Family Reaches $6 Million Settlement After Pretrial Detainee Dies of Malnutrition in Arkansas Jail
After trial: The case settled before trial, so there was no jury verdict, judgment, or appeal to track. Sebastian County's $3 million share was paid through a public appropriation from its Justice Facilities Capital Fund, with $350,000 contributed by the county's risk management carrier, after the Quorum Court approved the settlement on August 20, 2024. How Turn Key Health Clinics funded its $3 million share was not reported. No criminal charges were filed against any Sebastian County or Turn Key employee in connection with Price's death.
Won by Budge & Heipt, PLLC.
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.
What happened
Larry Price Jr. walked into the Fort Smith Police Department on August 19, 2020, in what his estate's lawyers later described as an acute mental health crisis, and made statements officers treated as threats. He was arrested and charged with terroristic threatening, and his bail was set at $1,000. Price could not pay it, and he was booked into the Sebastian County jail to await trial.
Price had a documented history of serious mental illness. Jail medical staff started him on psychiatric medication after booking, but the medication was discontinued in November 2020 after he refused to take it, and according to the family's lawsuit no one followed up on his psychiatric needs after that. The suit alleged that jail staff and employees of the county's contracted health provider, Turn Key Health Clinics, also failed to intervene as Price ate and drank progressively less over the course of his confinement, nearly all of which he spent in isolation. He had weighed 185 pounds when he was booked.
Price was found unresponsive in his cell on August 29, 2021, lying in standing water, and was pronounced dead after he was taken to a hospital. The paramedics who responded estimated his weight at about 90 pounds and described him as severely malnourished. The Arkansas State Crime Laboratory autopsy listed the cause of death as acute dehydration and malnutrition, and recorded that Price had also tested positive for COVID-19. Sebastian County prosecutor Dan Shue cited the autopsy findings and Price's other medical issues, including the positive COVID-19 test, in concluding that the death was natural and that no criminal charges could be brought. Price was never tried on the charge that kept him in jail.
On January 13, 2023, Price's estate sued Sebastian County and Turn Key Health Clinics, LLC in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, Case No. 2:23-cv-02008, assigned to U.S. District Judge P.K. Holmes III. The family was represented by Erik Heipt and Edwin Budge of the Seattle firm Budge & Heipt, who argued that the county and its medical contractor had been deliberately indifferent to a documented, worsening medical and psychiatric emergency inside their own jail. The complaint included autopsy photographs of Price's emaciated body. A corrections expert retained in the case, Catherine Fontenot, called what happened to Price cruel and inhumane and described numerous individual and collective failures during his pretrial detention. Trial had been set for May 2024.
The case settled before trial. On August 20, 2024, the Sebastian County Quorum Court voted to approve the county's $3 million share, funded through the county's Justice Facilities Capital Fund with $350,000 contributed by the county's risk management carrier. Turn Key Health Clinics agreed to pay the remaining $3 million, bringing the total settlement to $6 million. Heipt said the size of the settlement reflected the magnitude of what had happened to Price, and Budge & Heipt described it as the largest known jail death settlement in Arkansas history.
No criminal charges were ever filed over Price's death, and the settlement closed the civil case without a trial or a court ruling on liability.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Prison Legal News, October 15, 2023: case number 2:23-cv-02008 (W.D. Ark.), Erik Heipt and Edwin Budge of Budge & Heipt PLLC named as counsel for the estate, paramedics' 90-pound estimate and condition of the cell, November 2020 discontinuation of psychiatric medication, May 2024 trial setting
- 2.ABC News, January 2023: Arkansas State Crime Lab autopsy listing acute dehydration and malnutrition as the cause of death, COVID-19 positive test, immediate placement in solitary confinement
- 3.Associated Press via ABC News, September 2024: $6 million settlement with Sebastian County and Turn Key Health Clinics paying $3 million each, Erik Heipt and Budge and Heipt named as counsel for the family, prosecutor Dan Shue's decision not to charge
- 4.Talk Business & Politics, September 2024: settlement finalized, $3M/$3M split, January 13, 2023 filing date, Judge P.K. Holmes III, Erik Heipt of Budge and Heipt named as counsel for the family
- 5.Talk Business & Politics, August 2024: Quorum Court vote of August 20, 2024, county funding through the Justice Facilities Capital Fund plus $350,000 from its risk management carrier, corrections expert Catherine Fontenot's assessment
- 6.CBS News, September 2024: weight of 185 pounds at booking down to about 90 pounds, discontinued mental health medication after Price refused it, autopsy photographs cited in the complaint, settlement terms
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