Attorney Rob Jarosh recently obtained a dismissal for an adult community corrections facility and several of its employees in a civil rights lawsuit by a former resident who alleged that she was sexually harassed while she was a resident at the facility, and then retaliated against after reporting the alleged harassment. In the lawsuit, the former resident alleged that the sexual harassment constituted cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as well as violations of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”). In ordering dismissal on behalf of Hirst Applegate’s client, the Federal District Court ruled that the former resident failed to establish that the facility and its employees sexually harassed or retaliated against the resident in violation the Eighth and/or Fourteenth Amendment, and that the PREA does not include a private cause of action.
