The Southern Poverty Law Center has initiated a number of
civil cases seeking injunctive relief and monetary awards on behalf of its clients. The SPLC has said it does not accept any portion of monetary judgments.
Sims v. Amos (1974) An early SPLC case was
Sims v. Amos (consolidated with
Nixon v. Brewer) in which the
U.S. District Court for the Middle of Alabama ordered the state legislature to reapportion its election system. The result of the decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed, was that fifteen black legislators were elected in 1974.
Brown v. Invisible Empire, KKK (1980) In 1979, the Klan began a summer of attacks against civil rights groups, beginning in Alabama. In
Decatur, Alabama, Klan members clashed with a group of civil rights marchers. There were a hundred Klan members carrying "bats, ax handles and guns". A black woman, Bernice Brown, was shot and other marchers were violently attacked. In
Brown v. Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, filed in 1980 in the USDC Northern District of Alabama, the SPLC sued the Invisible Empire, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan on behalf of plaintiffs, Brown and other black marchers. The civil suit was settled in 1990 and "required Klansmen to pay damages, perform community service, and refrain from white supremacist activity." as a "catastrophe" for the Klan, as the SPLC's newly established Klanwatch, which became a "powerful weapon" that "tracked and litigated" the Klan. As a result of the SPLC, the FBI reopen their case against the Klan, and "nine Klansmen were eventually convicted of criminal charges" related to the Decatur confrontation of 1979. to court to stop racial harassment and intimidation of Vietnamese
shrimpers in and around
Galveston Bay. The Klan's actions against approximately 100 Vietnamese shrimpers in the area included a
cross burning, sniper fire aimed at them, and arsonists burning their boats. In May 1981,
U.S. District Court judge
Gabrielle Kirk McDonald issued a preliminary injunction against the Klan, requiring them to cease intimidating, threatening, or harassing the Vietnamese. McDonald eventually found the TER and Beam liable for
tortious interference, violations of the
Sherman Antitrust Act, and of various civil rights statutes and thus permanently enjoined them against violence, threatening behavior, and other harassment of the Vietnamese shrimpers.
Person v. Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (1982) In 1982, armed members of the
Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan terrorized Bobby Person, a black prison guard, and members of his family. They harassed and threatened others, including a white woman who had befriended blacks. In 1984, Person became the lead plaintiff in
Person v. Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a lawsuit brought by the SPLC in the
United States District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. The harassment and threats continued during litigation and the court issued an order prohibiting any person from interfering with others inside the courthouse. In January 1985, the court issued a
consent order that prohibited the group's "Grand Dragon",
Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., and his followers from operating a paramilitary organization, holding parades in black neighborhoods, and from harassing, threatening or harming any black person or white persons who associated with black persons. Subsequently, the court dismissed the plaintiffs' claim for damages.
United Klans of America In 1987, Dees and
Michael Figures won a case against the
United Klans of America for the
lynching of Michael Donald, a black teenager in
Mobile, Alabama. The SPLC used an unprecedented legal strategy of holding an organization responsible for the crimes of individual members to help produce a $7 million judgment for the victim's mother. In 1987, five members of a Klan offshoot, the
White Patriot Party, were indicted for stealing military weaponry and plotting to kill Dees. The SPLC has since successfully used this precedent to force numerous Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups into bankruptcy. in Montgomery
White Aryan Resistance On November 13, 1988, in
Portland, Oregon, three white supremacist members of East Side White Pride and
White Aryan Resistance (WAR) fatally assaulted
Mulugeta Seraw, an
Ethiopian man who came to the United States to attend college. In October 1990, the SPLC won a civil case on behalf of Seraw's family against WAR's operator
Tom Metzger and his son, John, for a total of $12.5 million. The Metzgers declared bankruptcy, and WAR went out of business. The cost of work for the trial was absorbed by the
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as well as the SPLC. , Metzger still makes payments to Seraw's family.
Church of the Creator In May 1991, Harold Mansfield, a black
U.S. Navy war veteran, was murdered by George Loeb, a member of the neo-Nazi "Church of the Creator" (now called the
Creativity Movement). SPLC represented the victim's family in a civil case and won a judgment of $1 million from the church in March 1994. The church transferred ownership to
William Pierce, head of the
National Alliance, to avoid paying money to Mansfield's heirs. The SPLC filed suit against Pierce for his role in the fraudulent scheme and won an $85,000 judgment against him in 1995. The amount was upheld on appeal and the money was collected prior to Pierce's death in 2002. The money was awarded stemming from arson convictions; these Klan units burned down the historic black church in 1995. Morris Dees told the press, "If we put the Christian Knights out of business, what's that worth? We don't look at what we can collect. It's what the jury thinks this egregious conduct is worth that matters, along with the message it sends." According to
The Washington Post the amount is the "largest-ever civil award for damages in a hate crime case."
Aryan Nations In September 2000, the SPLC won a $6.3 million judgment against
Aryan Nations via an Idaho jury who awarded punitive and compensatory damages to a woman and her son who were attacked by Aryan Nations guards. Bullets struck their car several times, causing the car to crash. An Aryan Nations member held the Keenans at gunpoint.
