Resource: Jackson's Legacy

In October 1985, a developmentally disabled man in his late 20s drank a cup of oven cleaner. Despite severe burns, he survived. He also unwittingly kicked off one of the longest lawsuits in the history of the state of New Mexico. Today, the Jackson lawsuit—named for Walter Stephen Jackson, and filed after his near-poisoning—has dragged on for nearly 23 years and cost the state millions of dollars. It also has changed the face of how New Mexico treats its developmentally disabled. Because of the Jackson suit, care has shifted from state-run institutions to intimate, community-based programs that allow disabled people to interact with the public, and to programs that pay family members to care for them.