Jackson County Pays $7.25 Million After Man Died Of Dehydration And Malnutrition In Jail Isolation Cell
After trial: This $7.25 million settlement covered only Jackson County, Sheriff Rick Meyer and jail staff. It did not include Advanced Correctional Healthcare or the physician named in the suit; local reporting in March 2024 said the estate and the healthcare contractor reached their own settlement, on terms that were not made public, so no figure from that portion of the case is included here. As a government settlement, the county's payment is treated as institution-backed. No appeal applies to a settlement.
Won by Budge & Heipt, PLLC.
Joshua McLemore, 29, died on August 10, 2021, after 20 days locked alone in a padded isolation cell at the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown, Indiana, where he had been booked during a psychotic episode linked to untreated schizophrenia. He lost about 45 pounds and, according to the federal complaint, slept roughly 15 hours in total over those three weeks before jail staff sent him to a hospital; he was transferred to a Cincinnati hospital and died there of multiple organ failure. His aunt sued Jackson County, the sheriff and jail staff in federal court on behalf of his estate, and in December 2023 the county's $7.25 million settlement was made public, reported as the largest known payout over a jail death in Indiana. Separate claims against the jail's outsourced medical provider were not part of that settlement.
What happened
Joshua McLemore was 29 years old when he was booked into the Jackson County Jail in Brownstown, Indiana, on July 20, 2021. His mother, worried he was in a psychotic episode, had contacted his apartment complex in Seymour, and the manager called 911. Emergency responders found him naked and incoherent and took him to Schneck Medical Center in Seymour. There, while a nurse was assessing him, he pulled her hair. He was arrested on a battery charge and taken to jail instead of receiving psychiatric care.
Jail staff placed McLemore in a padded isolation cell known inside the jail as 'Padded Cell 7' and kept him there, alone, for the next 20 days. The cell had no toilet and only a covered window in its door, and reporting on the case describes fluorescent lights running around the clock. According to the federal complaint, he stayed naked in the cell in a continuous state of psychosis, refusing food and water, and jail records showed he slept about 15 hours in total across the entire confinement. He weighed about 198 pounds when he was booked and 153 pounds when he left the jail, a loss of roughly 45 pounds in less than three weeks. No doctor or mental health professional was called in to examine him during that time.
On August 8, 2021, jail staff finally took McLemore to Schneck Medical Center. Staff there found his condition critical and had him flown to Mercy West Hospital in Cincinnati, where he arrived early on August 9 and was pronounced dead on August 10. The Hamilton County, Ohio coroner listed the cause of death as multiple organ failure from his refusal to eat or drink, with altered mental status from untreated schizophrenia, and also recorded a history of methamphetamine withdrawal as a contributing condition. Toxicology found no drugs of abuse in his system when he reached the hospital. Indiana State Police investigated, and the Jackson County prosecutor filed no criminal charges, while concluding that McLemore most likely died from a prolonged lack of attention by jail staff as a group.
McLemore's aunt, Melita Ladner, his only surviving close relative, sued on behalf of his estate in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, New Albany Division, naming Jackson County, Sheriff Rick Meyer and jail staff. The suit also named Advanced Correctional Healthcare, the private company the county had hired to provide medical care inside the jail, along with one of its physicians. Edwin Budge and Hank Balson of the Seattle firm Budge & Heipt, PLLC represented the estate. R. Jeffrey Lowe represented Jackson County.
Jackson County and the named officials agreed to pay $7.25 million to resolve the claims against them, and the settlement was reported in December 2023. News coverage described it as the largest known settlement paid over a death in an Indiana jail. The payment covered only the county and its employees. The claims against Advanced Correctional Healthcare and its physician continued after the county settled, and were reported settled separately in March 2024 on undisclosed terms.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Newsweek, Dec. 2023: independently reports the $7.25 million settlement, names Hank Balson of Budge & Heipt as counsel for the estate, identifies the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, New Albany Division, and gives the arrest circumstances, the 20-day confinement, the weight loss, the transfer to Mercy West Hospital in Cincinnati and the coroner's findings
- 2.Corrections1, Dec. 2023: names Ed Budge and Hank Balson of Budge & Heipt, PLLC as counsel for the estate and R. Jeffrey Lowe as counsel for Jackson County; confirms the $7.25 million amount, Melita Ladner as administrator, the July 20, 2021 welfare check and arrest at Schneck Medical Center, and that litigation against Advanced Correctional Healthcare continued
- 3.The Appeal, 2023: describes Padded Cell 7 (no toilet, covered window in the cell door, lights on around the clock), the path from the welfare check through the hospital to the battery arrest, and the 45-pound weight loss
- 4.WIKI 95.3, July 2022: Jackson County prosecutor's findings, including the Aug. 8, 2021 transport to Schneck Medical Center, the transfer to Mercy West Hospital in Cincinnati, death on Aug. 10, 2021, the coroner's cause of death with methamphetamine withdrawal as a contributing condition, negative toxicology, and the decision not to file criminal charges
- 5.Seymour Tribune, Mar. 30, 2024: reports that Advanced Correctional Healthcare and the McLemore estate settled the remaining claims, terms undisclosed
- 6.Indiana Public Media (WFIU), Dec. 6, 2023: quotes Ed Budge as an attorney for the estate, the prosecutor's conclusion about a prolonged lack of attention by jail staff, and Melita Ladner as McLemore's aunt and only surviving close relative. Note: this story's headline figure conflicts with the $7.25 million reported everywhere else, so it is not relied on for the amount
More proven verdicts from Budge & Heipt, PLLC
All Budge & Heipt, PLLC proven verdicts →A federal jury in Spokane awarded $26.75 million to the estate of Cindy Lou Hill, a 55-year-old woman who died of a perforated intestine in the Spokane County Jail after NaphCare staff attributed her symptoms to heroin withdrawal, though the Ninth Circuit vacated the $24 million punitive portion in 2025 and the case was dismissed on remand.
