Federal Settlement of $640,000 in a Decatur County Jail Alcohol Withdrawal Death
Won by Wagner Reese, LLP.
The mother of M. Shane Satterfield, 38, recovered $640,000 from Decatur County's liability insurer after he died of untreated alcohol withdrawal while serving a drunk-driving sentence at the county jail.
What happened
In March 2014, M. Shane Satterfield, a 38-year-old man from Greensburg, Indiana, was serving a short jail sentence for drunk driving at the Decatur County Jail. He had been arrested the previous December on a felony charge of operating a vehicle while intoxicated, and days before his death he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. He had been in custody only a few days. On a Monday evening, staff found him incoherent and unable to respond to commands. Emergency responders performed CPR and took him to Decatur County Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at about 10:30 p.m.
A coroner ruled that Satterfield died of natural causes brought on by complications of alcohol withdrawal. In the days leading up to his death, his condition had worsened in ways that were visible to those around him. He hallucinated, talked to people who were not there, and came to believe there was a bomb in his cell. The sheriff said Satterfield had not reported any medical problems before that night. Indiana State Police investigated the death and found no indication of foul play or suicide.
Satterfield's mother, Lynn Brewsaugh, filed a federal lawsuit against the Decatur County sheriff and members of the jail staff in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. She was represented by attorney Stephen Wagner of Wagner Reese. The suit argued that jail personnel knew her son was in trouble yet failed to act on his decline. Staff had placed Satterfield on a 30-minute medical watch, the complaint said, but then allowed hours to pass between checks.
The case also examined conditions inside the jail. Inspections from around the time of Satterfield's death indicated that the Greensburg facility did not have enough staff to supervise inmates around the clock, and that the number of people held there exceeded the jail's stated capacity.
The county's liability insurance company settled the lawsuit for $640,000 late in 2015. The money was split between Brewsaugh and Satterfield's father. "I miss my son immensely," Brewsaugh said. "Nothing can bring him back. I struggle with it every day." The federal court dismissed the case on December 30, 2015.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
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