Vincent Cortlessa, a Pennsylvania state prisoner, sued guards and Primecare Medical, a private health care company, in federal district court after the guards beat him and the health care company failed to provide adequate care. He argued that these actions violated his rights under the federal constitution and state negligence laws. The defendants moved for summary judgment, controverting Cortlessa’s factual allegations.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania recognized that summary judgment could not be granted if material disputes existed regarding the facts in the case. The court also found that Primecare, because it was a private company, might be liable for its employees’ behavior on a respondeat superior theory. Although summary judgment was granted to some defendants, it was denied to most. See: Cortlessa v. Doe, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Pa.), Case No. 2:04-cv-01039-MMB (May 25, 2006).

The case proceeded to trial in June 2006, where judgment was entered for the defendants.

Phillip D. Hurst, a Kentucky prisoner, was taking prescribed methadone. When he returned one night to a Lexington County work release center in an intoxicated state, he was examined by two nurses who thought he was experiencing diabetes-related symptoms. He wasn't seen by a doctor, but the nurses periodically checked his vital signs. Hurst was later found dead from a methadone overdose. His daughter and estate sued the county, Correctional Medical Services, the two nurses and other officials in federal district court.

The county settled a loss of consortium claim with Hurst's daughter for an undisclosed amount, but the nurses prevailed at trial on a negligence claim in March 2007. See: Hurst v. Lexington Fayette Urban Co. Government, U.S.D.C. (E.D. Ky.), Case No. 5:05-cv-00214-JBC.

Additional source: 11 Kentucky Trial Court Review No. 4 (2007)

Dr. Edward Zaloga, co-owner of Correctional Care, Inc. (CCI) of Moosic, Pennsylvania, a firm that provides medical services at the Lackawanna County Prison, had his past called into question when a female prisoner was forced to give birth alone in her cell after her pleas for help were ignored.

While the County Correctional Board apologized for the July 10, 2007 incident, the prisoner, Shakira Staten, filed a federal lawsuit against the prison, Zaloga and CCI for cruel and unusual punishment. The Board blamed Staten’s treatment on “serious errors of judgment” on the part of a nurse. The nurse was later fired and the prison adopted new policies for dealing with pregnant prisoners.

The lawsuit dredges up Zaloga’s past, when he was fired by Pittsburgh-based Wexford Health Services, another prison medical care firm, in Sept. 1999. While he was employed with Wexford, Zaloga had disagreed with the introduction of a new hepatitis C treatment protocol as “wasteful of taxpayers’ money” because it was yet unproven. It was also expensive, and the amount that Zaloga claimed the money he saved Wexford contributed to the company’s alleged $4 million in profits at the time. Zaloga sued Wexford for wrongful termination, but lost.

Although ...

The federal district court in Delaware has held that Correctional Medical Services (CMS), the medical provider for the Delaware Department of Corrections (DDOC), was deliberately indifferent to a prisoner’s medical needs. The ruling should come as no surprise to PLN readers, as PLN has previously featured the “obviously inadequate” medical care provided to DDOC prisoners by CMS. [See: PLN, Dec. 2005, p.1]

This civil rights action was initiated and prosecuted pro se by DDOC prisoner Richard Turner, who alleged that inadequate medical care at the Delaware Correctional Center violated his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The district court had previously dismissed claims against CMS doctors due to Turner’s failure to serve them. Before the court were summary judgment motions filed by both Turner and the remaining defendants.

The court granted the state defendants’ motion, allowing only the claims against CMS to proceed. At issue were medical services rendered by CMS from July 1, 2000 until June 30, 2002. The court further limited that time period by granting CMS summary judgment, in part, to provide for a two-year statute of limitations. Since Turner’s lawsuit was not filed until October 1, 2002, he could only pursue claims arising after October 1, 2000. ...

On January 10, 2005, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey agreed with a state prisoner’s contention that Prison Health Services’ (PHS) failure to monitor her lithium levels fell under the common knowledge exception of N.J. Stat. Ann. § 2A:53A-27 and granted her motion for reargument.

Upon admission to New Jersey’s Camden County Jail on August 13, 2002, plaintiff Debra Bryan informed intake personnel that she was taking lithium as part of her treatment regimen for bipolar disorder. While at the jail Bryan began experiencing various medical problems, including “nausea, vomiting, swollen ankles, aches and pains, confusion, pressure behind her eyes and ears, rapid and unexplained weight gain, and acute abdominal pain.” On September 28, 2002, Bryan was transferred to a hospital where “blood and laboratory tests determined that her lithium level was three times the accepted maximum safe level and that she was suffering from lithium toxicity.”

