Civil Plaintiff
Inmate Lawsuit Settles for $12M Giving 10,000 Ex-Inmates $600 Each
Bucks County agreed Monday to pay a little more than $10 million to settle class action claims that it violated the privacy of more than 10,000 former Bucks County prison inmates.
The payout includes $4 million in plaintiff attorney fees and expenses related to the nearly seven-year legal battle over the county’s online Inmate Lookup Tool.
On top of those settlement costs, the county also spent $2.48 million on its legal fees in the case, according to a spokesman.
Still, it’s much less than the potential $68 million in damages the county faced after a federal jury found in 2019 it violated the state’s Criminal History Record Information Act, known as CHRIA, when it posted inmate information and mugshots on a publicly accessible website.
