Other LanguagesAttorney General Bob Ferguson today filed a lawsuit against the collegiate sorority Alpha Omicron Pi for unlawfully charging University of Washington (UW) students more than $6,000 in rent even though the students could not access or live in sorority housing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Alpha Omicron Pi, a national, Tennessee-based sorority, also illegally charged late fees and threatened students with suspensions of their sorority memberships and damage to their credit if they did not pay.
OLYMPIA — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced his 2021 legislative agenda, which includes new bills requiring the collection and publication of data on the use of deadly force by law enforcement and prohibiting price gouging during emergencies.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today offered an update on his lawsuits against the federal government in the wake of President Joe Biden’s inauguration on Wednesday.
SPOKANE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced a Hayden, Idaho low-income housing provider, Whitewater Creek, will pay $50,000 after evidence revealed they illegally threatened tenants in April 2020 with eviction. In order to resolve Ferguson’s lawsuit, Whitewater Creek entered into a legally enforceable agreement to make this payment and will take additional accountability measures to avoid future violations of law. The Attorney General filed the resolution to his lawsuit in Spokane County Superior Court.
OLYMPIA — A panel of federal judges, including a Trump appointee, today blocked the Trump Administration’s effort to repeal the Clean Power Plan and replace it with the so-called “Affordable Clean Energy” rule, which would not require significant carbon emission reductions. The ruling came in a challenge brought by Attorney General Bob Ferguson and a coalition of 22 states and seven local governments.
Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced that a sham veterans’ charity is legally required to pay $95,000 to Washington state. Healing Heroes Network Inc. deceived donors into believing most of their donations would help provide medical care for wounded veterans. In fact, it spent less than one percent of individuals’ donations on veterans’ medical care. For example, in 2016, the charity received $2.7 million in donations nationwide, yet spent only $1,128 to fund veterans’ medical care.
TACOMA — As a result of Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit, non-profit organization Veterans Independent Enterprises of Washington (VIEW) has received $1 million — the maximum allowed under its insurance policy — to pay its creditors, including 74 veterans who are owed wages. The employees’ claims range from $192 to $48,925 in unpaid wages, totaling $310,489.37.
TACOMA — A Tacoma judge has ordered over $41,000 in penalties and mandatory training for a FedEx contractor and its owner for firing a pregnant employee immediately after she asked for an accommodation. An accommodation is a reasonable change to the working environment to accommodate the pregnancy and the health conditions after the birth of the baby. The judge’s decision came in the first case brought to trial by the Attorney General’s Office under the 2017 “Healthy Starts Act.”
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson and a legal coalition of 40 tribes, states, and community organizations filed a motion late yesterday for preliminary injunction to halt the federal government’s planned sale of the National Archives building in Seattle. The motion includes 586 pages of declarations from tribal officials, heads of community organizations and historians from across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska. The 79 declarations include deeply personal stories of connection to the archives and statements of outrage against "cultural erasure."
SEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson announced today that his office filed a lawsuit against the federal government for illegally proceeding with the sale of the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) building in Seattle. The government plans to ship the National Archives building’s irreplaceable, un-digitized records more than a thousand miles away to archive centers in Kansas City, Missouri and Riverside, California. This will effectively eliminate public access to the records. Twenty-nine federally recognized tribes, Alaskan tribal entities, and tribal communities from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Alaska, as well as nine community organizations, historical preservation societies and museums and the state of Oregon joined Ferguson’s lawsuit.