Ten Commandments monument In 2002, the SPLC and the
American Civil Liberties Union filed suit (
Glassroth v. Moore) against
Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice
Roy Moore for placing a display of the
Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the
Alabama Judicial Building. Moore, who had final authority over what decorations were to be placed in the Alabama State Judicial Building's Rotunda, had installed a 5,280 pound (2,400 kg)
granite block, three feet wide by three feet deep by four feet tall, of the Ten Commandments late at night without the knowledge of any other court justice. After defying several court rulings, Moore was eventually removed from the court and the Supreme Court justices had the monument removed from the building.
Leiva v. Ranch Rescue In 2003, the SPLC, the
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and local attorneys filed a civil suit,
Leiva v. Ranch Rescue, in
Jim Hogg County, Texas, against Ranch Rescue, a vigilante paramilitary group and several of its associates, seeking damages for assault and illegal detention of two illegal immigrants caught near the U.S.-Mexico border. In April 2005, SPLC obtained judgments totaling $1 million against Casey James Nethercott, who was then
Ranch Rescue's leader and the owner of an Arizona ranch, Camp Thunderbird, Joe Sutton, who owned the Hebbronville ranch on which two illegal immigrants has been caught trespassing on March 18, 2003, and Jack Foote, the founder of Ranch Rescue. Sutton, who had recruited Ranch Rescue to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border region near his Hebbronville ranch,
Billy Ray Johnson The SPLC brought a civil suit on behalf of Billy Ray Johnson, a black, mentally disabled man, who was severely beaten by four white males in Texas and left bleeding in a ditch, suffering permanent injuries. In 2007, Johnson was awarded $9 million in damages by a
Linden, Texas jury. At a criminal trial, the four men were convicted of assault and received sentences of 30 to 60 days in county jail.
Imperial Klans of America In November 2008, the SPLC's case against the
Imperial Klans of America (IKA), the nation's second-largest Klan organization, went to trial in
Meade County, Kentucky. The SPLC had filed suit for damages in July 2007 on behalf of Jordan Gruver and his mother against the IKA in Kentucky. In July 2006, five Klan members went to the Meade County Fairgrounds in
Brandenburg, Kentucky, "to hand out business cards and flyers advertising a 'white-only' IKA function". Two members of the Klan started calling Gruver, a 16-year-old boy of Panamanian descent, a "
spic". Subsequently, the boy, ( and weighing ) was beaten and kicked by the Klansmen (one of whom was and ). As a result, the victim received "two cracked ribs, a broken left forearm, multiple cuts and bruises and jaw injuries requiring extensive dental repair."
Mississippi correctional institutions Together with the
ACLU National Prison Project, the SPLC filed a class-action suit in November 2010 against the owner/operators of the private
Walnut Grove Youth Correctional Facility in
Leake County, Mississippi, and the
Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDC). They charged that conditions, including under-staffing and neglect of medical care, produced numerous and repeated abuses of youthful prisoners, high rates of violence and injury, and that one prisoner suffered brain damage because of inmate-on-inmate attacks. A federal civil rights investigation was undertaken by the
United States Department of Justice. In settling the suit, Mississippi ended its contract with
GEO Group in 2012. Additionally, under the court decree, the MDC moved the youthful offenders to state-run units. In 2012, Mississippi opened a new youthful offender unit at the
Central Mississippi Correctional Facility in Rankin County. The state also agreed to not subject youthful offenders to
solitary confinement and a court monitor conducted regular reviews of conditions at the facility. Also with the
ACLU Prison Project, the SPLC filed a class-action suit in May 2013 against
Management and Training Corporation (MTC), the for-profit operator of the private
East Mississippi Correctional Facility, and the MDC. Management and Training Corporation had been awarded a contract for this and two other facilities in Mississippi in 2012 following the removal of GEO Group. The suit charged failure of MTC to make needed improvements, and to maintain proper conditions and treatment for this special needs population of prisoners. In 2015 the court granted the plaintiffs' motion for class certification.
Polk County, Florida sheriff In 2012, the SPLC initiated a class action federal lawsuit against the
Polk County, Florida sheriff, Grady Judd, alleging that seven juveniles confined by the sheriff were suffering in improper conditions. U.S. district court judge
Steven D. Merryday found in favor of Judd, who said the SPLC's allegations "were not supported by the facts or court precedence ." The judge wrote that "the conditions of juvenile detention at (Central County Jail) are not consistent with (Southern Poverty's) dark, grim, and condemning portrayal." While the county sheriff's department did not recover an estimated $1 million in attorney's fees defending the case, Judge Merryday did award $103,000 in court costs to Polk County.
Andrew Anglin and The Daily Stormer In April 2017, the SPLC filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of Tanya Gersh, accusing
Andrew Anglin, publisher of the white supremacist website
The Daily Stormer, of instigating an anti-Semitic harassment campaign against Gersh, a
Whitefish, Montana, real estate agent. In July 2019, a judge issued a 14 million dollar
default judgment against Anglin, who is in hiding and has refused to appear in court. ==Lawsuits against and criticism of the SPLC==