Southern District of New York – Page 3

ACLU FOIA Suit against IHS re: Reproductive Health Care

September 27, 2010Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here is the complaint: ACLU v IHS Complaint.

Here is the commentary from the ACLU lawyers (article here) (h/t Indianz):

By Alexa Kolbi-Molinas, Staff Attorney, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project & Robert Doody, Executive Director, ACLU of South Dakota

“They treat us just like guinea pigs when it comes to Indian Health Services.” That’s how one woman on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation described the birth of her second child. She is not alone. Today, the ACLU and the ACLU of South Dakota filed a Freedom of Information of Act (FOIA) lawsuit against Indian Health Services (IHS), seeking information about the provision of reproductive health care services to the women of the Cheyenne River Sioux.

For nearly a decade, the women of the Cheyenne River Sioux — most of whom depend on IHS for their health care — have had to travel at least 90 miles to Pierre, South Dakota, over poorly maintained roads, to be able to give birth at the nearest hospital with an IHS contract (the next closest hospital is 180 miles away). But even worse is the treatment they describe once they get there.

Many women report that they are being told to forgo natural labor and delivery, and instead accept medication to induce labor, either on or before their due dates, at a time selected exclusively by their doctor. They are given little or no counseling — indeed, many women say that the first time their doctor spoke to them about induction of labor was on the day they were induced. One young woman told us that shortly after learning she was to be induced, she asked her doctor to wait just one day so that her mother could be with her during the birth of her first child. Her doctor refused.

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Gristede’s Foods Suit Settled

May 1, 2010Matthew L.M. Fletcher

Here is the stipulation: Gristede’s Foods Settlement Stipulation

Don’t know details yet.

Seneca Gaming Corp. v. Merrill Lynch Materials

March 1, 2010Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

Here are the materials in this pending case (news article here via Pechanga):

Seneca Gaming Corp Complaint

Merrill Lynch Motion to Dismiss

Seneca Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

NYTs on NYC v. Poospatuck Smokeshops

October 29, 2008Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From the NYTs:

Bootleg cigarette traffic from Long Island’s tiny Poospatuck reservation to New York City is brisk, so much so that some cigarette dealers on the reservation don’t even bother to set up storefronts, according to a motion filed in federal court on Tuesday.

Instead, the dealers take telephone orders for bulk shipments of untaxed cigarettes. Millions of them are delivered to the city by van and distributed through an underground network that dramatically undercuts tax collection, the city alleged.

The Bloomberg administration asked a federal judge in Brooklyn to bar the reservation’s eight largest dealers from selling untaxed cigarettes to the public. Those dealers, named as defendants in a federal lawsuit filed by the city last month, control 95 percent of the sales on the reservation, the city said.

Officials estimate that untaxed cigarette sales by the eight dealers have cut city revenues by nearly $195 million a year, an amount the city can ill afford during a financial crisis. In addition, bootleg cigarette traffic undermines a Bloomberg administration anti-smoking campaign.

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