The ACLU of Southern California's board of directors has elected actor and activist Alan Toy as its next president. He is the first disabled person to lead the ACLU/SC's board of directors, and he has been a strong advocate for disability rights within the ACLU as a member of its national board of directors.

Toy, who contracted polio when he was three, is a longtime leader in changing media images of people with disabilities. As an activist in the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists and as the president of the Media Access Office in Hollywood from 1984 to 1989, he pushed entertainment industry leaders to create characters, storylines and images that resisted age-old negative stereotypes of people with disabilities.

"Alan has faced great challenges in his life, and he shares the ACLU's vision of fair play and equal rights for all," said ACLU of Southern California Executive Director Ramona Ripston. "His creativity, energy, and vision display the best of what Southern California represents to the world, and he is a fantastic choice to lead our board of directors."

As an actor, Alan has worked in dozens television shows and major motion pictures, including "In the Line of Fire," "Born on the Fourth of July," Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," "Beverly Hills: 90210" and most recently a small role on the ABC hit "Brothers and Sisters."

His advocacy in mass media not only paved the way for many other disabled performers to have successful careers, but also gave viewers around the world a new way of seeing people with disabilities on television and in films. Toy is currently associate director of the UCLA Center for Neighborhood Knowledge.

Toy, a member of the ACLU's board of directors since 1995, takes over for Isabelle Gunning, a professor at Southwestern Law School who has been president of the board of directors since 2005. Gunning will remain on the board of directors.

"Isabelle has championed our constitutional values through an extremely difficult period for our nation and region, and we have been lucky to have her leadership," said Ripston.

Also elected at the board of directors' Jan. 16 meeting:

- Shelan Joseph, a Los Angeles County Public Defender for more than 10 years, will be Vice President.

- Anne Richardson, a partner at the law firm of Hadsell & Stormer focusing on civil rights litigation, will be Secretary.

- Carrie Hempel, a clinical professor at USC Law School's Post Conviction Project, will be Treasurer.

- James Gilliam, Jr., a longtime activist for gay and lesbian rights and an associate at Paul, Hastings, Janofskly & Walker, will be affirmative action officer.

- David Cruz, a USC Law School professor who teaches constitutional law, will be the affiliate representative on the ACLU's national board of directors.

The ACLU of Southern California is one of the nation's largest ACLU affiliates, with more than 50,000 members. The ACLU board of directors guides the ACLU's work to safeguard civil liberties and civil rights for residents in the seven-county Southern California area.

A paraplegic man has sued the hospital that dumped him in a Skid Row gutter without his wheelchair.

Gabino Olvera, a 42-year-old man with a history of mental illness, was treated and discharged from Hollywood Presbyterian in February 2007, transported by van across town, and deposited on the side of a street with no wheelchair and wearing a soiled hospital gown. Witnesses at the scene observed Mr. Olvera dragging himself on the ground with his papers clenched in his teeth.

Attorneys for Public Counsel, the ACLU of Southern California, and the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. have filed a lawsuit against Hollywood Presbyterian on behalf of Olvera.

The lawsuit is the second against a major hospital for dumping patients in downtown L.A. In 2006, the ACLU/SC and Public Counsel filed a lawsuit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals for the unlawful dumping of Carol Reyes, a 64-year-old, mentally ill woman captured on videotape in her Kaiser hospital gown and socks wandering along the streets of Skid Row after being dropped off by taxi. That case led Kaiser to change its policies to address the issue of homeless patient discharge.

"Hospitals have an obligation to treat all their patients with dignity and respect," said ACLU/SC Legal Director Mark Rosenbaum. "In this case, Hollywood Presbyterian left a paraplegic man literally in the gutter without his wheelchair to drag himself to safety as best he could. It was like they lit a match to the Hippocratic oath."

LOS ANGELES - Attorneys for Public Counsel, the ACLU of Southern California, and the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P. announced the filing today of a lawsuit against Hollywood Presbyterian (a Southern California hospital) on behalf of a paraplegic, homeless man who was 'dumped' in a skid row gutter.

Gabino Olvera - a 42-year-old man with a history of mental illness - was treated and discharged from the hospital in February 2007, transported by van across town, and deposited on the side of a street without a wheelchair and wearing a soiled hospital gown. According to the complaint, witnesses at the scene observed Mr. Olvera dragging himself on the ground with his papers clenched in his teeth.

Today's filing is not the first case against a major hospital for this type of practice. In 2006, the ACLU/SC and Public Counsel filed a lawsuit against Kaiser Foundation Hospitals for the unlawful dumping of Carol Reyes, a 64-year-old, mentally ill woman captured on videotape in her Kaiser hospital gown and socks wandering along the streets of Skid Row after being dropped off by taxi. Kaiser has since agreed to change its policies and implement a series of new protocols specifically to address the issue of homeless patient discharge.

'Los Angeles is ground zero in the fight against the unlawful dumping of homeless patients by hospitals,' said Hern'n Vera, Directing Attorney of the Consumer Law Project at Public Counsel, the nation's largest public interest, pro bono law firm. 'What Hollywood Presbyterian did to Mr. Olvera is the most obscene and callous example of this practice that we have seen, and sets a new low in the treatment of the homeless.'

According to the lawsuit, Hollywood Presbyterian and its medical staff acted negligently in not heeding the signs of his mental illness, failing to diagnose and treat Mr. Olvera's urinary tract infection, and discharging him in a helpless condition.

"Hospitals have an obligation to treat all its patients with dignity and respect,' stated Mark Rosenbaum, Legal Director of the ACLU of Southern California. 'In this case, Hollywood Presbyterian left a paraplegic literally in the gutter without his wheelchair to drag himself to safety as best he could. It was like they lit a match to the Hippocratic oath."

In addition to unspecified damages, the lawsuit filed on behalf of Mr. Olvera seeks to ensure that Hollywood Presbyterian puts procedures in place to end this practice at its facility.

'One of the goals in filing this lawsuit is to change how these defendants do business, to force them to adopt long-overdue institutional policies which will stop their inhumane dumping of the homeless, the unemployed and/or the uninsured members of our community,' stated Steven Archer, a partner at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P., and one of the attorneys representing Mr. Olvera.

'Each and all of our citizens are entitled to be treated with dignity and each and all of them should be able to receive necessary emergency medical care and services without the risk that they will be taken miles from home and dumped in the gutter in Skid Row.'