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Attorneys in Greenville, South Carolina announced a $2.5 million payout to the widow of a man who died at the Greenville County detention center in the summer of 2020.
The facility – which purports to be “humane, safe, legally compliant, secure, sanitary, and citizen-centered” – was sued in U.S. District Court in Greenville, S.C. by the widow of detainee Kenneth Tucker after the facility “failed to provide necessary medical care” to Tucker following his arrest on a weapons charge.
Tucker was undergoing a “psychotic episode” at the time he fired shots into a neighbor’s house, according to attorneys for his wife, and his mental health deteriorated further after he was incarcerated on August 14, 2020. Tucker died eighteen days later after exhibiting “psychotic behavior” in his jail cell.
“Evidence discovered by (attorneys) showed that, after arriving at the GCDC in the midst of an apparent mental health crisis, (Tucker) lost approximately 36 pounds during the seventeen (17) days he was in GCDC custody and was severely dehydrated at the time of his death,” a release from the office of attorney David R. Price Jr. noted. “A pathology expert opined that severe dehydration caused (Tucker) to suffer a pulmonary thromboembolism from deep venous thrombosis, which resulted in his death.”
“The only question we had was how many ways his death could have been avoided,” Price said in a statement accompanying the announcement of the settlement.
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“Many members of our community may not realize that GCDC is the largest mental healthcare provider in the county, and that often incarcerated inmates are in detention because their mental health issues resulted in erratic behavior,” said Easley, S.C. attorney Grady Jordan, who worked the case with Price. “Our client’s husband went to the jail during an obvious mental health crisis, and rather than provide him appropriate care the GCDC allowed him to waste away over a period of weeks. We believe that nobody in governmental custody should be permitted to die from lack of water. No amount of recovery is sufficient to our client, who lost her husband in so horrific a fashion.”
Per the terms of an approved settlement, the county will pay $750,000 while the S.C. Insurance Reserve Fund (SCIRF) will pick up the remaining $1.3 million. Prisma Health is also paying $175,000, while an insurance carrier is shelling out $275,000 on behalf of a detention center mental health counselor.
Price lamented limits on the amount of damages individuals are able to recover from governmental entities – seeming to advocate for a change in state tort law which would raise or remove those caps.
““Our citizenry should be aware that South Carolina’s legislature has imposed limits on recovery against governmental entities of $300,000 per occurrence, and that it is only in cases where there are multiple independent torts or civil rights violations that we can recover sums in excess of this limit, no matter how catastrophic the loss,” he said. “Through our efforts we were able to recover sums in excess of these caps, but only because of the extreme nature of the gross negligence perpetrated by multiple parties. Our citizens should know that in most cases where the government causes loss of life to a citizen, the families will not be able to recover sums greater than the governmental liability caps without a change in our present laws.”
While the circumstances surrounding Tucker’s death are objectively awful, it’s doubtful there is much appetite in the S.C. General Assembly to amend tort statutes as Price desires. Certainly, we will keep an eye out for any proposed tort reform bills ahead of the upcoming session of the S.C. General Assembly, which will convene in January 2025.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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