I conducted a search of Westlaw’s Settlements & Jury Verdicts using the following search criteria:
[adv: “ESTATE OF” & (jail or correction!) & DA(aft 12-31-2014 & bef 01-02-2020)]
I chose to search “ESTATE OF” because we are interested in suits brought against jails for a death and such a suit would be brought by the estate of the deceased. I only included “jail” or “correction!”
This returned 135 cases, which I reviewed for relevance. I excluded cases that did not involve the death of an inmate while in jail custody and after doing so had 90 relevant cases remaining.
Westlaw’s Settlement & Jury Verdicts Database includes Settlements, Judgments and Verdicts published in the following publications: ALM Media Properties, Inc. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA) Trials Digest, Thomson Reuters/West business Florida Legal Periodicals, Inc. Jury Verdicts Northwest, Inc. LRP Publications Inc. Verdict Reporter, Inc. West, a Thomson Reuters business
I then conducted a search in Lexis Nexis’s database of Jury Verdicts & Settlements, using the following search criteria: [adv: “ESTATE OF” & (jail or correction!) & DA(aft 12-31-2014 & bef 12-30-2020)] This search criteria is identical to the search criteria used for Westlaw. It returned n=235 cases. I have reviewed them and excluded those that are duplicates of the Westlaw cases, which leaves n=214 cases.
Lexis Nexis’ database includes 718 sources, which are listed here: https://plus.lexis.com/sourceselection/index?crid=4b34925b-9f21-44f8-a664-2a2c0731ae1e&pdpermalink=a09fa40a-8dee-43a7-a8be-f84599e638af&pdmfid=1530671&pdisurlapi=true
Though Lexis Nexis returned a greater number of cases, the degree of information available on the outcomes of these cases varies significantly by case. Some entries simply have the names of the parties and that the case was settled, with no information as to the amount of the settlement.
For both the Lexis and Westlaw, when searching the Jury Verdicts & Settlements databases, they return summary sheets that typically summarizes the facts of the case, the parties, claims, and outcome (“Outcome Summary Sheets” or “OSS”).
For consistency purposes, I will refer to the Lexis and Westlaw cases collectively as the private civil litigation cases or “PCL Cases”.
When available, we pulled the Plaintiff’s Complaints in the PCL Cases and used them to locate information that was missing from the OSS.
I compiled an excel spreadsheet with summaries of investigations brought against jails by the DOJ from 2009-2020. I know that the client was interested in cases from 2015-2020, but there were only a handful of cases within that date range.
I used the following source: https://www.justice.gov/crt/special-litigation-section-cases-and-matters/download#corrections
I am awaiting on feedback as to whether or not the client would like us to go back further than 2015 for DOJ cases.
I imported each OSS into a qualitative text analysis software called QDA Miner 6. With its assistance, I extracted a number of variables by instructing it to pull text that was near certain words. For e.g. I created a variable “Defendants” and instructed the software to pull the text that was after the phrase “.v”. However, because the formatting of the OSS sometimes varied, this method was imperfect and I manually entered much of the data for each of the variables as I analyzed the OSS. The variables created from the text are as follows:
| Variables | Description |
|---|---|
| DEFENDANT | Names of Defendants, separated by semicolon |
| OFC_SUE | Officers Sued, Yes = individual officers were named in the suit |
| HEALTH_SUE | Yes = healthcare provider was named in suit |
| CRT | Indicates whether case was filed in federal or state court |
| STL | Year case concluded |
| OUTCOME | Whether cases ended with a Defense Verdict, Defense Judgment, Settlement or Plaintiff Verdict |
| TTL | Total amount of money damages awarded |
| AGE | Age of Decedent at death |
| STATE | State of case |
| COUNTY_CIT | City or County of case |
| PREX | Pre-existing health conditions of Deceased |
| Suic_Idea | Yes = Deceased exhibited or had history of suicidal ideation |
| MENTAL | Yes = Evidence of history of mental health issues in fact pattern |
| SU | Yes = Evidence of substance use prior to incarceration |
| PHYS | Yes = Evidence of prior physical health issues or pre-existing conditions |
| COD_CAT | Cause of Death, categorized into 7 categories |
| Withdraw | Yes = Complications of or discomfort from substance use withdrawal contributed to death |
| DAYS | Number of days incarcerated in jail before death causing event |
| COA1-COA14 | Causes of Action, this variable was manually extracted from the Complaints when available |
Along with entering the data for the variables, I also coded for extraction the summary of facts in each OSS, highlighting the facts that (A) evidenced medical need (i.e. the Decedent repeatedly asked to see a medical professional or they were vomiting blood)(“Medical Need”) or (B) were actions taken by jail personnel that may have caused or contributed to the death (“Contributing Acts”). Additionally, I coded arguments or facts presented by the defense to rebut claims made by the plaintiff (“Defense Arguments”).
Remaining Work I am still working through the coding and manual variable extraction of the Lexis cases. Once I have completed the coding, I will update the results and I will do some additional analysis of which facts appearing in the Code Categories (Medical Need, Contributing Acts and Defense Arguments) appear most frequently and are most associated with higher jury awards and/or settlements.
