A class action lawsuit against The GEO Group, Inc., a multi-billion dollar corporation profiting from human captivity, and Spartan Chemical Company, Inc., a multi-million dollar chemical manufacturing company. This case seeks justice for thousands of people detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center who were harmed by GEO’s reckless misuse of a toxic pesticide during COVID-19 and its intentional cover-up of that misuse.
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, GEO adopted a policy of spraying a toxic and highly corrosive pesticide, HDQ Neutral, as a fine mist throughout detainee living areas at Adelanto every 15 to 30 minutes–day and night, almost 50 times per day. GEO did this without any advance notice to detained people, without making any effort to remove them from the areas being sprayed, and without providing them adequate protective equipment to protect against exposure. GEO also systematically overconcentrated the HDQ Neutral above the EPA-approved dilution for disinfection. Spray fell into people’s food and coated the surfaces they slept on and touched all day, accumulating so exposure was unavoidable.
As health complaints mounted, GEO dismissed them. It lied to the detained people in its care, claiming its use of HDQ Neutral was safe and necessary to stop COVID (it was not–and GEO never checked to see if it was or sought medical guidance about the incessant spraying). GEO also lied to Congress and to the public, insisting it was using the pesticide in line with regulations (it was not) and that detainees weren’t being injured from it (they were).
Meanwhile, Spartan, the manufacturer of HDQ Neutral, stood by collecting commissions on every bucket of disinfectant it sold to GEO. Although Spartan was responsible for training and adjusting the chemical dispensers at Adelanto, it failed to warn detained people about the dangers of HDQ Neutral, failed to stop GEO’s misuse, intentionally designed the dispensers to dispense up to twice the approved concentration, mislabeled the pesticide, and provided promotional materials instead of warnings or instructions.
This case is part of a broader effort by organizers, activists, and attorneys to hold GEO accountable for the inhumane way it treats the people in its detention facilities. GEO has made billions in revenue from its operation of private detention facilities—including a recent $2.1 billion agreement to oversee the expansion of its operation of Adelanto. But it’s not only these ICE contracts making GEO rich; it’s also the way the company cuts corners at its facilities, putting profits over people.
GEO’s reckless use of HDQ Neutral fits into this all-too-familiar pattern: Plaintiffs and class members were trapped at Adelanto without the ability to avoid or question their exposure to HDQ Neutral. GEO and Spartan knew the harm their conduct was causing, and persisted in the face of mounting detainee complaints and governmental oversight. As a result, detained people suffered short- and long-term health damage, including damage to throat and nasal passages, loss of vision, skin rashes, and long term respiratory conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
A new lawsuit filed against one of the nation's largest for-profit prison operators, GEO Group Inc., alleges the company improperly used toxic chemicals to clean its detention centers, causing inmates to get sick.
As the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the United States in early 2020, employees at an Adelanto, Calif., detention center began spraying the facility with a foul-smelling pink aerosol, a lawsuit alleges.
The Trial Impact Project team knew from the beginning that this case would be challenging: the costs to prove a toxic tort are high, class actions in this space are rare, GEO is famously unwilling to play fair in court, and class members feared retaliation for speaking up. But we also knew it was important to shed light on what happened in one of the most notorious detention centers in the country and to take on hard cases with community groups and organizers fighting for change. Along with the Shut Down Adelanto Coalition and the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, our litigators investigated GEO’s misconduct and worked to ensure this case served the interests of people detained at Adelanto.
Over two years, Trial Impact Project and our co-counsel at Hueston Hennigan LLP obtained critical discovery against GEO and Spartan, taking and defending over 50 depositions–including several of GEO’s corporate higher-ups–and combing through hundreds of thousands of documents to piece together what happened behind closed doors at Adelanto. We hired experts in chemistry, environmental health sciences, industrial hygiene, medicine, and toxicology to build our case and highlight the damage of sustained exposure to HDQ Neutral. And we secured a hard-won victory on our motion for class certification, certifying an issue class on general causation: whether HDQ Neutral can cause a host of adverse health effects. The entire class of people detained at Adelanto during GEO’s incessant spraying will benefit from a ruling on this issue.
Trial is bifurcated into two phases: a first phase on Defendants’ statute of limitations defense, in which they claim our Plaintiffs filed the case too late; and a second phase on the merits of Plaintiffs’ claims, at which we will present the true story of how GEO and Spartan allowed our clients and others to suffer in captivity during a global pandemic. With decades of collective trial experience, our team is ready and well-equipped to hold GEO and Spartan accountable at trial.
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