ST. LOUIS (Legal Newsline) - A mother who tried unsuccessfully to sue a Missouri court after her son hanged himself at a juvenile justice center has settled her lawsuit against the remaining defendant.
Jennifer Harmon filed notice of a wrongful death settlement with Preferred Family Healthcare in St. Louis federal court on June 1. The settlement terms are sealed.
The agreement comes more than a year after Judge Sarah Pitlyk tossed claims against the Second Judicial Circuit and its employees. She found Harmon did allege the existence or breach of any statute or regulation imposing a duty on any of those defendants to perform a discrete act, a prerequisite for stating a claim not subject to Missouri's official immunity doctrine.
Pitlyk kept alive claims Harmon made against Preferred Family Healthcare, which employed a social worker who met with son N.J. in April 2018 and is alleged to not have informed the Normile Center about N.J.’s mental state.
Her son was struggling with suicidal thoughts in early 2018 and stayed at the St. Anthony’s Medical Center psychiatric unit before being admitted to the Normile Center.
The lawsuit says that N.J. indicated to multiple individuals that he wanted to hang himself and that the center did not offer him the proper psychological services, attention and treatment that someone in his state of mental distress needed.
The Normile Center staff was accused of failing to notice the boy's preparation for suicide, including days of refusing medication and not allowing staff into his room. The staff allegedly failed to enter the teen's room and check on him every 15 minutes as was protocol.
He attempted suicide on April 11 with a white cloth belt, something that the suit says he should not have been permitted to have as someone with suicidal tendencies who verbally stated an intent to hang himself.