Javier Tapia was 42 when a blood clot went unaddressed for weeks during his 2018 incarceration at the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington, leading to gangrene and the amputation of his leg below the knee. Tapia sued Pierce County and its jail medical contractor, NaphCare, Inc., alleging deliberate indifference to his medical needs under the Fourteenth Amendment. Pierce County settled separately for $1 million and was dismissed before trial. In April 2025, after a jury trial in Seattle, a federal jury found NaphCare liable and awarded Tapia $5 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages, a total of $25 million. The district court denied NaphCare's post-trial motions, and NaphCare has appealed to the Ninth Circuit.
Terrill Thomas, a 38-year-old Milwaukee man with a history of bipolar disorder, died of dehydration in the Milwaukee County Jail in April 2016 after a jail lieutenant ordered the water to his cell shut off for a week as punishment for flooding a previous cell. He lost 34 pounds before he was found dead on April 24, 2016. His estate sued Milwaukee County and the jail's medical contractor, Armor Correctional Health Services, in federal court, and the case settled in March 2019 for $6.75 million, split $5 million from the county and $1.75 million from Armor. The money was divided among Thomas's six children, several of them minors.
Larry Price Jr. spent just over a year in the Sebastian County, Arkansas jail awaiting trial on a terroristic threatening charge he could not make $1,000 bail on, and was found dead in his cell on August 29, 2021. He weighed 185 pounds when he was booked, and paramedics who responded to his death estimated his weight at about 90 pounds; the Arkansas State Crime Laboratory listed the cause of death as acute dehydration and malnutrition. His family's federal lawsuit alleged that Sebastian County and its jail medical contractor, Turn Key Health Clinics, LLC, ignored his deteriorating mental and physical condition, including discontinuing his psychiatric medication and failing to intervene as he ate and drank less over months in custody. Represented by Erik Heipt and Edwin Budge of Budge & Heipt, the family settled with both defendants in 2024 for $6 million, split evenly between the county and Turn Key. The county prosecutor filed no criminal charges over the death, and the case settled before trial with no ruling on liability.
Related civil rights verdicts
Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis served as court-appointed co-lead counsel in the multidistrict litigation over Capital One's 2019 data breach, which exposed the personal information of roughly 98 million U.S. customers. The $190 million settlement won final approval in 2022 as one of the largest data breach recoveries in U.S. history.
An Essex County jury awarded $165.97 million against the State of New Jersey and its Division of Youth and Family Services for failing to remove an infant from his home despite his grandmother's abuse report, a verdict reported as the largest in state personal injury history. The trial judge cut it to $102.6 million on remittitur, and in April 2017 the Appellate Division reversed the judgment entirely on qualified immunity grounds under the Tort Claims Act. The family collected nothing from the State.
As court-appointed lead plaintiffs' counsel, Morgan & Morgan's John Yanchunis negotiated the $117.5 million settlement resolving claims from Yahoo's 2013-2016 data breaches, the largest theft of personal data in history, touching roughly 3 billion accounts worldwide. Judge Lucy Koh approved the fund in 2020 after rejecting an earlier version as inadequate.
On December 14, 2019 Emily Gaines, an 18-year-old Moore High School senior, was driving to take the ACT when Sgt. Kyle Lloyd of the Moore Police Department, off duty and rushing a key to another officer's patrol car for a department event, hit her broadside at 95 to 100 mph in a 50 zone. She died at the scene. On April 1, 2026 a federal jury returned $126,000,000. The court entered $90,000,000 against Lloyd, who is in prison, and cut the $36,000,000 against the City to $125,000 under Oklahoma's Governmental Tort Claims Act.