$2 Million Federal Verdict Against Oklahoma County Jail Trust for an Untreated Perforated Ulcer
After trial: Federal jury verdict returned April 17, 2026 against the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority on a Section 1983 claim, which Oklahoma's tort claims act does not cap. The jury found for the two individual defendants, and as of September 2026 no post-trial ruling or appeal has been reported.
Won by Laird Hammons Laird (lead counsel) and Hicks Law Firm.
Gregory N. Davis, 53, was booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center in August 2021 on a misdemeanor outraging-public-decency complaint. Over nine days a peptic ulcer perforated. Another inmate testified that he screamed in pain, cried and begged for a nurse for days; detention officers reported none of it and missed mandatory cell checks. He was found unresponsive during a mental-health check and died at a hospital on August 12, 2021. On April 17, 2026 a federal jury unanimously found the jail trust deliberately indifferent to his medical need and awarded his estate $2,000,000.
What happened
Gregory N. Davis was 53 when he was arrested on August 3, 2021 on a complaint of outraging public decency, a misdemeanor, and booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center. Because of his mental-health status he was housed on the jail's twelfth floor. Detention staff never completed a full medical assessment on him.
He spent nine days there. During that time a peptic ulcer perforated. A gastroenterologist testified at trial that the perforation happened 12 to 48 hours before his death, and that with medical attention and surgery he would have survived. Another inmate testified that Davis screamed in pain, cried and begged for a nurse for days. None of that appears in any detention officer's report. Officers also missed five of the six half-hourly cell checks required in the hours before he was found.
On August 12, 2021 staff conducting a mental-health check found him unresponsive in his cell. He was pronounced dead at a hospital. The autopsy attributed his death to the perforated ulcer, with COVID-19 also present.
His daughter, Kizzie Simms, as special administrator of his estate, sued under 42 U.S.C. 1983 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, No. 5:23-cv-00780, before Judge David L. Russell. The defendants included the Board of Trustees of the Oklahoma County Criminal Justice Authority, the trust that runs the jail, former jail administrator Greg Williams and a licensed counselor, Sanaria Okongor.
The case went to a jury in April 2026. Lead trial counsel Chris Hammons asked for $57,000,000 to hold the trust accountable for what he called the lethal mismanagement of an understaffed jail. On April 17, 2026, after about two hours of deliberation, the six jurors unanimously found that the jail trust had been deliberately indifferent to Davis's serious medical need and awarded his estate $2,000,000. They found for the two individual defendants.
Chris Hammons of Laird Hammons Laird and Jason Hicks of the Hicks Law Firm, both of Oklahoma City, represented the estate. The trust's chairman, Jim Holman, said afterward that the events occurred under a prior administration and that the jail had since expanded its medical and mental-health services.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
More proven verdicts from Laird Hammons Laird
All Laird Hammons Laird proven verdicts →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.
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