Katie Bennett, Robert Bennett and Andrew Noel, Robins Kaplan LLP

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What has been called an “epidemic of indifference” is damaging to many men and women who encounter the police. That may result in civil rights and personal injury claims against police and jails. That is the wheelhouse of partners at Robins Kaplan — Katie Bennett, Robert Bennett and Andrew Noel — who are the authors of “An Epidemic of Indifference,” part of their 2020 civil rights report.

In 2023, the team settled with the City of Minneapolis for $8.75 million for excessive force claims involving officers including former police officer Derek Chauvin.

They also represent the estates of two inmates at the Sherburne County Jail. Each killed himself in the same cell, but three years apart, said Katie Bennett. The cell was not visible from the jail catwalk, facilitating the deaths, she said.

The Scott County Jail was the location of a crime that is the centerpiece of man’s inhumanity to man, Robert Bennett said. In that matter, Terrance Winborn’s bacterial infection was untreated resulting in his loss of both arms and a stroke. The case settled for $12.2 million. Scott County Jail officials failed to report this matter to the Minnesota Department of Corrections within the 10-day period required by law and allowed 39 hours of archived video evidence concerning Winborn to be deleted.

The team is also representing the parents of a mentally ill 12-year-old girl who committed suicide at Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch. A North Dakota District Court held that the ranch employees were not state actors, but the Eighth Circuit reversed. It found that North Dakota had a constitutional duty to provide the girl with medical care. Moreover, the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation DCR outsourced this obligation to the ranch. That relationship with the state made DBGR and its employees state actors.

“The Ranch’s months-long treatment of A.A.R. reinforces that it assumed the State’s role in her medical care,” the court wrote. As such, the district court’s order was reversed. See: Roberson v. The Dakota Boys & Girls Ranch, 42 F.4th 924 (8th Cir. 2022).