Lawsuit filed over jail death

NORWALK — A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against the Huron County Sheriff's Office and 18 other defendants after a Willard woman's 2022 death in the Huron County Jail. Esmeralda Figueroa, who according to an obituary is the sister of Daisy Guerra of Willard, filed the lawsuit on March 23 in the U.S. District Court Northern District of Ohio. According to the suit, Figueroa is the administrator of the estate of Guerra, who died at the county jail on March 26, 2022, when she was 38. The lawsuit alleges: "Unconstitutional and deplorable conditions in the jail are a historic problem. Defendants have long been on notice of overcrowding and inadequate medical and mental health care and lack of proper staff. Defendants have further long been on notice of the incompetent supervision and management of the jail and lack of staffing at the jail." The lawsuit further alleges that inmate Robert Carpenter died at the jail on July 24, 2018, while inmate Jesika Skelton died at the jail on June 8, 2012. "This is just a sample. There are more," the lawsuit alleges. Guerra was arrested and booked in the jail on March 23, 2022, but jail staff failed to give her proper medical treatment, the lawsuit says. Defendants "booked (Guerra) into the jail on March 23, 2022, and did so with deliberate indifference to the serious medical need for medical treatment for the serious medical need of withdrawal from drugs and possible ingestion of drugs," the lawsuit alleges. "These medical needs were so obvious that any lay person including all defendants should have or did know," the lawsuit states. "Rather than arrange for the required and/or needed medical treatment, decedent was placed into a cell with no medical treatment for a serious medical need." Also named as defendants are Huron County, the Huron County commissioners, Fisher-Titus Medical Center, Fisher-Titus Health, Fisher-Titus Medical Care, Sheriff Todd Corbin, jail administrator Chuck Summers, jail guard Donna Stoll, jail guard Lisa Schaffer, jail nurse Michelle Thomas, jail guard Sgt. Timko, jail guard Kasey Kidd, jail guard Lisa Schaffer, jail guard Officer Case, jail guard Cpl. Price, jail guard Sgt. William Hubbard, jail guard Officer Gibbs and unknown medical staff. The lawsuit was filed by attorneys Thomas Robenalt and John Colan of The Robenalt Law Firm in Westlake.