Benton jail’s ex-healthcare company destroyed evidence in teen’s death

Marc A. Moreno died in his Benton County jail cell in March 2016 not having had a drop of water or bite of food for at least five days.

The 18-year-old had been in the throes of a mental health crisis but, since he had several outstanding misdemeanors warrants, he was locked up instead of taken to the hospital.

He lost 38 pounds in the eight days he was held in an isolation cell at the Kennewick facility.

The two healthcare companies that provided medical staff for the county jail were put on notice in January 2018 that Moreno’s parents planned to sue.

That claim came with an order to preserve all paper and electronic records related to Moreno’s care.

But 22 months later, after multiple promises the documents would be forthcoming, lawyers for the merged companies now known as Wellpath admitted they had no evidence to hand over as part of a federal lawsuit.

All of the documents were destroyed when the for-profit jail healthcare company implemented a new, sweeping document retention policy.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson granted a motion for default judgment and found the company liable for Moreno’s death because of the mass document purge.

Malouf Peterson said it was clear that the company — Correctional Healthcare Companies of Colorado and Correct Care Solutions of Tennessee before the merger — acted with intent.

“This is not a case where defendants negligently forgot to stop an automatic document destruction system already in place,” the federal judge wrote in her 27-page order. “Rather, this is a case in which defendants decided to begin a new document destruction policy in the middle of litigation over a teenager’s death.”

Malouf Peterson pointed out that the healthcare company’s litigation group responsible for providing discovery to the Moreno family as part of their lawsuit was the same one that applied the nationwide destruction policy.

Those employees made decisions about what to delete, and in this case they deleted everything except for emails by one jail nurse involved in the suit.

“That decision was based on a new policy that was designed, in part, to avoid the discovery of bad emails in litigation,” wrote the judge.

Malouf Peterson called it a “startling amount of discovery” that was destroyed and said, while she cannot speculate whether it would have bolstered the Moreno family’s case, it would have been invaluable to them as they shaped their case theory.

Those emails and other communication cannot be reconstructed, she said.

The judge added that because of the company’s “obstruction of truth,” default judgment against the company is the only appropriate sanction that would effectively remedy the risk of prejudice to Moreno’s parents, Alicia Magana Mendez and Miguel Angel Moreno.

‘Deprived of the truth’

Now, the case will go to trial in mid-July to determine how much the company should pay in monetary damages.

Meanwhile, registered nurse Ashley Castaneda still faces trial to determine her liability and if any damages should be ordered.

Wellpath no longer has the contract for medical services inside the Benton County jail.

Edwin S. Budge of Seattle, who represents Marc Moreno’s family in the lawsuit, called the federal ruling “blistering” and said it was a rare step to enter judgment against a company for misconduct.

“The parents of Marc Moreno lost their beloved son,” Budge said in a news release. “To be deprived of the truth by a company’s intentional destruction of evidence after this horrific death is inexcusable.”

Yakima lawyer George Trejo added, “We will always stand behind the Moreno family in their quest for justice. We are outraged by the gross misconduct in this case but gratified that the misconduct here was not rewarded.”

The Moreno family in May 2018 received a settlement offer of $1.2 million from Benton County. That money was paid out of the county risk pool.

The parents filed their federal lawsuit five months later, blaming the jail’s contracted medical staff for allowing the mentally ill teenager to deteriorate and go untreated for over a week.

Constitutionally adequate care

They claimed the healthcare provider violated the 14th Amendment rights of both the teen and his parents.

Moreno was subjected to inhumane conditions in a padded cell, and “suffered extreme physical pain, severe mental and emotional anguish, and the loss of his life,” the lawsuit states.

It was the responsibility of the healthcare company and its staff to provide constitutionally adequate care to Benton County jail inmates and detainees, according to the suit.

The county coroner at the time ruled that Moreno died from an irregular heartbeat and dehydration as a result of synthetic cannabis in his system.

Moreno’s family blames his “profound dehydration” on prolonged fluid deprivation while confined.

They had sought help for the teen on March 3, 2016, at the Benton-Franklin Crisis Response Unit in Kennewick.

A crisis counselor had noted that Moreno was “not oriented to time or place and was unable to understand basic questions,” in addition to talking to angels and hitting himself in the face, the complaint states.

Police were called to take Moreno to a Tri-City hospital, but he ended up arrested on misdemeanor warrants for driving with a suspended license and failing to transfer a car title within 45 days of a purchase. He was booked into the county jail.

Then-Sheriff Steve Keane later acknowledged that Moreno should not have been taken to the jail in the first place.

Moreno, who was bipolar and schizophrenic, made suicidal statements during the booking process and was placed in a “safety cell.” The padded cell has no bed, toilet or sink, and its only window is a strip of glass in the cell door with a sliding cover.

A mental health social worker tried to interview Moreno through his closed cell door, but he “demonstrated ‘bizarre and illogical behaviors’ and evidence of mania and psychosis.” No treatment was offered or referral made to another professional.

Moreno spent the next week lying naked on the floor of his cell, playing with his food and rolling around in his feces. He never talked with the social worker.

No immediate medical help

Jail staff had reported that Moreno was not eating or drinking, but healthcare workers did not intervene with immediate medical help, according to the suit.

Castaneda observed Moreno through the window the afternoon of March 10, 2016, and noted he remained face down and was singing.

She did not take his vital signs, weigh him or get a urine sample, all in violation of her company’s policies, and she failed to take steps to determine the severity of his dehydration, the suit says.

Moreno was found dead the following day.

Judge Malouf Peterson, in her default judgment order, wrote that the contracted medical provider saved the emails of Castaneda.

Otherwise, the purged documents include: emails of all company employees; emails of other nurses and managers who worked shifts at the Benton County jail while Moreno was confined; and the emails of employees who conducted Moreno’s mortality review.

Another nurse was fired after the teen’s death for failing to follow proper procedure, yet all of her emails and those of her manager also are gone.

“While nobody can know the information contained in the destroyed emails, the breadth of the destruction is stunning,” the judge said.

At a telephonic hearing on the issue in May, lawyers for the healthcare company argued that default judgment is too severe of a remedy and said there is no reason to believe any lost emails would shed light on the cause of Moreno’s death.

Malouf Peterson rejected those arguments for leniency, calling them “offensive to the integrity of the judicial system, which requires an exchange of information for a neutral factfinder to consider before arriving at a conclusion.”