San Diego reaches $15 million settlement with family of pregnant woman who died in jail

SAN DIEGO (CN) — The family of a 24-year-old pregnant woman who died alone on the floor of a San Diego County jail settled their civil suit against the county for $15 million and an agreement that requires the county to update their training policies for jailhouse staff.

The family of Elisa Serna “insisted that the case was more about change and the prevention of harm than it was about money,” said Eugene Iredale, one of the attorneys for the family at a press conference at a Greek restaurant in downtown San Diego on Tuesday.

Along with damages, San Diego County will pay $14 million, with Coast Correctional Medical Group — a company that provides medical staff for jails — covering the remaining $1 million.

The settlement includes provisions requiring the Sheriff’s Department to provide compassion training to staff, training on how to treat inmates who fall and requiring medical staff to check people’s vital signs in the jail’s medical observation unit, along with other requirements.

Elisa Serna was booked into Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility, a San Diego women’s jail, in 2019 on suspicion of theft and drug charges. She suffered from drug withdrawal in custody and complained of vomiting, nausea and fainting. An investigation by the San Diego County Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board released in 2021 found that Serna had pneumonia and was dehydrated.

Five days after she was arrested, Serna hit her head against the wall of her cell as she collapsed after a seizure. She was left alone and found dead on the floor of her cell an hour later.

Paloma Serna, Elisa’s mother, described staff at the jail as uncaring and without compassion for her daughter during the press conference.

Iredale added that Elisa’s death was the result of an “institutional culture that degenerates the needs of inmates and patients and the sad failure of leadership of the former Sheriff [Bill] Gore over many many years.”

The settlement also includes a requirement that the county provide information about the extent of their use of alcohol and opioid withdrawal protocols for inmates and gives a magistrate judge jurisdiction over the county for a year to make sure the protocols are followed.

Even though Sheriff Kelly Martinez, who was elected in 2022, was supposed to have implemented the withdrawal protocols throughout county jails, people have continued to die in jail because of drug and alcohol withdrawal problems that should and could be treated, Grace Jun, another attorney for the family, added.

According to the Sheriff’s Department, 75 people have died in custody since Elisa Serna’s death in 2019, including six people in 2024 so far.

In 2022, the California state auditor found that 185 people died in San Diego County jails from 2006 to 2020, one of the highest rates of inmate deaths in the state. Another 2022 report by the San Diego Citizens’ Law Enforcement Review Board found that excess deaths “only appear among those who have not yet been sentenced.”

“There have been many changes and an incredible shift in priorities, approach, and processes in our jails since 2019.  As Sheriff, I am committed to improving our jail system and ensuring the jails are safe for everyone who is incarcerated and for all our employees. I will continue to provide my staff with the training, tools, and equipment they need to do their jobs at the highest level,” Martinez wrote in a press release responding to the announcement of the settlement.

One of the other terms of the settlement requires that Martinez privately meet with both Paloma and Michael Serna, Elisa’s father.

In her press release, Martinez said that she tried to meet with the family, but they didn’t respond. At Tuesday’s press conference, Paloma said she had tried to organize meetings with Martinez and the Saving Lives in Custody California, a group that advocates for jail reform and represents the family members of people who’ve died in custody, but the sheriff never agreed to meet.

At the press conference, Serna read the names of people who have died in custody in local jails, some of whom are also pursuing lawsuits against San Diego County.

Both the physician on duty at the jail and a nurse were criminally charged for the death of Elisa Serna, but a jury deadlocked on involuntary manslaughter charges against the doctor. Prosecutors then asked the judge in the case to dismiss the charges against the nurse in February.

The Serna family then pursued a civil lawsuit in federal court against San Diego County and a number of other defendants, including the doctor, Dr. Friederike Von Lintig, and the nurse, Danalee Pascua, over negligence, failure to properly train and wrongful death and other claims.

The settlement dismisses the entirety of the case with prejudice, including a pending appeal, and dismisses all of the defendants, including Von Lintig and Pascua, within three days of the family receiving payment.

After playing video footage of Elisa falling repeatedly and suffering from seizures in her jail cell, Iredale said that Paloma wants to upload all the documents and videos to a Saving Lives in Custody California website.

“Maybe with these videos released they’ll feel something,” she said about the staff of the jail.

Iredale suggested that the family’s settlement could be a template for any future settlement agreements for any future wrongful death cases.

“That we look to the past to secure recompense for loss of life of the decedent and the family which is bereaved but that we look to the future to prevent that in the future,” Iredale said.