Almost $28.3 Million Awarded from NaphCare for Washington Jail Detainee Who Lost Leg to Untreated Gangrene
by Chuck Sharman
For letting a detainee’s infected leg go untreated so long that it had to be amputated, a federal jury assigned liability to NaphCare, Inc., the contracted healthcare provider at Washington’s Pierce County Jail in Tacoma, returning a massive $25 million verdict on Javier Tapia’s civil rights claim on April 4, 2025. That was on top of a $1 million settlement reached with the County the prior month, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Apr. 2025, p.20.] The U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington then awarded $2,271,906.70 in costs and attorney’s fees on November 26, 2025, pushing the total recovery for Tapia, 43, to $28,271,906.70.
Tapia said that he was struggling with opioid addiction in June 2018 when he was arrested for driving a stolen vehicle and booked into the jail. Three months later, when guards noticed his disordered thinking, he submitted a sick call for insomnia. But he wasn’t seen by a doctor for another month, and only after a guard noticed his toes were turning black. By then, his foot and leg had developed bleeding sores and blisters, and his weight was rapidly plummeting. Taken to a hospital, he was diagnosed with gangrene, eventually losing his foot and lower leg to amputation.
After he was convicted on drug and stolen vehicle charges, Tapia was sentenced to prison and released in 2022. With the aid of attorneys from Galanda Broadman PLLC in Seattle, he filed suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, accusing the County and its jail healthcare contractor of deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. Defendants moved for summary judgment, arguing that they couldn’t be liable for an injury before one of their staffers ever saw it. To which the district court replied, “But that is the very point,” denying the motion in May 2023.
After the County settled its share of the claims, the case proceeded to trial against NaphCare, with the aid of additional counsel for Tapia from attorney Edwin S. Budge of Budge & Heipt LLC in Seattle. The jury ultimately agreed that NaphCare staffers deprived the detainee of his Fourteenth Amendment right with their deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. Crucially, jurors also agreed that NaphCare had a custom or policy of delaying detainee healthcare and then using underqualified personnel to provide it, in order to save money. They awarded Tapia $5 million in compensatory damages and $20 million in punitive damages.
NaphCare moved for judgment as a matter of law (JNOV), but the district court denied it on August 7, 2025, lifting a stay it had issued on Tapia’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs. When that motion was granted on November 26, 2025, Tapia was awarded $128,015.70 in costs and $2,143,891 in fees. See: Tapia v. NaphCare, USDC (W.D. Wash.), Case No. 2:22-cv-01141.
The firm has appealed the denial of its JNOV motion to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, where it also filed an appeal to the district court’s decision to lift the stay on Tapia’s request for legal costs and fees. Both cases remain pending, and PLN will continue to update developments. See: Tapia v. NaphCare, USCA (9th Cir.), Case No. 25-05448; and Case No. 25-07819.
It was the second enormous jury verdict against NaphCare for providing shoddy healthcare to Washington jail detainees. As PLN also reported, the firm was hit with a July 2022 verdict awarding $26.75 million to another Budge & Heipt client, the surviving daughter of Cindy Lou Hill, 55, for denial of medical care for a ruptured intestine that led to her death in 2018 at the Spokane County Jail. [See: PLN, Oct. 2023, p.27.]
NaphCare appealed that verdict, too, and on June 5, 2025, the Ninth Circuit vacated the $24 million of the award made for punitive damages, as reported elsewhere in this issue. [See: PLN, Jan. 2026, p.10.]
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login
Related legal case
Tapia v. NaphCare,
| Year | 2025 |
|---|---|
| Cite | USCA (9th Cir.), Case No. 25-05448 |
| Level | District Court |