On Aug. 15, 2016, plaintiff Luis Jimenez, 35, a carpenter, was arrested outside his home and held at a Sacramento County jail, known as Rio Cosumnes Correctional Center, in Elk Grove. Jimenez had twice attempted suicide within the prior six months and was hospitalized both times. As a result, he was being maintained on olanzapine (Zyprexa). Jimenez claimed that he told the medical and mental health staff at the jail about his suicide attempts, hospitalizations and medication, but that he was not provided any medication in the jail. Jimenez was held at RCCC for more than two months. On Oct. 23, 2016, Jimenez attempted suicide by dropping himself head-first from the second tier of his two-tier housing pod. He suffered of his neck. Jimenez sued three deputy sheriffs, Tinley Seitz, Jordan Lee and Alexander Egenberger; the operator of the jail, Sacramento County; two licensed clinical social workers, Danielle Dass and Andrea Javist; a nurse practitioner, Charlene Williams; Dr. Gregory Sokolov; and the employers of the jail’s medical staff, The Regents of the University of California, University of California Davis Medical Center and the University of California. Jimenez alleged that the defendants denied him medication and failed to properly monitor him in violation of his constitutional rights. Most of the defendants were dismissed, and the matter only continued against the county, Dass, Williams and the Regents of the University of California. Plaintiff’s counsel contended that during the time Jimenez was in jail, Jimenez was held without needed psychiatric medication or mental health treatment. Counsel noted that the mental health care at RCCC, called Jail Psychiatric Services, was provided by the Regents of the University of California through the University of California, Davis Medical Center’s Department of Psychiatry under a contract with Sacramento County and that Dass and Williams were employees of Jail Psychiatric Services and responsible for providing mental health evaluations and care at RCCC. Plaintiff’s counsel contended that the two clinicians were negligent and deliberately indifferent to Jimenez’s medical and mental health needs, depriving Jimenez of needed treatment to control his schizophrenia. Counsel also contended that Jail Psychiatric Services’ mental health system was broken and ineffective, and offered no real system of treatment. Counsel further contended that the county’s correctional officers were inattentive, negligent and deliberately indifferent to Jimenez’s medical and mental health needs in their failure to observe and stop Jimenez’s suicide attempt. Defense counsel for the Regents and its associated employees contended that the Regents’ employees provided appropriate care and met the standard of care in their treatment of Jimenez. The county’s counsel asserted that the county’s officers were properly trained and appropriately attentive while on duty. Counsel also asserted that the county’s officers were entitled to qualified immunity from the claims of deliberate indifference under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, and subsequently moved for summary judgment. On Nov. 5, 2019, Jimenez’s case against the county was dismissed on summary judgment (based in part on qualified immunity)., Jimenez sustained fractures to his C5 and C6 vertebrae. He underwent a spinal fracture reduction and cervical fusion. Jimenez was left with a permanent spinal cord injury, resulting in permanent tetraplegia, also known as quadriplegia, with a neurogenic bladder and bowel, neurogenic skin, and other sequelae of a spinal cord injury. Jimenez’s life-care-planning expert opined that Jimenez’s damages totaled between $6,414,364 and $12,136,339. The defense’s life care planning expert valued Jimenez’s damages as being only between $2,311,862 and $6,056,082.