On August 2, 2024, after losing a motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Jeffrey Simms-­Belaire, a former detainee at Oregon’s Washington County Jail (WCJ), private jail medical contractor NaphCare, Inc. secured an agreement with a settlement of $78,325.50 to drop his civil rights claims against a nurse practitioner (NP) employed by the firm. The move came just months after the company advised the federal court for the District of Oregon on March 28, 2024, that it had settled claims in another suit filed by Tammy Thomsen over the death of her husband at WCJ.
In both cases, no settlement details were docketed with the Court, but PLN has requested documentation, since NaphCare was acting as a public instrumentality. Meanwhile remaining claims are proceeding against the firm and the County that were filed by Simms-­Belaire, a paraplegic with no feeling in his legs and feet who is now an Oregon state prisoner.
After an October 2017 arrest in Kansas, Simms-­Belaire was extradited to Oregon and booked into WCJ to await trial. The detainee used a wheelchair and medical shoes issued at the Kansas jail to protect his feet from rubbing against it, since he suffers from a condition that causes his toes to point downward. During intake into WCJ, he informed staff about his medical needs but did not receive footwear to accommodate his condition. Over the seven months he spent at the jail, he repeatedly requested the shoes, eventually receiving surgical shoes that were open-­toed and provided little help. Meanwhile, his ankle developed open sores.
Simms-­Belaire discussed his need for proper footwear with NaphCare NP Martha Rojo, who noted his ankle wound but did not order shoes to prevent further injuries. The wound had not healed when treatment for it was discontinued on April 27, 2018. Simms-­Belaire was transferred the following month to a state lockup, where he received treatment for his ankle injury—which by then had progressed to a stage IV ulcer.
After he filed suit in the Court against Washington County, Rojo and NaphCare, Defendants moved for summary judgment and sought to exclude Simms-­Belaire’s expert witnesses. But the Court largely denied their motions on January 25, 2024. Plaintiff had argued that jail staff intentionally discriminated against him based on his disability, in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. cg.126 §12101 et seq. The Court found that he had provided adequate notice of his need under ADA with his requests for protective shoes—and his “need for a footwear accommodation was obvious” due to his medical condition, the Court said. The County also had an “affirmative duty” to investigate his need for an ADA accommodation, yet it took two months before he received footwear—which failed to protect his feet or ankles. Summary judgment was therefore denied as to the ADA discrimination claim.
Simms-­Belaire had also argued that denial of medical care violated the ADA. Though the Court noted that the ADA does not generally provide a cause of action “for challenging the medical treatment of … underlying disabilities,” his objection to discontinuation of wound care for his ankle after April 27, 2018, stated a claim. Accordingly, summary judgment was granted to Defendants dismissing claims for denial of medical treatment before that date, but all later claims were sustained.
Importantly, Simms-­Belaire’s § 1983 claim against Rojo was also allowed to proceed. The Court found genuine issues of material fact as to whether she was deliberately indifferent to his serious medical needs. His claim against the county for allegedly failing to ensure that she and other staffers were properly trained—an unconstitutional custom or practice claim permitted by Monell v. Dep’t of Soc. Servs., 436 U.S. 658 (1978)—was also allowed to proceed; as the Court noted, there was evidence that the jail’s ADA coordinators, as well as NaphCare staff, lacked knowledge about the ADA and accommodations for disabilities. An argument that one of Simms-­Belaire’s expert witnesses should be excluded because she had never worked in a correctional setting was also rejected; the Court found “her lack of specific experience in, or familiarity with, providing care in correctional settings goes to the weight of her testimony, not to its admissibility.” See: Simms-­Belaire v. Wash. Cty., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 13342 (D. Or.).
That was apparently enough to get NaphCare to the settlement table, where the firm agreed to the settlement on July 26, 2024. The payout included fees and costs for his attorney, as well. Early the following month, the parties then stipulated to Rojo’s dismissal. See: Simms-­Belaire v. Wash. Cty., 2024 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 137192 (D. Or.). The case remains active against the County defendants and NaphCare, and PLN will update developments as they are available. Simms-­Belaire is represented by Portland attorney Lynn S. Walsh. See: Simms-­Belaire v. Wash. Cty., USDC (D. Ore.), Case No. 3:20-­cv-­00338.
Another Jail Death, Another Private Settlement
Simms-­Belaire was more fortunate than Dale Thomsen, 58, a WCJ detainee who died on his third day incarcerated there in June 2017. As PLN reported, wife Tammy Thomsen called the jail to warn that he was an alcoholic who drank four to six pints of beer daily. After he died, she sued the County and NaphCare, demanding 10 years’ worth of documents from the latter that the firm fought releasing; the Court eventually ordered release of documents from the year the suit was filed, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, July 2020, p.48.]
The case then proceeded, with Plaintiff marshalling expert witnesses to blame Defendants for failure to treat symptoms of alcohol withdrawal that eventually triggered her husband’s fatal heart attack. NaphCare countered that Thomsen died of a heart attack—period; no one knew when he had his last drink, his symptoms didn’t match those of alcohol withdrawal and there was no evidence he ever went through it, especially while in custody, the firm’s attorneys insisted. Absent that, they argued, Plaintiff’s experts were all at sea, their conclusions poorly supported by bad assumptions.
The Court took up the dispute on December 15, 2023, deciding that when Tammy Thomsen advised jailers of her husband’s alcohol history, they were safe in assuming that he had consumed the reported amount in the previous day—and so were her experts. Moreover, some of his symptoms were in fact consistent with withdrawal, which even NaphCare admitted. And Thomsen’s medical records were sufficient for the experts to opine about his withdrawal in the jail. Accordingly, Defendants’ motion to exclude Plaintiff’s experts was largely denied. See: Thomsen v. NaphCare, Inc., 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 223540 (D. Or.).
Again, NaphCare beat a hasty path to the settlement table, advising the Court in March 2024 that an agreement had been reached, though no details were disclosed. Thomsen then stipulated to dismissal of her claims. She was represented by Portland attorneys Dain J. Paulson, Tim Jones and Nadia H. Dahab, plus John M. Coletti III of Paulson Coletti Trial Attorneys PC in Lake Oswego. See: Thomsen v. NaphCare, Inc., USDC (D. Ore.), Case No. 3:19-­cv-­00969.
After Thomsen’s death and Simms-­Belaire’s injuries, WCJ dropped its contract with NaphCare in 2020, inking a new agreement with Correctional Health Partners—only to return to NaphCare two years later, signing a five-­year, $40 million contract in June 2022.  

Additional source: The Oregonian