County pays $60k to settle medical negligence suit

MARTINEZ >> Contra Costa County agreed to pay $60,000 to settle a federal lawsuit with a diabetic man who went into a coma and nearly died, just two weeks into his stay at the county jail, court records show.

Nicholas Jacobson, 30, filed the lawsuit two years ago, alleging that county staff at the jail failed to notice obvious warning signs that his condition was deteriorating, including insulin levels that were well past the threshold to hospitalize someone with diabetes. He fell into a coma for four days and his mother was told he would die, the suit says.

The settlement agreement, acquired by this newspaper through a public records request, does not require the county to admit wrongdoing.

Jacobson’s attorney, Glenn Katon, said his client still has trouble walking and disfigurement from the scars and the surgery, which happened more than three years ago. Jacobson was not hospitalized until he began “vomiting up black matter,” Katon said.

“They waited until he was on death’s door,” he said. “It’s really just indefensible.”

A spokesman for the Contra Costa Sheriff’s office, which runs the county jail system, referred questions to the Contra Costa Health Services, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Jacobson remains jailed in the Martinez Detention Facility, where he has been facing murder charges since his arrest in June 2017. The charge stems from an incident at a Concord nightclub, where Jacobson allegedly shot and killed an off-duty bouncer, Robert Frazier, after the two were seen arguing.

After the nightclub shooting, police launched a manhunt for Jacobson, during which time an officer shot and killed a dog that belonged to his family in Oakley. Jacobson was arrested after crashing a car in Modesto, for which he was hospitalized.

Four days later, Jacobson was taken to MDF. Two weeks later, he was rushed to the ER, and remained hospitalized for several weeks. During his preliminary hearing — where a judge dropped gang charges but ordered Jacobson to face trial for the murder county — a police officer testified Jacobson had lost an estimated 70 pounds over seven months in custody.

Last month, the county was hit with a new federal lawsuit with very similar allegations. The plaintiff, Jonathan Andrew Thomas, alleged that he complained of abdominal pain for a month but was given Tylenol and topical cream instead of a medical checkup. Thomas — facing murder and attempted murder charges in separate cases — hand wrote the suit from his cell, and is acting as his own civil attorney.

“At Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, it was determined I suffered from gastrointestinal bleeding,” Thomas wrote. “I’d lost a tremendous amount of blood and could’ve died if medical kept ignoring my condition… The documents were altered to appear as if medical staff responded promptly despite them taking over a month to respond.”