Following more than three years of hard-fought litigation, a Morgan Lewis team working with three nonprofits secured a landmark settlement that overhauled Missouri’s administration of psychotropic medications to as many as 13,000 foster children. The outcome set a strong legal precedent that could lead to greater protection of foster children nationwide.
Working with the St. Louis University School of Law Legal Clinic, Children’s Rights Inc., and the National Center for Youth Law, our team engaged in the first federal class action, M.B. v. Tidball, to shine a spotlight exclusively on the widespread use of psychotropic drugs in children in state care. The civil rights lawsuit alleged “a longstanding failure by the state to provide adequate oversight in the administration of powerful psychotropic medications to children in foster care.” Under the team’s novel class action theory, the state of Missouri violated the constitutional rights of class members—defined as children in foster care in the state—by failing to employ a system that maintained accurate medical records and monitored whether the administration of multiple psychotropic medications was appropriate.
Morgan Lewis developed the factual case and took the lead on the appeal of the court’s decision to certify a class. After it became clear that the certification of the class was likely to survive the appeal, the team negotiated a settlement establishing fundamental protocols and safeguards preventing improper and indiscriminate administration of medication that could harm foster children’s mental and physical well-being.
The settlement resolved the lawsuit in the US District Court for the Western District of Missouri and the court awarded a putative class of children and youths in Missouri’s care and plaintiffs’ counsel (including Morgan Lewis) more than $3.25 million in fees and expenses. The award was later affirmed by the US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The firm’s portion of the fees were directed to our self-sustained ML Foundation program, which promotes diversity and inclusion within the legal profession, including through a scholarship program.
In the News
To read more about this matter, see reporting in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and St. Louis Public Radio.