Verdicts

Ex-Prisoner's Estate Gets $1.75 Million

New York State Court of Claims Judge Frank Milano has awarded $1.75 million to the estate of a deceased state prison inmate after finding that the medical care he received while imprisoned was so substandard that it led to “fatal consequences.” Rem-DeGina v. State of New York, 122060.

State prisoner Scott DeGina began complaining of severe abdominal and flank pain in August 2009. He was treated by doctors Richard Adams Jr. and Vonda Johnson at the Clinton Correctional Facility for the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. Although these doctors knew that a physician at another facility had recommended that DeGina be seen by a urologist, they did not see to it that that consultation took place until November 2011. It was then that cancer was diagnosed, leading to removal of DeGina's left kidney, ureter and bladder cuff, followed by months of chemotherapy and radiation treatments. DeGina was pronounced cancer-free, but soon had a relapse and died of urothelial cancer in 2014.

Judge Milano admitted that DeGina's propensity to complain might have led his doctors to take his complaints with a grain of salt. The court noted, “There is no question claimant had a long history of criminal and self-abusive behavior, and presented himself to defendant with a lengthy litany of articulated physical and psychological ailments, about which he often and repeatedly complained.” However, the judge refused to ignore the fact that the defendant's “failure to properly and timely diagnose and treat claimant's urothelial cancer had several serious, long-term, ongoing, progressive, painful and, ultimately, fatal consequences to claimant that were attributable to and which were caused by that failure.”

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