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| County wins suit in death of inmate |
| By The Intelligencer |
| Published: 03/28/2005 |
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While finding that prison medical staff may have "made unsound choices," a federal judge has ruled in Bucks County's (Pa.) favor in a lawsuit alleging it didn't do enough to help an inmate who died of a pulmonary embolism in 2001. Judge Robert F. Kelly granted Bucks' request for summary judgment - basically dismissing the case - because evidence that the county had violated inmate Timothy Butler's rights "is woefully absent," according to his written memorandum. Butler was admitted to Bucks County's jail in July 2001, and soon transferred as a low-risk inmate to the neighboring men's community corrections center. A doctor diagnosed Butler with a sinus infection two weeks later, court records said, and called for further medical steps, including a blood test, to check for another ailment. On Aug. 10, 2001, a nurse saw Butler three times at the corrections center's dispensary, where the inmate complained of "feeling worse." He was ultimately sent to the emergency room at Doylestown Hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit, where he died Aug. 19 of the embolism. A lawsuit was filed on behalf of Butler's mother and daughter arguing county officials had shown "deliberate indifference" to her son's medical condition. Kelly wrote that "there is evidence that the prison doctors and nurses may have erred and made unsound choices," but there was no proof county officials acted with deliberate indifferences. Butler's is the third case dismissed against the county in recent months over health conditions at its prison. Most of the cases have dealt with an outbreak of a bacterial infection that sickened many inmates or corrections officers. While the county has won some of those cases, it has also been forced to pay damages in others. |
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