A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit against a doctor accused of neglecting a woman who gave birth alone in her Tarrant County Jail cell.
Chasity Congious has intellectual disabilities and multiple serious mental health diagnoses, according to court records. She gave birth unattended in the Tarrant County Jail in 2020, and her daughter, Zenorah, died in the hospital 10 days later.
Congious' family received $1.2 million in a lawsuit against Tarrant County, the largest settlement in county history. After that settlement, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor allowed Congious’ mother to sue Dr. Aaron Ivy Shaw, the medical director at the Tarrant County Jail at the time Congious was incarcerated.
On Tuesday, O’Connor dismissed the lawsuit. Congious’ legal team failed to prove Shaw was “deliberately indifferent” to her medical needs, he ruled.
“There is no doubt that this case is an abject tragedy,” O'Connor wrote.
Deliberate indifference is difficult to prove, and requires a lot of evidence, O’Connor wrote. Shaw would have needed to do something like deny Congious care or ignore her complaints, he wrote.
The lawsuit hinged on an email to Shaw that noted Congious was experiencing abdominal pain the day she gave birth. Previous medical evaluations determined Congious would not be able to recognize if she was having contractions and recommended induced labor for her, according to court documents.
The court had previously dismissed the lawsuit against Shaw, but O’Connor brought it back after Congious’ attorney produced that email. That email was a warning Congious was likely in labor and Shaw did nothing about it, her legal team argued.
Shaw’s lawyers countered the doctor never saw the email. It was a Sunday, Shaw was not working, and day-to-day care in the jail was delegated to his medical staff, his team wrote in a March 31 filing.
“Dr. Shaw was not able to personally treat—or even stay specially informed about—every inmate in the infirmary,” his attorneys wrote.
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