by Matt Clarke

On October 11, 2023, the Supreme Court of Arizona reversed a grant of partial summary judgment to Corizon Health, the former private medical contractor for the state Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry (DCRR), in a suit filed over a state prisoner’s death from allegedly untreated diabetes.

In its ruling, the Court agreed that Plaintiffs’ medical experts did not satisfy requirements for those testifying against a licensed health professional; under state law, ARS § 12-­2604, such testimony can be offered only by experts whose credentials and experience align with those of the provider being sued for malpractice. However, the Court said that “an institution cannot be a licensed health professional because an institution is not a natural person,” so those heightened requirements did not apply to Plaintiffs’ experts when testifying against Corizon Health.

Importantly, the Court also beat back a craven attempt by Corizon Health to say on the one hand that it was forced to let underqualified nurses provide care in the absence of more qualified doctors and then on the other hand argue that Plaintiffs’ expert was underqualified to critique the higher level of care that they tried to provide.

…

by David M. Reutter

On July 12, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania unsealed the settlement agreement between PrimeCare Medical and the Estate of Charles Freitag.

As PLN reported, Freitag, 57, committed suicide on August 25, 2018, at the Bucks County Correctional …

it would prefer not to run a new Hawaiian lockup, private prison giant CoreCivic is pushing instead to build and lease it—and the firm has a high-placed ally in state Budget and Finance Director Luis Salaveria: Until the end of 2022 he was a registered CoreCivic lobbyist.

In a meeting with the state Senate Ways and Means Committee on September 15, 2023, Salaveria outlined three proposals to finance a $900 million replacement for the aging Oahu Community Correctional Center (OCCC). Two of those plans involve a “P3” public-private partnership, which CoreCivic has been pushing.

For his lobbying efforts, CoreCivic paid Salaveria $43,100 from 2019 to 2022. He denied consulting with the firm about OCCC financing alternatives—though after years on the other side of the table, he no doubt already knows what CoreCivic wants, as Common Cause Hawaii program manager Camron Hurt pointed out.

“[W]hen citizens say there is a corruption issue, and they say there is a transparency issue, and they say they do not trust the state government, you need not look any further than what you have right here,” he said.

Salaveria said his lobbying efforts focused on the state’s $33.6 million annual …

by Douglas Ankney and Casey J. Bastian

A spate of jail deaths in California’s San Bernardino County dating back to 2017 has led to at least four legal settlements totaling $3,232,500. Two additional settlements netted another $35,000 for detainees allegedly beaten by guards. Meanwhile one of the most …

by Douglas Ankney

On September 14, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit dealt a death blow to claims filed by the estate of a Texas jail detainee against the county that held him when he died. But all was not lost for the Estate …

by Douglas Ankney

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit offered an Illinois state prisoner a hard lesson on July 27, 2023, affirming dismissal of his medical neglect claim against prison contractor Wexford Health Sources, Inc., for lack of evidence that expert testimony could have provided.

While playing soccer at Pinckneyville Correctional Center (PCC) in June 2017, Mario Arce was kneed in the thigh. Eventually sent to a hospital, he was given a “strike test” by an orthopedic specialist to check for compartment syndrome, “a serious medical condition that occurs when there is increased pressure in a compartment of the body that results in insufficient blood supply to tissue,” the Court later recalled. Emergency surgery is required to relieve the pressure, which can otherwise “result in tissue death (necrosis) and permanent muscle damage.”

While the results of the strike test were not in the record, Arce contended that the orthopedic specialist said he “needed to be re-tested in two days to determine if he needed surgery.” But the treating physician’s notes indicated only that the orthopedist concluded Arce had a “right thigh contusion”—a bruise—and was “clear for discharge,” with instructions to follow up within …

The issue of illegal immigration is a contentious one. Though entering the country illegally is a violation of civil immigration law, migrant families and children who do so are most often treated like criminals and held in prison-like detention centers. Some are jails run by counties and cities leasing bed space to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). And now, since August 29, 2023, New Jersey must allow for-profit private prison operators to maintain others under contract with ICE.

The New Jersey legislature passed a bill on August 20, 2021, prohibiting the state, its political subdivisions and private companies from owning or operating facilities that hold civil immigration detainees. After AB 5207 was enacted and codified at N.J.S.A. § 30:4-8.16(a)), three county jails stopped housing detainees for ICE. A fourth migrant lockup, the 304-bed Elizabeth Detention Center, was operated for ICE under an $18 million annual contract by CoreCivic (formerly Corrections Corp. of America), which filed suit in federal court for the District of New Jersey in February 2023 to prevent enforcement of the law.

The U.S. government filed a statement of interest in support of the company’s lawsuit, arguing it was ‘‘not a practical or legal …

by Matthew Clarke

On August 24, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed an $800,000 jury award against a contract doctor at an Arkansas jail, in a suit brought on behalf of a detainee who died of sepsis after her appendix ruptured while incarcerated.

On September 26, 2023, the federal court for the Northern District of California found “clear and convincing evidence” that private for-profit prison and jail healthcare provider Wellpath, Inc., had violated the terms of a settlement agreement in a long-running case challenging its provision of healthcare to prisoners and detainees at California’s Monterey County Jail.

As previously reported in PLN, the suit was filed in 2013 alleging deficient medical, mental health and dental care at the jail by Wellpath, then known as California Forensic Medical Group. [See: PLN, June 2014, p.1.] A preliminary injunction issued in April 2015 was formalized four months later by the settlement agreement, imposing numerous requirements on Wellpath. Monitors were appointed to ensure compliance with settlement terms.

But more detainee deaths have followed—at least 25—pushing the jail’s annual mortality rate over two times higher than the national average. The Court entered orders in May 2020 and June 2022 directing Wellpath to develop “corrective action plans” to remedy deficiencies reported by the monitors, including insufficient staffing and inadequate medical and mental health care. However, the company failed to comply.

In May 2023 Plaintiffs moved to enforce the settlement terms, declaring that “[f]or more than …

Utah-based Management & Training Corporation (MTC) announced on September 18, 2023, that it returned $5.125 million to the Mississippi Department of Corrections (DOC), after a state investigation found the private prison operator understaffed lockups operated for DOC.

As PLN reported, Mississippi Auditor Shad White submitted a civil demand in November 2022 for $1.9 million that he said MTC owed for shortstaffing Marshall County Correctional Facility (MCCF) from 2017 to 2020, leaving some 12,000 shifts filled with “ghost workers.” Meanwhile an analysis by the nonprofit Marshall Project found the firm owed as much as $7 million it had collected for more “ghost workers” at both MCCF and Wilkinson County Correctional Facility (WCCF). [See: PLN, Jan. 2023, p.58.]

MTC then launched an internal audit at WCCF and the other prison the firm operated in the state, East Mississippi Correctional Facility (EMCF), according to Communications Director Emily Lawhead, leading to the refund. DOC took over operation of EMCF in September 2021 from MTC, which was having trouble hiring and maintaining employees at the prison near Memphis because it was unable to bump pay rates above those in its other two more rural lockups, according to DOC Commissioner Burl Cain. He …