A 50-year-old man is suing Dallas County Jail and Parkland Hospital System, claiming he became paralyzed after contracting a staph infection while he was held in custody. He alleges the infection left him with life-altering injuries.
The lawsuit, first reported by CBS News Texas, centers on claims that the man developed the infection while incarcerated at the jail in Dallas County. The station reports he is seeking accountability from both the jail and the hospital system over what he describes as permanently disabling injuries.
A Pattern of Jail Infection Claims
This is not the first time Dallas County Jail has faced legal action tied to a staph infection behind bars. A prior case involving former prisoner Mark Duvall, who contracted MRSA while incarcerated at the jail and lost sight in one eye, ended with a federal jury awarding him $355,000 in damages after finding Dallas County liable for deliberate indifference to his medical needs, according to Prison Legal News. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals later upheld that judgment against the county.
In the Duvall case, the appellate court found sufficient evidence that jail officials had long known about an extensive MRSA problem yet continued housing inmates despite it, per the same account. Evidence described in that case showed the outbreak had been ongoing for at least three years, and that the jail’s prisoner MRSA infection rate stood at close to 20% in 2003, compared with just 1% to 2% at comparable jails.
Federal Court Records Show Earlier Infection Claims
Separate federal court filings, unconnected to the current CBS News Texas report, show that infection-related claims against the jail and Parkland have surfaced before. One record describes a plaintiff who alleged he was taken from Dallas County Jail to Parkland due to an infection in his right index finger, according to a United States District Court record. That plaintiff alleged Parkland performed two operations on his finger, on April 9 and April 13, 2012, according to the same filing…