Huge verdict over denied care

A federal jury in Detroit awarded Kohchise Jackson $307.6 million on April 2 after finding prison medical providers denied care he said would have ended two years of suffering. (freep.com) Jackson, 44, said he lived with a leaking colostomy bag from 2017 to 2019 while in Michigan Department of Corrections custody after a temporary colostomy that doctors had planned to reverse in February 2017. His 2019 federal lawsuit said the surgery was not approved after he entered the state prison system. (clickondetroit.com) A colostomy reroutes waste through an opening in the abdomen into an external bag. Jackson’s lawyers argued the bag was supposed to be temporary, but Corizon Health and its utilization-review system did not authorize the reversal while he was incarcerated. (clickondetroit.com) The jury’s award broke down into $300 million in punitive damages against CHS TX, Inc., $7.5 million in compensatory damages against CHS TX, and $100,000 in punitive damages against Dr. Keith Papendick, Corizon’s former director of utilization management. Jurors deliberated a little more than two hours before returning the verdict. (masslawyersweekly.com) The case has drawn wide attention because it put a dollar figure on a claim that a routine prison medical decision was driven by cost, not by a doctor’s judgment. Court records identify the suit as *Jackson v. Corizon Health Inc.*, filed in November 2019 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. (law.justia.com; courtlistener.com) Jackson’s suit named Corizon Health, and later proceedings addressed CHS TX and YesCare as successor entities after Corizon’s corporate restructuring. Reporting on the verdict described CHS TX as the company that purchased Corizon after its 2023 bankruptcy. (courtlistener.com; masslawyersweekly.com) The lawsuit said Jackson first developed a hole between his bowel and bladder in 2016 while detained at the St. Clair County jail, causing infections, fever, nausea, vomiting, and severe pain before surgeons performed the colostomy. After he entered state custody, he said he kept reporting problems but was repeatedly treated for urinary tract infections. (clickondetroit.com) Jackson told Local 4 that other inmates and staff scrutinized him because of the bag and the smell, and his attorney said the bag sometimes burst when supplies ran short. In a 2019 interview cited after the verdict, Jackson said, “Nobody wanted to be my bunkie, for sure.” (clickondetroit.com; gps.press) After Jackson was paroled in May 2019, he had the reversal surgery outside prison without complications, according to reporting after the verdict. His lawyers said that outcome undercut the argument that the procedure had been too risky or medically inappropriate to perform earlier. (gps.press) Public reporting on the verdict did not include a detailed response from CHS TX or YesCare to the jury’s decision. The case now moves into the post-verdict phase, where the defendants can ask the judge to reduce the award or seek an appeal. (freep.com; courtlistener.com)