$82M Verdict Against Correctional Healthcare Company: It took just over ten years but a Tulsa Oklahoma jury determined in February 2023 that Correctional Healthcare Cos. LLC, the private for-profit correctional medical services provider that provided medical services for inmates at the Tulsa County jail in 2013, violated the civil rights of 52-year-old inmate Gwendolyn Young, who died from a heart attack on February 8, 2013 after she complained about vomiting blood and having difficulty breathing.
Young’s Estate had filed a federal lawsuit against Correctional Healthcare and its affiliates in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Oklahoma in 2013, alleging that the defendants failed to provide adequate medical care that violated her constitutional rights. The defendants argued that Young’s complaints were too vague and that they provided her with adequate medical services. After a two-week trial, the federal medical malpractice jury awarded Young’s Estate $14 million in compensatory damages and $68 million in punitive damages.
Correctional Healthcare was the contract medical provider at the Tulsa County jail from 2005 to 2014. During that period of time, 28 deaths reportedly occurred in the jail – Young’s death was the last death to occur during Correctional Healthcare’s contract with the jail.
The plaintiff’s lawsuit alleged that Young had been incarcerated in the jail for about five months during which she often asked to be taken to a hospital because she felt poorly. She reportedly told one of the jail staff two months before she died that she would not last a year in jail due to the indifference of Correctional Healthcare.
The plaintiff alleged that Young told the jail staff two days before she died, while she was being held in a segregation cell, that she had been vomiting blood. The jail staff member reportedly looked at the vomit and said that it looked like Kool-Aid. Jail records reportedly documented that Young told a jail nurse minutes before she died from a heart attack that she was having difficulty breathing and requested that she be taken to the hospital. The jail nurse reportedly denied Young’s request for hospital care.
Young’s Estate reportedly settled its claims against Tulsa County for $3.6 million in 2021.
The Estate’s lawyer stated after the verdict: “CHC knew for years that its deficient medical delivery system was resulting in gruesome and preventable deaths. Yet, despite this knowledge, CHC failed, time and time again, to take the minimal measures needed to fix the problem. I think the jury really understood that. They saw the evidence. They were receptive to the request to essentially send the message of deterrence and that if you have an industry that provides for-profit medical care in a jail setting, then that industry has to be put in check. And if the Legislature isn’t going to do it and Congress isn’t going to do it and they are not going to do it themselves, then a jury has to be the one to do it, and I think they really understood that and took it serious.”
If you or a loved one were injured (or worse) due to deliberate indifference or the lack of appropriate medical care while incarcerated in a prison, jail, or other correctional facility in Oklahoma or in another U.S. state, you should promptly seek the legal advice of a local medical malpractice lawyer in your state who handles prisoner/inmate medical malpractice claims and may investigate your claim and represent you or your loved one, if appropriate.
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