Bryan sued PHS (the jail’s medical provider), Dr. Amira Shah, and multiple other defendants claiming they twice failed to perform blood tests that bad been ordered by a doctor and that this negligence resulted in heart failure, renal complications, and mental anguish. She made claims under both state and ...

The North Carolina Department of Correction (DOC) appealed the reversal of a 1989 summary judgment grant dismissing state prisoner Joe Medley's action for a DOC contracted private physician's negligence. The court affirmed the dismissal holding that the DOC had a duty to provide adequate care.

Medley's leg was amputated after alleged negligence by physician John Stanley. He brought action pursuant to the North Carolina Tort Claims Act (Act). The DOC motioned for summary judgment dismissal because Stanley was an independent contractor and not subject to the Act. Dismissal was granted and Medley appealed arguing that the DOC had a statutory duty to provide him adequate medical care and the court reversed the dismissal. The DOC appealed.

The Supreme Court of North Carolina held that since the federal Cruel and Unusual Punishment clause required the DOC to provide adequate medical care to prisoners, the State's clause imposed at least the same duty if not greater. See: Medley v. North Carolina Department of Correction, 330 N.C. 837, 412 S.E.2d 654 (1992).

Two Massachusetts nurses, Fitzgerald and Landry, brought suit against Correctional Medical Services (CMS) for defamation of character after being fired over baseless accusations of one alleged eyewitness. The jury awarded them $50,000 collectively.

After holding a door open for a guard who was borrowing a heater, the two nurses were ...

On June 2, 2005, a Maryland court of appeals upheld the revocation of a Prison Health Services (PBS) Physician’s Assistant (PA) certificate for fraudulently procuring prescriptions for his adult son.

Carl F. Oltman, Sr., was a PA, employed by PHS, contracted to work for the Department of the Navy at the Naval Academy in Annapolis and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Oltman had served in the Navy from 1969 through 1995 and was retired. As a Navy retiree, he was entitled to medical care and prescriptions for himself and his children until the children reached the age of twenty-one (twenty-three if attending college). Oltman’s son, Carl Oltman, Jr., had been diagnosed with Attention Deficient Hyperactive Disorder and been prescribed Ritalin, a controlled substance, or its generic equivalent.

Once Junior turned twenty-one, he was no longer eligible for prescriptions paid for by the Navy. At that time, and for two and a half years thereafter, Oltman fraudulently obtained prescriptions for Junior’s medication. To do this, Oltman used physician’s computers to enter fraudulent prescriptions four times and persuaded Navy physicians to enter fraudulent prescriptions nine times. After his criminal conduct was discovered, Oltman pleaded guilty to federal and Maryland misdemeanor ...

Of concern to taxpayers should be the private business interests of their legislators. An Arkansas law enacted in 2007 requires disclosure of those interests when a lawmaker or his or her spouse owns at least 10 percent of a business that contracts with the state. Under the law, Act 567 (HB 2662), state agencies are required to disclose any current such contracts and those entered into within the past five years.

The law hit its mark. The largest business interest that has been disclosed involves a company controlled by Senator Percy Malone, an Arkadelphia Democrat and legislator since 1995 who is president and majority stock holder of W.P. Malone, Inc., which owns Pharmacy Care of Arkansas. The firm operates as Allcare Pharmacy.

Allcare provides prescription drugs and other medical services to prisoners in the Arkansas Department of Correc-tions through a subcontract with Correctional Medical Services (CMS). Malone declined to put a monetary value on the business that Allcare does with CMS, stating such information was “proprietary.”

Malone’s company engages in a significant amount of direct business with state agencies, too. For providing prescription drugs to 4,400 Medicaid recipients, Allcare was paid $2.89 million in the last fiscal year. The company ...

When Texas Youth Commission (TYC) ombudsman Will Harrell toured the privately-operated Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte, Texas on September 24, 2007, he found children sleeping on dirty bed sheets, walls covered with smeared feces, urine-stained walls around toilets, excrement in the shower area and reports of insects in the food.

His report also noted that some youths were confined in “malodorous and dark” solitary confinement for up to five weeks and only let out for showers. Several juveniles at the Coke County facility, which was described as a “violent cam-pus,” had requested to be placed in segregation for their own safety.

Prisoners at the juvenile center ranged in age from 13 to 21, and Harrell described them as “desperate” to lodge com-plaints during his visit. His investigators noticed that youths in solitary confinement were “educated” by teachers who slipped crosswords and math puzzles under the cell door.
His report also referred to the regular school program as a place where students simply sat in front of computers. “I usually leave these facilities sad,” said Harrell. “I left that one mad.”

What made his report so surprising was that the prison had operated for years without raising any eyebrows; ...