Total Number of Cases Analyzed: 90
Date Range: Settled/Decided between 2015-2020
| No. of Cases | |
|---|---|
| Federal | 63 |
| State | 27 |
| No. of Cases | |
|---|---|
| No | 28 |
| Yes | 62 |
Of the 90 cases analyzed, in ___% of cases officers were personally sued.
| No. of Cases | |
|---|---|
| No | 28 |
| Yes | 62 |
| No. of Cases | |
|---|---|
| Defense Judgment | 3 |
| Defense Verdict | 19 |
| Plaintiff Verdict | 14 |
| Settlement | 54 |
## $`Defense Judgment`
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 0 0 0 0 0 0
##
## $`Defense Verdict`
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 0 0 0 0 0 0
##
## $`Plaintiff Verdict`
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 0 327759 1575000 2868773 2480412 11857344
##
## $Settlement
## Min. 1st Qu. Median Mean 3rd Qu. Max.
## 15000 113750 362500 965471 847500 10000000Plaintiff Verdict: Range: $327,759 - $ 11,857,344 Median: $1,575,000 Mean: $2,868,773
Settlement: Range: $15,000 - $10,000,000 Median: $362,500 Mean: $965,471
| State of Incarceration | |
|---|---|
| Alaska | 1 |
| Arizona | 3 |
| California | 19 |
| Colorado | 2 |
| Florida | 3 |
| Georgia | 1 |
| Idaho | 2 |
| Illinois | 20 |
| Indiana | 1 |
| Iowa | 1 |
| Michigan | 1 |
| Mississippi | 2 |
| Missouri | 3 |
| New Jersey | 2 |
| New Mexico | 1 |
| New York | 1 |
| NV | 1 |
| Ohio | 2 |
| Oklahoma | 1 |
| Oregon | 8 |
| Pennsylvania | 3 |
| South Carolina | 4 |
| Texas | 1 |
| Virginia | 1 |
| Washington | 5 |
| Wisconsin | 1 |
| City or County of Incarceration | |
|---|---|
| Alameda County | 2 |
| Allegheny County | 2 |
| Benton County | 1 |
| Boundary County | 1 |
| Canyon County | 1 |
| City of Cedar Rapids | 1 |
| City of Chicago | 2 |
| City of Cottage Grove | 2 |
| City of Eupora | 1 |
| City of La Habra | 1 |
| City of Newark | 1 |
| Cobb County | 1 |
| Cochise County | 1 |
| Columbia County | 1 |
| Cook | 1 |
| Cook County | 13 |
| Denver County | 1 |
| Franklin County | 1 |
| Garfield | 1 |
| Georgetown County | 1 |
| Humboldt County | 1 |
| Kenosha | 1 |
| Kern County | 1 |
| Lake County | 2 |
| Lane County | 2 |
| Las Vegas | 1 |
| Lee County | 1 |
| Lincoln County | 1 |
| Los Angeles | 1 |
| Los Angeles County | 9 |
| Madison County | 1 |
| Maricopa County | 2 |
| Marion County | 1 |
| Monterey County | 1 |
| NA | 4 |
| Nassau County | 1 |
| Norfolk City | 1 |
| Not Applicable | 5 |
| Ocean County | 1 |
| Orange County | 1 |
| Pemiscot County | 1 |
| Pierce County | 1 |
| Ray County | 1 |
| Riverside County | 1 |
| San Francisco | 1 |
| Santa Cruz County | 1 |
| Santa Fe County | 1 |
| Snohomish County | 1 |
| Spartanburg County | 1 |
| Spokane County | 1 |
| St. Clair County | 1 |
| Washington County | 1 |
| Whiteside County | 1 |
| Yamhill County | 1 |
| York County | 2 |
| Average Age |
|---|
| 36 |
| Type of Prexisting Conditions | |
|---|---|
| Cancer | 1 |
| Diabetes | 4 |
| Epilepsy | 1 |
| Heart | 1 |
| Hep C | 1 |
| Liver | 1 |
| None | 28 |
| Seizure | 1 |
| SMI | 18 |
| SUD | 16 |
| SUD+SMI | 10 |
| UNK | 8 |
| Prexisting Mental Health Condition | |
|---|---|
| No | 44 |
| Yes | 46 |
| Prexisting Substance Use Issues | |
|---|---|
| No | 70 |
| Yes | 20 |
| Prexisting Physical Health Issues | |
|---|---|
| No | 77 |
| Yes | 13 |
| Cause of Death Categories | |
|---|---|
| INM Force | 3 |
| Lack Treat Phys | 22 |
| OFC Force | 10 |
| Overdose | 6 |
| Seizure | 1 |
| Suicide | 40 |
| Withdraw | 8 |
| Withdrawl-Related Deaths | |
|---|---|
| No | 76 |
| Yes | 14 |
| Average No. of Days in Jail Before Event/Injury |
|---|
| 15.61111 |