On July 17, 2013, plaintiffs’ decedent Amanda Sloan, a pretrial detainee in the county of Santa Cruz’s main jail, committed suicide by hanging herself in her cell. Late at night, Sloan took down a poster from her cell, revealing a pipe behind the adobe wall, where she had earlier dug out a large hole. She then took out a rope, fashioned from braided sheet strips, wrapped it around the pipe and hanged herself. Sloan’s three minor children, through their respective guardians ad litem, sued the county of Santa Cruz and the jail’s medical provider, California Forensic Medical Group Inc., which had coordinated with the jail’s mental health services. Sloan’s children alleged that the defendants’ actions constituted violations of the 14th Amendment, deliberate indifference, Monell liability, and negligent hiring, training, supervision, and retention. Plaintiffs’ counsel asserted that the jail failed to have policies in place to protect inmates whom were at risk and that what policies it did have, the jail failed to follow. Counsel contended that given Sloan’s many suicide threats and extreme agitation at hearing her parental rights were being terminated, Sloan should have been placed on suicide watch, but that instead Sloan was left in the general population and not closely monitored. Plaintiffs’ counsel also contended that Sloan should have been subjected to cell checks at least each and every hour, but that evidence showed that the correctional officer on duty failed to check Sloan’s cell for six hours straight and then lied about it. According to plaintiffs’ counsel, the initial grand jury investigation into the jail found that staff violated two essential safety protocols before Sloan’s suicide: The first safety protocol mandated officers to perform routine hourly safety checks and the another protocol prohibited inmates from placing anything on cell walls, doors or windows. The staff tasked with safety checks made several entries in the jail’s observation logs, claiming to have visited Sloan’s cell five times during the morning of her suicide from 10:21 p.m. to 3:26 a.m., about an hour before Sloan was found dead. However, when the grand jury reviewed the video, the footage revealed that jail staff made only one observation to Sloan’s cell over that time. Plaintiffs’ counsel further asserted that staff members had falsified the visitation logs and that the door’s window into the cell was obscured by a poster that Sloan had placed there, in addition to the one on the wall. California Forensic Medical Group, in answering the complaint, denied responsibility for Sloan’s mental health care, and asserted various immunities. The county’s counsel moved to dismiss the case or, alternatively, for a stay, challenging the plaintiffs’ state tort claims based on timeliness., In 2011, two years before her suicide, Sloan abruptly lost her dad to a brain aneurysm. Her husband then got into an argument with his neighbors over an apparent theft a year later. Shots were fired, and her husband died in Sloan’s arms. Sloan ultimately believed that the responding officers were responsible for her husband’s death by preventing emergency medical services from attending to the dying man while they investigated the scene. Although Sloan saw the shooter, no arrests were ever made, and the murder remained unsolved, which allegedly deepened her ire toward local law enforcement. A few months later, Capitola police pulled Sloan over. During the stop, Sloan became angry and sped off, reportedly discharging a gun out of the sunroof. Police claimed that Sloan fired at a police officer. After being booked, Sloan escaped from jail and headed out on the run, changing her hair color and moving her children from location to location in the Soquel Hills, where her family has lived for four generations. She quickly landed at the top of Santa Cruz’s Most Wanted list. Eventually, her mother grew concerned that Sloan would do something rash. As a result, when she found Sloan at the family’s ranch property in the hills, she called 911, telling dispatchers her daughter was bent on suicide by cop and imploring them not to harm her. Officers subsequently surrounded the property, and when Sloan jumped out the window brandishing a gun, deputies shot her five times, with most of the shots hitting her legs. After arresting Sloan, deputies took her to a local hospital and then to the Santa Cruz County Jail, where she repeatedly talked of suicide and was in and out of suicide watch. When Sloan learned that social services were terminating her parental rights over her youngest child, her depression allegedly deepened. Sloan ultimately asphyxiated after committing suicide by hanging herself in her cell. She was survived by two minor daughters, “L.S.” and “S.S.,” then ages 12 and 5, respectively, and a minor son, “W.S.,” then age 11. Sloan’s children sought recovery of wrongful death damages. The minor plaintiffs sought compensatory, special, and punitive damages, including financial benefits that they were receiving at the time of their mother’s death, those benefits reasonably expected in the future, plus the monetary equivalent of their loss of comfort, society, and protection. In addition, they sought recovery of damages for their mother’s physical, mental and emotional pain and suffering. Finally, they sought reasonable attorney fees and reimbursement of costs. Sloan’s youngest daughter, “S.S.,” was adopted out and joined the case right before the settlement conference.