A pregnant inmate in California will receive $480,000 as a settlement for a wrongful death complaint she filed against Orange County when she suffered a miscarriage.
Sandra Quinones was six months pregnant while in prison in 2016 when her water broke, prompting her early labor. But the jail guards who took her to the hospital stopped for coffee at Starbucks. Quinones believed that her baby died because of the delay in providing her medical services.
The inmate got out of prison after a month and is currently staying at her mother's house. She also claimed that the jail guards were indifferent to her medical needs. During her labor, it took the prison two hours to give her medical attention, and she was in the ambulance in a "non-emergency" situation, per NBC News.
The case was dismissed in 2020
The woman did not file a complaint until September 2019, as Quinones also wanted to pursue a civil lawsuit against the county. However, the courts dismissed the case in October 2020 because it had passed the state's two-year stature.
Richard Herman, one of Quinones' lawyers, told Los Angeles Times that his client was persistent about fighting her case. Herman said that Quinones might have had mental health issues before, but she completely understood that she was wronged and could not forget how the jail guards treated her.
In 2021, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated her complaints, citing that Quinones suffered a mental disability after losing her child. The appeals court recognized that this period of disability should not be counted in the two-year stature.
After reviewing her case, the Orange County Board of Supervisors made the unanimous decision to compensate her with $480,000 settlement money. Her lawyers also hope this case will change the treatment of women at the Orange County jail.
Not the first pregnant inmate to file a lawsuit
Quinones' case was not the first lawsuit filed by a pregnant inmate against Orange County. In May 2018, Ciera Stoelting also sued for mishandling her childbirth while she was incarcerated for drug possession.
Stoelting claimed she informed the prison guards that she was in labor, but instead of taking her to the hospital, she was sent to the "infirmary pod," where she had her baby in the toilet. She did not get medical assistance, and her baby eventually died.
According to the Orange County Register, the jail guards denied Stoelting wanted to see a doctor for her labor as she was sent to the infirmary for a medical observation of her urinary tract infection. The county's district attorney also cleared the guards of any wrongdoing and alleged that Stoelting lost her child because she had been a methamphetamine user since her teens.
In 2021, the board approved a $1.5 million settlement favoring Stoelting for this case.
