Minnesota Lawyer
The settlement includes a requirement that people with disabilities living in group homes who file a request to live independently be provided with access to services to help achieve that.
The case was “decades in the making,” dating back to a 1999 Minnesota Supreme Court ruling that persons with disabilities should live in the most integrated community setting practical, said lead attorney Justin Perl of Anthony Ostlund Louwagie Dressen & Boylan P.A.
Minnesota had been relying on four-person group homes. But the 2009 Legislature authorized a moratorium on the growth of licensed adult and child corporate foster care and community residential support settings.
Because of the decision, DHS will be providing direct housing stabilization services, Perl said. “Not only do the services get provided for the first time, DHS will be directly involved in getting those services to each person,” rather than relying on counties’ case managers to get that done, Perl said.
Also significant: “DHS will be required to generate reports and track whether people are actually moving out of group homes and into their own homes.”
The settlement also includes an agreement by the Department of Human Services to pay $1.14 million in attorneys’ fees and costs, which is the largest attorneys’ fees award received by Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid (MMLA) in its more than 100-year history.
Attorneys Justin Perl, Steve Schmidt, Justin Page and Eren Sutherland of Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid led the case, while attorneys Peter J. McElligott and Steven M. Pincus of Anthony Ostlund and Laura A. Farley of Nichols Kaster took the case on a pro bono basis and donated all attorneys’ fees to Legal Aid.
The settlement was reached about two weeks before a trial had been scheduled to begin. Formal implementation of the order won’t take place until final settlement approval, scheduled for this spring.
Read more about Minnesota Lawyer’s superb class of Attorneys of the Year for 2022 here.
