$3.4 Million Settlement for Nevada Prisoner After ‘Wait and See’ Medical Care Became ‘Deny and Delay’
by David M. Reutter
On March 21, 2024, the Nevada Board of Examiners (BOE)—a three-member panel composed of Gov. Joe Lombardo (R), Attorney General Aaron Ford (D) and Secretary of State Francisco “Cisco” Aguilar (D)—approved a $3.4 million settlement to resolve a state prisoner’s civil rights action accusing state Department of Corrections (DOC) officials of violating the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment with denial and delay of medical care.
After arriving at Southern Desert Correctional Center (SDCC) in late 2002, 60-year-old Lewis Stewart began to feel “discomfort in his lower abdominal and back area,” according to the complaint he later filed. Repeatedly filing medical care requests, he was finally seen by prison healthcare providers, including Dr. Romeo Aranas and Dr. Francisco Sanchez.
As PLN reported, Stewart complained of problems urinating, indicating possible prostate problems; he “had to sit on the toilet to urinate,” he said, and his “short and irregular urine flows were very painful.” Aranas and Sanchez took his vitals and prodded the affected areas. But they examined him no further, administering only generic pain medication. For over a decade, that was all the treatment Stewart got—even as he passed 70 and began experiencing inflammation in his urethra, testicles and abdominal areas.
It wasn’t until 2015 that Stewart secured a transfer to Warm Springs Correctional Center, hoping for better care. When he arrived after an eight-hour ride from SDCC looking “pale, flushed, sweating and unbalanced,” alarmed medical staffers immediately recognized symptoms of an enlarged prostate. An emergency cauterization drained more than six liters —fourteen pounds — of fluid from his urinary tract. As a result of so many years of medical distress, Stewart suffered stage three kidney disease, erectile dysfunction and urine buildup, plus painful prostate surgery.
In the 42 U.S.C. § 1983 action that he filed in federal court for the District of Nevada, Stewart accused DOC and its medical staffers of deliberate indifference to his serious medical need. When the district court denied Defendants qualified immunity (QI), they appealed. But the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed that decision, issuing an unusually severe condemnation of the treatment Stewart received. Though “[m]ere disagreement with a medical treatment plan is not deliberate indifference,” allowed Circuit Judge Eugene E. Siler, Jr., “continuation of the same treatment in the face of obvious failure is.” As he concluded for the Court, “At some point, ‘wait and see’ becomes ‘deny and delay,’” and Defendants were denied QI. [See: PLN, Dec. 2022, p.28.]
On remand at the district court, Stewart’s case proceeded to a six-day jury trial. At its conclusion on October 26, 2023, jurors returned a verdict in Stewart’s favor, awarding him a total of $4.5 million, including $2,025,000 in compensatory damages and another $225,000 in punitive damages against each doctor. Defendants again turned to the Ninth Circuit. But the parties also began negotiating a settlement. They reached a tentative one on January 17, 2024, pending BOE approval. After that, they stipulated to dismissal of the case on April 12, 2024, also dismissing the appeal five days later.
The $3.4 million settlement included $1.7 million in fees and $259,411.91 in costs for Stewart’s attorneys, Andre M. Lagomarsino, Cory Ford, Cristina A. Phipps and Taylor Jorgenson of Lagomarsino Law in Henderson, as well as Paul S. Padda of his eponymous Las Vegas firm. See: Stewart v. Aranas, USDC (D. Nev.), Case No. 3:17-cv-00132. Stewart, now 81, is no longer incarcerated, though he reportedly remains on parole.
Additional source: Nevada Independent