The estate of Joshua Bittner — who hanged himself in prison — is suing Centurion Managed Care, the state’s contracted health care provider at the time, as well as several workers for that company.
David Sleigh, a St. Johnsbury attorney representing the estate, says Bittner’s mother is also suing the state of Vermont, allegedly it failed to provide the proper notification of Bittner’s mental state during a prison transfer.
“We allege that, as a result of a failure to communicate and the subsequent failure to treat, Mr. Bittner deteriorated and killed himself,” Sleigh said.
Bittner, 26, was found hanging in a cell in the Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport on the night of March 2, 2017, according to court records. He was initially taken to North Country Hospital in Newport and then to the University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington, where he died the next day, filings stated.
He had previously been held at the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans.
“When he was taken into custody, he had a long history with DOC; they had extensive knowledge of his mental health problems,” Sleigh said.
“For reasons that aren’t clear, they decided to transfer him from Northwestern to Northern State,” the attorney said. “Somewhere in the transfer, the folks at Northwest did not tell the folks at Northern about Bittner’s mental problems, his prior suicidal ideations, and various other things.”
The lawsuit was brought by his mother, Renee Bittner, who is the administrator of Bittner’s estate. It was filed August 2019 in Franklin County Superior civil court.
The case is set to come before the Vermont Supreme Court next week on whether an expert is needed to support allegations in the filing before certain claims can move forward.
“One of the counts that we’ve alleged is a medical negligence count, and you have to, generally speaking, provide a certificate from a doctor that there is some basis for a claim,” Sleigh said.
“We didn’t do that because we think of this as a bureaucratic failure,” he said. “It’s just a failure to transmit information.”
At the trial court level, Judge Samuel Hoar Jr. denied a motion by the defendants to dismiss the medical malpractice claim, and that ruling was appealed to the Vermont Supreme Court.
A hearing is set for 9 a.m. Tuesday.
Pamela Eaton, an attorney with the law firm Paul Frank + Collins, which is representing the defendants, submitted a brief to the Vermont Supreme Court, arguing that expert testimony is required.
Eaton wrote that the estate “asserted” in its brief “that a policy or set of policies, apparently found on the internet, without expert testimony, could establish the standard of care in a medical malpractice lawsuit. This argument is flawed.”
Eaton could not be reached Friday for comment.
Rachel Feldman, a spokesperson for the state Department of Corrections, declined comment on the case because of the pending litigation.
Sleigh said a ruling one way or the other in the case by the Vermont Supreme Court won’t keep it from proceeding because there are other counts, including that the defendants violated his client’s civil rights, specifically his right against cruel and unusual punishment.
The defendants include the state Department of Corrections; Centurion LLC, the contracted health provider for the corrections department; and a number of employees who work for both Centurion and the corrections department. The defendants include individuals whose names were not available and are listed only as “Doe,” with different first letters for each.
The events leading up to the prisoner’s death
Sleigh’s filings detail the following events leading up to Bittner’s death:
- He was initially detained at the Northwestern State Correctional Facility in St. Albans on Feb. 3, 2017, following an arrest on two counts of aggravated domestic assault with a weapon as well as criminal threatening and domestic assault.
- According to police, Bittner allegedly assaulted one person and threatened that person as well as another with a knife in Fairfax.
- He pleaded not guilty to the charges and was held for lack of $10,000 cash bail.
- Before he was booked on Feb. 3, 2017, the corrections department “had knowledge of Josh’s mental health struggles,” as it had conducted mental health screenings and evaluations on him in 2014, 2015 and 2016 stemming from prior incidents. Those screenings revealed that Bittner suffered from depression and anxiety and “was at risk for self-harming behaviors.”
- Befor he was taken into custody, his mother, a friend, community mental health workers, and a trooper involved in the case were “gravely” concerned about his mental state.
- In a screening, Bittner told a mental health crisis worker that he suffered from depression and “experiences suicidal thoughts.”
- When officers from the probation and parole office arrived to take Bittner to jail, the mental health screener advised them about Bittner’s mental state and told them to place him under “watch” until he stabilized. Also, in a written report, the screener urged that Bittner “be afforded access to mental health care at earliest possible opportunity.”
- On Feb. 16, 2017, a mental health provider prescribed Bittner antidepressants. A day later, an “intra-system transfer” note for his move from Northwest to Northern State documented the new medication “but did not include a mental health alert.”
- At Northern State on Feb. 20, a mental health provider at the facility prescribed meetings every 90 days and set future appointments.
- On March 2, between 7:15 p.m. and 7:59 p.m., Bittner called his mother and said he was sorry for the way things had gone. “I’ve lost the only two people that mean anything to me, so you won’t be hearing from me again,” Bittner told his mother, according to the court filing.
- At about 8:05 p.m. on March 3, Bittner was found hanging in his cell. He was pronounced dead the next day at the UVM Medical Center at 4:08 p.m.
- A death certificate stated that Bittner hanged himself with an identification lanyard.
Not the first time Centurion comes under fire
“Failing to communicate a mental health alert constituted deliberate indifference to a high risk of suicide and thereby caused the same,” Sleigh wrote in a filing.
Centurion Managed Care, based in Virginia, had a five-year contract with the Vermont prison system, ending last year.
The health care provider has come under fire for its care of prisoners, most notably in the death in December 2019 of 60-year-old Kenneth Johnson, a Black man from Staten Island, New York, in the Newport prison.
Investigations showed that Johnson died of an undiagnosed cancerous tumor in his throat. His pleas that he couldn’t breathe were allegedly ignored by corrections and medical staff.
In addition, at times, corrections officers told him to “knock it off” and threatened to put Johnson in “the hole,” an isolation cell, in the hours before his death.
The Defender General’s Office alleged in its investigation that Johnson’s race played a role in his treatment at the prison.
Vermont dropped Centurion as its health care provider last year, opting instead to contract with VitalCore Health Strategies, a Kansas-based company.