ECBAWM and ’20-’21 Fellow Sonya Levitova Gain Class Certification for Detention Center Blackout Plaintiffs

Sonya Levitova is a ’20-’21 Justice Catalyst Fellow at Emery Celli Brinckerhoff Abady Ward & Maazel, where she focuses on holding federal officials accountable for their violations of incarcerated people’s constitutional rights. Throughout her fellowship, Levitova contributed to a motion for class certification in a federal lawsuit against the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for its subjection of incarcerated people to inhumane conditions and frigid temperatures during a blackout. ECBAWM’s press release is reproduced below.

In a ruling on May 25, 2021, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of the Eastern District of New York granted class certification to a federal lawsuit filed on behalf of people incarcerated in the west building of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn (“MDC”) during the eight-day blackout in winter of 2019. To date almost 1,700 people have been identified as class members. 

“Taken together, this evidence paints a harrowing picture of prison conditions in the wake of the fire and power outage,” Judge Korman wrote in the Memorandum and Order. “In particular, the evidence describes a series of inhumane and potentially dangerous conditions that affected residents throughout the West Building during the week without power.” 

ECBAWM partner Katherine Rosenfeld praised the decision. “Although the BOP treated the people confined in the MDC during the blackout as though they were less than human – leaving almost 2,000 locked in dark, freezing conditions for a week without adequate food, medicine, clothing, blankets, or any way to communicate with their families – the Court’s decision affirms that everyone who experienced this crisis can bring their claim to the federal court with the benefit of counsel,” said Rosenfeld. 

The class will be represented by Rosenfeld, ECBAWM partner O. Andrew F. Wilson, ECBAWM associate Scout Katovich, and ECBAWM Justice Catalyst Fellow Sonya Levitova, along with Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law Professors Alexander Reinert and Betsy Ginsberg. 

For information about the class action, including case updates, please visit MDCBlackout.com.  

Press

“Inmates Jailed at Brooklyn Federal Lockup During 2019 Freeze, Blackout Certified as Class,” New York Law Journal

“Judge says nearly 1,700 inmates can sue Brooklyn’s MDC jail as a group over freezing conditions in 2019,” New York Daily News

“Class certified over 2019 winter power outage at Brooklyn jail,” Reuters