Federal Jury Awards $25 Million to Jail Detainee Over an Untreated Blood Clot That Cost Him His Leg

Javier Tapia was booked into the Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, Washington, in June 2018 on suspicion of driving a stolen vehicle. He was 42. By September, jail records show him refusing meals and appearing confused and nonverbal. He was placed in a segregated cell, and his lawyers told the jury that nurses did not so much as open his chart for the next ten days. A blood clot was forming in his leg the entire time, and no one caught it.

The clot went untreated long enough that his foot began to turn black. A corrections deputy noticed it in early October 2018, and Tapia was taken that day to Tacoma General Hospital. Doctors diagnosed phlegmasia cerulea dolens, a severe form of deep vein thrombosis, and found the foot gangrenous. It could not be saved. Surgeons amputated Tapia's leg below the knee on October 16, 2018.

Tapia sued Pierce County and NaphCare, Inc., the Alabama company the county paid to run medical care at the jail, in federal court in 2022. Both defendants moved to dismiss, arguing they could not be liable for a condition they had not noticed. The court disagreed, writing that despite repeated contact with Tapia over his first three months in custody, 'no one thought to physically examine him,' and that whether that was reasonable was a question for a jury. The case survived that motion and two more rounds of pretrial challenges. Pierce County settled separately for $1 million and was dismissed from the case in March 2025, shortly before trial against NaphCare began.

The claim against NaphCare went to trial in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle. Tapia's trial team included Ryan Dreveskracht and Corinne Sebren of the Seattle firm Galanda Broadman, along with Ed Budge of Budge & Heipt. They argued NaphCare built its jail medical staffing around licensed practical nurses working beyond their training, left corrections deputies rather than medical staff to flag emergencies, and failed to communicate internally as Tapia's condition worsened.

On April 4, 2025, after more than eight hours of deliberation, the jury ruled for Tapia. It found that NaphCare maintained a widespread, longstanding custom of inadequate medical care that violated his Fourteenth Amendment right to treatment while in custody, and that the custom caused his amputation. The jury awarded $5 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages, a total of $25 million.

NaphCare, which staffs jail medical units in 49 states, said after the verdict that it fundamentally disagreed with the outcome and would appeal. The district court denied its post-trial motions for judgment as a matter of law, a new trial and remittitur, and in August 2025 NaphCare filed a notice of appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The MacArthur Justice Center took over as Tapia's counsel on appeal, briefing finished in early 2026, and the appeal remained pending as of this writing. No payment toward the verdict has been publicly reported.