Our law firm obtained a global settlement of $11.9 Million from multiple at-fault parties, including corporations and government agencies, for our client who was a pretrial detainee in a county jail and the victim of medical negligence and deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Our black male client was in his 20s when he was arrested on serious criminal charges and held no bond. While playing basketball out in the yard, he fainted suddenly. Although he was seen by a jail nurse, he was not evaluated by a medical doctor. He was discharged back to his cell without going to an outside facility. Over the next few weeks, correctional officers noticed he was passed out in his cell but, again, he was never evaluated by a medical doctor. In the last episode of syncope, he never regained consciousness and spent the rest of his life in a persistent vegetative state. We filed lawsuits against the county, the Sheriff, the private correctional healthcare corporation, and individual nurses and medical providers in federal court in the Middle District of Florida. Although our main theories were medical negligence and deliberate indifference to serious medical needs, we also had theories that the County and Sheriff were negligent in selecting the private correctional healthcare company in the first place based on their terrible history in other jails and prisons around the nation.
Based on how we creatively and aggressively litigated this case in federal court, we convinced the County to pay more than the cap under Florida's limited waiver of sovereign immunity. The initial offers in the case were in the low five figures but eventually, the full policy limits were obtained from all available insurers.
