Nearly $2.6 Million Paid to Former Minnesota Jail Detainee for Injuries from Delayed Withdrawal Treatment
On February 12, 2025, attorneys for a former detainee jailed by Minnesota’s Anoka County stipulated to dismissal of his claims for injuries suffered when he was denied withdrawal treatment while incarcerated. In exchange, the County agreed to pay $2.585 million to the injured jail survivor, Deytona Green, on its behalf, as well as for its former medical care contractor, MEnD Correctional Care PLLC.
While Green suffered severe injuries, he is one of the few pretrial detainees to survive and sue jail officials for the failure to provide drug withdrawal treatment. Green, then 25, was booked into the Anoka County Jail (ACJ) on drug charges on February 5, 2022. He informed jailers that he had a valid prescription for Suboxone to treat his opioid addiction. He also admitted to shooting up heroin earlier that day.
But ACJ officials confiscated the prescribed medication that was on Green’s person at the time of his arrest and placed it in a locked box in property storage. Green’s mother and his probation officer both called ACJ, offering to bring more of his prescribed medication to the jail to ensure he suffered no disruption in treatment. But they were denied.
Meanwhile Green never received any Suboxone at the jail and quickly began experiencing opioid withdrawal symptoms. On February 7, 2022, he started reporting vomiting to ACJ medical officials. Two days later, he told them that he was also experiencing uncontrollable diarrhea. Guards observed the symptoms, but they took no action.
Beginning on February 10, 2022, Green gave away all his meals because he could not eat. Surveillance video the next day captured him swaying on his feet before fainting. Still guards took no action, and Green’s health continued to deteriorate. Finally, on February 12, 2022, Green collapsed. He was found unresponsive, “lying face down in his vomit-covered cell,” according to the complaint later filed on his behalf.
Taken then to a hospital, Green was placed in a critical care unit. A CT scan revealed skull fractures and a brain bleed. He was also diagnosed with acute kidney failure. ACJ obtained a judicial order to furlough Green from custody—a maneuver that officials in many jails have used to avoid the cost of medical care for those they have incarcerated. That cost would prove to be substantial for Green, who endured cranial surgery to remove a blood clot to alleviate bleeding. After another three weeks of intensive treatment, he was released from the hospital.
Green continued to suffer headaches and loss of memory in April 2024, when a civil rights complaint was filed for him in federal court for the District of Minnesota by attorneys from Robins Kaplan LLP in Minneapolis. The suit made claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Defendants’ “galling” and deliberate indifference to his serious medical need, in violation of his Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
The parties then proceeded to reach their settlement agreement, under which the County’s payment was only partially offset with a $35,000 recovery from MEnD that was paid by Platte River Insurance Co. The agreement also included fees and costs for Plaintiff’s attorneys. See: Green v. Anoka Cty., USDC (D. Minn.), Case No. 0:24-cv-01250.
ACJ cancelled its contract with MEnD in 2022. The firm canceled the rest of its jail contracts when it filed for bankruptcy protection in December of that same year, as PLN reported [See: PLN, Apr. 2025, p.43.] Robert Bennett, one of Green’s attorneys, said that the case “serves as a stark reminder of the need for reform in correctional healthcare systems.”
“This is not just a failure of one facility but a reflection of a much larger systematic issue within the correctional system,” he added. “We must demand accountability and ensure no one, regardless of their status, is subjected to this kind of inhumane neglect.”
Additional source: Minneapolis Star Tribune
Related legal case
Green v. Anoka Cty.
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USDC (D. Minn.), Case No. 0:24-cv-01250 |
| Level | District Court |
| Conclusion | Settlement |