$12.2 Million Settlement From Scott County After Untreated Jail Infection Led to Amputation of Both Arms

Terrance Dwayne Winborn was booked into the Scott County Jail in Shakopee, Minnesota on August 27, 2020, on driving and alcohol-related charges. He was in custody for about a day. He came out of it having lost both of his arms.

A bacterial infection took hold while Winborn was in the jail and was allowed to progress without treatment. It moved into septic shock. He suffered a heart attack and hemorrhaging beneath the skin, and gangrene set into both hands and forearms. Surgeons amputated both arms below the elbows. His attorneys said medical experts concluded that if he had been treated during those hours in the jail, he would still have both arms.

The case against the county rested on what jail staff did not do. The complaint alleged deliberate indifference to Winborn's medical needs by a registered nurse at the jail, who it said disregarded the obvious warning signs of his deteriorating condition and did not provide care during the critical hours he was in custody. That is the constitutional standard for holding a jailer liable under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for a prisoner's untreated illness. Two further failures came out afterward: county officials did not report the incident to the Minnesota Department of Corrections inside the ten-day window the state requires, and roughly 39 hours of jail video that would have shown his condition in custody was allowed to be deleted.

Winborn was represented by a Robins Kaplan team of Katie Bennett, Andrew Noel, Greta Wiessner, Robert Bennett and Marc Betinsky, the civil rights group the firm brought on in January 2020. The failure to give Winborn constitutionally required care, Katie Bennett said, was inhumane and offensive on every level.

In October 2023 the case settled for $12.2 million, with $10.2 million paid by Scott County and $2 million by the Minnesota Counties Intergovernmental Trust. The lawsuit was dismissed on the settlement.