CHARLESTON – The estate of a Mingo County man blames subpar health care and lack of thorough security for his death while in jail.
Jennifer Stump, as administratrix of the estate of Landon Stump, filed her complaint August 6 in Kanawha Circuit Court against Wexford Health Sources Inc., the West Virginia Division of Corrections and Rehabilitation and unnamed corrections officers.
Jennifer Stump, who lives in Tennessee, is the mother of Landon Stump.
diTrapano
“The care that Landon Stump received at Southwest Regional Jail was atrocious,” L. Dante diTrapano, one of the attorneys representing the estate, told The West Virginia Record. “This is yet another sad ending to a young life at the hands of Wexford Health and the WVDCR.”
According to the complaint, Stump was incarcerated at Southwestern Regional Jail in Logan County on August 6, 2022. When he arrived, he completed an intake screening evaluation. He reported being addicted to fentanyl, heroin, meth, Xanax and Percocet. He also consented to a drug screening, but the drug test results form does not indicate he was under the influence of drugs on intake.
The complaint says Wexford failed to properly implement detoxification protocols for Stump despite having knowledge of his substance abuse addiction and having “documented the need” for such protocols.
On August 16, 2022, Stump told a cellmate his stomach was hurting. Surveillance video shows him living at 5:30 a.m. on August 17, 2022. Less than four hours later, Stump was found unresponsive ad without a pulse in his cell.
Stump was transported to Logan Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead at 10:26 a.m. He was diagnosed there with acute respiratory failure with hypoxia and acute myocardial infarction.
But medical records from Wexford say Stump was treated for chest tightness on August 18, 2022, nearly 24 hours after he had been pronounced dead at the hospital. Wexford records show Stump was prescribed Ibuprofen and told to lie on the affected side to splint the chest wall.
On May 18, 2023, the state medical examiner’s office determined Stump’s cause of death was combined intoxication by fentanyl and acetyl fentanyl.
The complaint says the yet unnamed corrections officers at SWRJ do not use the body scanner and/or conduct searches for drugs when new inmates arrive at the facility or when inmates return to the facility from offsite hearings and appointments. It also says the officers do not follow policy for searches of cells or screening of inmates following an overdose at the facility nor do they search or scan employees to prevent drugs from entering the facility.
It says the jail had several drug overdoses from July 2020 to September 2022.
The estate accuses Wexfor of medical negligence, vicarious liability, negligent training and negligent supervision. It accuses the WVDCR and the unnamed corrections officers of negligence and deliberate indifference in violation of clearly established laws. It also accuses the WVDCR of negligent training.
It seeks compensatory damages for Stump’s pain and suffering before his death as well as for the loss of emotional support of his beneficiaries as well as their sorrow and emotional suffering. The estate also seeks punitive damages from all of the defendants except the WVDCR, pre- and post-judgment interests, court costs, attorney fees and other relief.
The estate is being represented by diTrapano, Amanda J. Davis and Charles F. Bellomy of Calwell Luce diTrapano in Charleston and by W. Jesse Forbes and Jennifer N. Taylor of Forbes Law Offices in Charleston.
Kanawha Circuit Court case number 24-C-837