer’s faith.
Judge Abrams issued a permanent injunction against DOCCS enjoining it from enforcing the practice of denying religious accommodations based on their own understanding of the tenets of the applicant’s faith. Judge Abrams also ordered DOCCS not to revoke or modify the beard accommodations for named Plaintiffs Derek Gleixner and Khaldoun Alshamiri and to grant a religious accommodation to named Plaintiff Roland Sofo permitting him to wear a beard up to one inch long.
Representing the Plaintiffs along with The Law Office of Joshua Moskovitz, P.C., are Ronald C. Cook and Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.
Brown v. City of New York
No. 15-cv-4091 (PKC)(GWG) (S.D.N.Y.)
On September 17, 2013, Barrington Williams died in NYPD custody. He was 25 years old.
Almost immediately after the police arrested Mr. Williams for selling a MetroCard swipe in a subway station, the officers saw that he was unresponsive and having difficulty breathing. The officers understood that he was having a cardiac condition or respiratory arrest. The officers summoned an ambulance and one of the officers checked Mr. Williams’ pulse once or twice, but detected only a weak pulse. Yet, for ten minutes, while waiting for emergency medical technicians to arrive, the officers did not check if Mr. Williams was breathing, did not monitor to see whether Mr. Williams heart was still beating, did not provide CPR, and did not get a readily-available automated external defibrillator (“AED”), which would have analyzed Mr. Williams’ heart rhythm and announced verbal directions to begin cardio pulmonary resuscitation (“CPR”) and shock Mr. Williams’ heart. The NYPD provides extensive training to police officers in how to use CPR and AEDs, and the officers who arrested Mr. Williams knew how to use CPR and AEDs.
In 2020, after years of intense litigation that uncovered extensive hidden evidence and led to a substantial motion for sanctions, the City of New York agreed to settle the claims arising from Mr. Williams’ death for $2.55 million.
Representing the Plaintiff along with The Law Office of Joshua Moskovitz, P.C., is the Leventhal Law Group, P.C.