CoreCivic files response to wrongful death lawsuit
Mar. 28—Attorneys for CoreCivic, the company that operates Lake Erie Correctional Institute (LaECI), filed a motion to dismiss a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of a man who died after becoming ill at the prison in late 2022.
According to a civii complaint filed in federal court, Kevin Agee was an inmate at LaECI in late December 2022, when he stopped eating and reported to prison officials he was feeling ill. The complaint states he was admitted to the prison's infirmary for possible flu on the morning of Dec. 31, 2022, and had a fever at the time.
On the morning of Jan. 1, 2023, Agee was transported to an outside medical facility, where he was diagnosed with an infection and/or sepsis and given medical treatment. He died on Jan. 4, 2023.
The civil complaint alleges that the defendants in this case, a variety of CoreCivic employees, along with CoreCivic itself and related corporate entities.
The first claim in the complaint, brought against all of the defendants as individuals, claims that there was a custom among corrections officers and medical staff of failing and/or refusing to provide prompt and competent access to medical care, and they had the duty to train, supervise and instruct involved employees to ensure they respected constitutional and statutory rights of prisoners. It further alleges the defendants acted with deliberate indifference toward inmates in a variety of ways.
The second claim in the complaint is brought against defendants in their official and individual capacities, under similar grounds to the first claim.
The third claim in the suit was that the defendants used excessive force, cruel and unusual punishment and failed to provide reasonably adequate medical care. The complaint alleges the defendants ignored Agee's medical needs deliberately, and deprived him of his rights under the Eighth and 14th Amendments.
The fourth claim in the complaint alleges medical malpractice stemming from the events leading up to Agee's death.
Each count calls for compensatory damages in excess of $75,000, along with court costs and attorney's fees, along with any other relief the court may deem appropriate.
In a motion to dismiss filed in early March, attorneys for CoreCivic argued that LaECI could not be charged because it is a prison facility, and thus not subject to a lawsuit, and that two of the corporate entities named in the suit should not be sued, because one is a predecessor of CoreCivic, and the other is a wholly owned subsidiary of CoreCivic.
One of the defendants named in the suit, the current warden of the prison, was not employed at LaECI at the time of Agee's death, and the motion to dismiss the case against her should be dismissed because of that fact.
The motion further states the lawsuit fails to state a plausible constitutional violation against each individual defendant, and fails to specify any particular acts underlying any constitutional violation against any of the defendants.
It is now up to the Northern District of Ohio Courts to decide what happens next in the case.
