The family of a Jacksonville Correctional Center prisoner whose death resulted in a $3 million jury award is asking the court to add $583,889 in interest payment.<\/p>\n
Catrina Larkin, through Peoria attorney Louis Meyer, filed a motion for pre- and post-judgment interest April 24, four days after judgment in her case against\u00a0Wexford Health Sources and Dr. Thomas Baker.<\/p>\n
Larkin is the sister of the late Eugene\u00a0M. Varner Jr. and independent administrator of his estate.<\/p>\n
A U.S. District Court jury in Springfield determined\u00a0Wexford and Baker, who is employed by Wexford as medical doctor at the prison, should pay $3 million in compensatory damages in the Varner’s death.<\/p>\n
His estate said the family is also entitled to interest of 6% annually from the time the case was filed. That amounts to $493.15 a day, which totals $583,889.60 for 1,184 days.<\/p>\n
A judge has yet to amend the award, but court\u00a0records indicate a decision could come this week.<\/p>\n
Varner\u00a0was serving a five-year sentence on drug and firearm charges. He died March 7, 2021, at Jacksonville Memorial Hospital after being transferred there from prison, according to court records. He was 43 years old.<\/p>\n
A federal lawsuit filed in January 2023 said Baker “knew that Mr. Varner was having medical issues months prior to his death.”<\/p>\n
Varner, who had a medical history of deep vein thrombosis, had complained of limited mobility and swelling in his leg \u2014 signs of deep vein thrombosis \u2014 after slipping in a shower at the prison in February 2021, according\u00a0to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Weeks before, in December, Varner had been admitted to Jacksonville Memorial Hospital after contracting COVID-19. During his treatment, doctors put him on blood thinners because tests showed an elevated risk of blood clots. He was not given blood thinners after returning to the prison, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Anticoagulants were not prescribed despite several visits with Baker about worsening symptoms after Varner’s fall, which “based upon his knowledge of the history of Mr.\u00a0Varner and his current condition, fell below the standard of care,” the lawsuit asserted.<\/p>\n
Varner was found “slumped over on a toilet, diaphoretic and short of breath” on March 7, 2021, and taken to the hospital by ambulance, where he was pronounced dead, according to court records.<\/p>\n
An autopsy said the cause of\u00a0death was “pulmonary thromboembolism due to deep vein thrombosis as a consequence of immobility following an injury of the left knee.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a Jacksonville Correctional Center prisoner whose death resulted in a $3 million jury award is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":788564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,7310,50,52,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-788563","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-jacksonville","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116555549733728244","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}