$1.5 Million Settlement Reached for Oregon Prisoner’s Untreated Traumatic Brain Injury
A report published by Oregon Capital Chronicle on November 11, 2024, noted that former state prisoner Jacqueline Orr, 57, still suffers the effects of a brain injury incurred during her incarceration—walking “gingerly” while “clutching a cane” through a home in which the lighting has been dimmed because it “can hurt her eyes.”
In 2018, Orr was a prisoner at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility just eight months away from her release date and healthy enough to participate in 5-kilometer races with other prisoners. She was assigned to work in the prison’s “Viola Project,” growing violets to protect an endangered butterfly species. Coffee Creek staff transported Orr and other prisoner workers to and from the site in the back of a box truck, “generously” leaving its rear door open while also forcing them to stand inside with no seats, seatbelts or windows. When the truck stopped, they were also forced to climb in and out without handrails or step stools, often helping each other down three feet to the ground. This system was not without problems; at least one other prisoner had fallen from the truck and injured her back and shoulder, but the prison failed to implement safety measures.
On December 20, 2018, Orr exited the box truck and stepped onto the bumper. It was pouring rain that day. Her foot slipped on the slick metal bumper, and she fell face forward from the rear of the truck, hitting the ground so hard that several teeth were knocked out. Coffee Creek staff transported her to a local hospital, where emergency room doctors recommended Orr see a neurologist and immediately begin physical therapy. Once discharged though, Coffee Creek didn’t take Orr to a neurologist and offered her only one physical therapy appointment.
But Coffee Creek medical staff noted a host of problems related to Orr’s traumatic brain injury: light and noise sensitivity, impaired balance, headaches, burning eye pain, dizziness, sadness, an unsteady gait and difficulty speaking. Orr was required first to use a walker and then a cane; she remains unable to perform simple tasks, like showering without assistance.
Orr was supposed to be released from prison in early August 2019, but her release date was pushed back because she was unable to secure housing to accommodate her disability. When she was finally released on September 26, 2019, Orr sued numerous DOC staffers at Coffee Creek in federal court for the District of Oregon, alleging a variety of civil rights violations.
In September 2023, the DOC agreed to settle the suit with a payment of $1.5 million, though refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing. The agreement also included costs and fees for her attorney, R. Brendan Dummigan of Pickett, Dummigan Weingart, LLP in Portland. See: Orr v. Burns, USDC (D. Ore.), Case No. 3:20-cv-02201.
Orr now lives on Social Security disability and cannot work or even drive a car. Crowds make her uncomfortable. She suffers from light and noise sensitivity and still walks with a cane. She also struggles with fury knowing she would be in better shape if the DOC had provided prompt treatment for her injury.
“I have a lot of anger for those people that make the decisions to not help you,” Orr said. “I never was an angry person before. It’s a new emotion.”
Orr said she met with DOC attorneys during settlement negotiations, but they refused to do the one thing she wanted them to do: apologize. “They never said, ‘We’re sorry, Jacqueline,’” she recalled.
DOC was slow to improve conditions after Orr’s injury. A week after she fell from the box truck, another prisoner slipped on the bumper and injured her back. Several more months passed after that third prisoner injury before DOC finally added an anti-slip step to the bumper and grab bars on each side of the truck—simple, inexpensive measures that could have prevented three serious injuries and saved the state millions in attorney fees and payouts.
For the amount that Oregon spent on Orr’s case alone, it could have purchased a fleet of passenger vans with actual seats and seatbelts to transport prisoners to and from worksites, rather than forcing them to stand in the open back of a box truck.
Additional source: Oregon Capital Chronicle
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