A lawsuit filed against Pulaski County Sheriff Doc Holladay, as well as several county jail employees and contractors, by seven women alleging a lack of proper medical treatment while they were pregnant and incarcerated was settled for $179,500, court records show.
Stephanie Hernandez originally filed the lawsuit in February 2014 against Holladay, jail administrator Randy Morgan and jail medical director Carl Johnson. Circuit Judge Wendell Griffen signed an order Friday granting a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.
Documents detailing the settlement were released to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette on Wednesday by Little Rock attorney David Fuqua, who represented the county defendants.
Hernandez and fellow plaintiffs Ratha Parr, Megan Harris Halferty, Lillian Marshall, Shermica King, Stephanie Reichard and Frelandra Womack filed an amended lawsuit in September 2014 alleging that several jail employees and contractors "failed to provide proper medical treatment to each plaintiff ... [which] resulted in serious physical and emotional injuries to [the plaintiffs]" and the death of an infant. The purported episodes occurred between July 2012 and December 2013.
Irvin Robinson is listed as the special administrator for the estate of Zachary James Thomas, Halferty's infant son who the lawsuit alleged died because of a lack of prenatal care while Halferty was in the lockup.
In a third amended lawsuit, the defendant list grew by 15 jail employees and contractors, as well as "John Does 1-100."
The settlement among the seven plaintiffs was broken down this way:
• $100,000 to Halferty.
• $28,000 to Parr.
• $25,500 to King.
• $8,000 apiece to Hernandez and Reichard.
• $5,000 apiece to Womack and Marshall.
The Central Arkansas Risk Management Association covered the settlement, according to court documents.
Court documents state that the plaintiffs, "without any admission of liability by the defendants," release any and all claims that the plaintiffs "has or may have against the defendants." Each of the plaintiffs signed her release in March.
The lawsuit alleged the jail failed "to provide pregnant inmates with proper medical treatment." The lawsuit also stated that "the jail had a pattern, practice, custom and policy as the motivating force behind the deprivation of constitutional rights and deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of pregnant inmates."
According to the lawsuit, the jail refused to call ambulances, call physicians or get women in labor or having miscarriages to the hospital. The inmates were also denied prenatal vitamins, extra meals and timely access to a doctor or examinations, the lawsuit claimed.
Because of the practices of the jail, the lawsuit stated, Hernandez gave birth to her child while in an ambulance; Parr, Reichard and King miscarried; and Marshall and Womack experienced "bleeding and severe pain" during childbirth.
The lawsuit stated that the defendants failed to provide prenatal care to Halferty despite repeated requests and "this failure by defendants caused a miscarriage" by Halferty, who in the past had had successful pregnancies.
According to the lawsuit, Halferty had her son, Zachary James Thomas, in a toilet area of a unit at the jail. The lawsuit stated the infant was dead and "multiple nurses and guards" entered the unit, but they couldn't cut the umbilical cord.
"They put ... Zachary James Thomas in a medical waste bag, while still attached to [Halferty]," the lawsuit stated. "No attempt to resuscitate Zachary James Thomas was made."
Metro on 05/07/2015