By Sandra Chereb
Associated Press
RENO, Nev. — A judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit alleging prison staff withheld medical treatment from the condemned manager of the 1950s band Coasters, leading to his death from gangrene.
U.S. District Judge Larry Hicks said in an order filed Tuesday that the lawsuit filed by Patrick Cavanaugh’s family can continue against Ely State Prison Warden E.K. McDaniel and six other prison administrators and medical staff.
But Hicks dismissed the Nevada Department of Corrections from the case, citing state immunity.
Cavanaugh was convicted in 1985 of killing Coasters band member Nathaniel “Buster” Wilson in Las Vegas. Cavanaugh died at age 60 after developing gangrene in his legs from complications of diabetes.
Elizabeth Dougherty, co-administrator of Cavanaugh’s estate, and Cavanaugh’s three sons sued last year, accusing the maximum-security prison of refusing to dispense insulin to treat Cavanaugh’s diabetes. The lawsuit seeks unspecified general, special and punitive damages.
“Given the profound and unmistakable smell of putrefying flesh, there can be no question that every medical provider and correctional officer in that infirmary was acutely award of Mr. Cavanaugh’s condition,” the suit said.
The state attorney general’s office did not comment on the judge’s ruling.
Both sides had said in court documents that Cavanaugh refused all medications except aspirin.
“There is nothing egregious or outrageous about honoring an individual’s constitutional right to maintain the integrity of his person by refusing medication,” Senior Deputy Attorney General Janet Traut wrote in a motion seeking to dismiss the lawsuit.
But the judge agreed with Cavanaugh’s family, saying that Dougherty, who had power of attorney over his affairs, was never consulted about his deteriorating medical condition.
The case was cited in a separate class-action suit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union accusing the state of denying adequate medical care to inmates at the prison.