BATON ROUGE – A St. Bernard Parish woman alleges that health care facilities failed to protect her son from the risk he posed to himself.
Shantel Bailey, individually and on behalf of her deceased son Darnell Bailey, filed a complaint on April 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana against Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Hampton Lea, Ronald Johnson, Ronnie Bradford, et al. alleging negligence.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that on April 26, 2017, plaintiff's son Darnell Bailey died by hanging in his cell at defendants' Eastern Louisiana Mental Health System’s Forensic Hospital. The plaintiff holds The Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Lea, Johnson, Bradford, et al. responsible because the defendants allegedly departed from accepted professional judgement, practice, and standards of medical care and failed to conduct timely security checks.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees, costs and all other relief as appears just and proper. He is represented by Elizabeth Cumming of The Law Offices of Elizabeth Cumming in New Orleans and Stephen J. Haedicke of The Law Office of Stephen J. Haedicke LLC in New Orleans.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana Case number 3:17-cv-00256