(10-18-18) This is the second high-profile wrongful death lawsuit in Virginia that has been settled. Earlier this month, Fairfax County agreed to pay $750,000 to the family of Natasha McKenna, who died from a heart attack after being repeatedly stunned with a taser in jail. Another $60 million wrongful death lawsuit still is pending because of the starvation death of Jamycheal Mitchell at the Hampton Roads jail. In all three of these incidents, the individuals who died had a serious mental illness. In all three cases, their deaths could have been prevented.
Money does not ease the loss or pain, but these lawsuits can serve as wake up calls to legislators and the public. Will they?
State Sen. R. Creigh Deeds settled a wrongful-death lawsuit brought over the suicide of his son, Austin “Gus” Deeds. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Deeds (D-Bath), who was his party’s 2009 nominee for governor, settled the lawsuit for $950,000, his attorneys announced Wednesday. He had originally sought $6 million.
“My son is dead. No amount of money can make that right, bring him back or fill the hole in my heart,” Deeds said in a statement. “Our nation is built on personal responsibility. The legal process, which relies on financial damages, is the means by which that notion of personal responsibility is enforced. It’s not a perfect process.”
Filed in Bath County Circuit Court, the suit alleged that the state, the Rockbridge Area Community Services Board, and mental-health evaluator Michael Gentry exhibited gross negligence and medical malpractice by mishandling a crucial six-hour window for admitting Deeds’s son on Nov. 18, 2013.
