One WV jail conditions suit settled for $4M+, another $100K+ settlement proposed

The state also has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a lawsuit alleging state corrections employees contributed to the September 2022 death of a Southern Regional Jail inmate.

Alleged lack of running water, insect infestations

The plaintiffs and state defendants reached the $4 million agreement in November 2023 after a federal judge recommended a default judgment against the state.

The plaintiffs alleged pervasive overcrowding, faulty plumbing resulting in a lack of running water and limited or no access to drinking water, black mold in inmate cells and showers, and rodent and insect infestations at the jail.

Southern Regional Jail has been the site of a disproportionately high number of inmate deaths.

Seven of 2023’s 16 recorded inmate deaths occurred at the jail, which was the site of 38, or 20%, of the 187 recorded deaths at the regional jails from 2009 through 2023, according to state data obtained by the Gazette-Mail via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Defendants in the case include:

• William Marshall III, state Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation commissioner
• Michael Francis, former Southern Regional Jail superintendent
• Larry Warden, former Southern Regional Jail major
• Jeff Sandy, former Department of Homeland Security secretary
• Betsy Jividen, former DCR commissioner

Another defendant is Brad Douglas, who had most recently served as Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation executive officer when he was fired by the Justice administration after a federal judge found current and former West Virginia corrections officials intentionally destroyed evidence in the case.

Douglas had been interim commissioner of the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Southern District of West Virginia District Court Magistrate Judge Omar Aboulhosn cited testimony from Douglas and Phil Sword, who had been Department of Homeland Security general counsel and an assistant attorney general in the Attorney General’s Office, in an order finding state corrections officials’ handling of evidence constituted a “dereliction of duty� in the case.

The Justice administration fired Douglas and Sword. Gov. Jim Justice’s chief of staff, Brian Abraham, said in a November 2023 phone interview the terminations of Douglas and Sword were to hold them accountable for the state failing to preserve emails requested by the plaintiffs in discovery, an information-sharing process in legal cases.

Class from lawsuit covers nearly four years

Chief U.S. District Judge Frank Volk issued an order of final approval of the $4 million-plus settlement on Dec. 5.

Per the settlement agreement, the plaintiffs agreed to settle their claims for $4 million into a settlement fund and $50,000 into a claims administration fund to cover claim implementation expenses and fees, including class notices.

The parties estimated class members will share settlement payments ranging from $150 to $500, depending on the number of claimants.

The class covers all people incarcerated at Southern Regional Jail for more than two days from Sept. 22, 2020, through the date of a preliminary approval order: July 19, 2024.

The court appointed the law firms of Beckley-based Stephen New & Associates, Beckley-based Taylor, Hinkle & Taylor, Pineville-based Lupardus Law Office, Beckley-based Robert Dunlap and Associates PLLC, and Pineville-based Whitten Law Office as class counsel.

The settlement withdrew a motion from the plaintiffs to compel Sandy and Douglas to respond fully to discovery and a motion for a finding of evidence destruction and sanctions against Sandy, Douglas, Jividen and Marshall.

The settlement doesn’t include excessive force, medical malpractice, overdose, over-detention, and any claims against remaining defendants, PrimeCare Medical of West Virginia Inc. and Pittsburgh-based correctional health care firm Wexford Health Sources Inc.

“[W]e are pleased to have the portion of [the] case against the State resolved and look forward to litigating the claims against the medical providers PrimeCare and Wexford,� Stephen New said in an email, commenting as counsel for the plaintiffs.

‘A death sentence [for] far too many’

Also on Dec. 5, Miranda Smith filed a proposed settlement with the state and Wexford Health Sources of her March 2023 federal lawsuit alleging her father, Alvis Shrewsbury, 45, died in September 2022 following incarceration at Southern Regional Jail marked by brutal acts of violence from other inmates, and correctional officer and health care staff indifference to his health and safety.

The defendants deny any liability, according to the proposed settlement.

Andy Malinoski, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation’s parent agency, declined to comment on either the proposed settlement submitted by Smith or the $4 million-plus settlement approved by Volk.

The court filing did not disclose the amount of the proposed settlement with Wexford Health Sources.

The filing indicates 35% of the settlement proceeds will be fees for legal representation and reimbursement of legal expenses.

Shrewsbury was incarcerated at the jail for 19 days when he died.

“Sadly, Mr. Shrewsbury’s fate is not unique. Just simply being incarcerated in a West Virginia jail — especially SRJ — has been a death sentence [for] far too many,� the lawsuit states.

Shrewsbury was beaten multiple times by a group of inmates and had his daily food trays and drinking water bottles taken after he was found guilty of driving on a suspended license and sentenced to serve six months in jail, the lawsuit states.

Shrewsbury, a grandfather of seven, died after correctional staff at Southern Regional “took no affirmative steps� to protect Shrewsbury from the attacks and ignored his complaints about pain and difficulty breathing, according to the lawsuit.

Guilty pleas for death

initially called ‘heart disease’

Smith, who did not respond to a request for comment for this story, told the Gazette-Mail last year that funding the Justice administration used to reimburse itself from previously incurred corrections expenses should be returned to the Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Rather than reimbursing the division with federal COVID relief money unexpended at a Sept. 30, 2022, deadline to spend it, the Justice administration had sat on most of it after moving it to a governor-controlled discretionary account, claiming it as COVID-related state corrections expenses.

The Justice administration drew heavy criticism after the Gazette-Mail reported it spent $10 million of $28.3 million it used to reimburse itself from previously incurred corrections expenses on a new baseball stadium for Marshall University in October 2022.

In November 2023, a grand jury charged six defendants who served as Southern Regional correctional officers with causing the death of inmate Quantez Burks, 37, by conspiring to injure him and then providing false information to investigators.

The charges followed guilty pleas earlier that month from Andrew Fleshman and Steven Nicholas Wimmer to conspiring, as Southern Regional correctional officers, to use unreasonable force against Burks, assaulting and injuring him while he was restrained, handcuffed and posed no threat.

Jacob Boothe, Mark Holdren, Corey Snyder, Ashley Toney and Johnathan Walters have since pleaded guilty for their roles as correctional officers in connection to Burks’ death.

Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation data had listed “heart disease� as the cause of Burks’ death.