With the Saguache County sheriff, board of county commissioners and various employees of the sheriff’s office facing a request for up to $1.68 billion in damages for the death of a suicidal detainee in the jail, the defendants asked a federal judge to rule that the vast majority of the dollar figure was a nonstarter under the law.

Arguing it would be “difficult if not impossible for the parties to find middle ground,” lawyers for the defense asked U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang to jettison the “misplaced claims” for exorbitant damages brought by plaintiff Sarah Lieberenz for the death of her son, Jackson Maes, in November 2019.

Cutting out, for instance, the maximum $1.1 billion Lieberenz estimated would compensate for her son’s loss of life would “increase the chances that the parties can negotiate and potentially reach a reasonable resolution of this matter prior to trial,” the defendants’ attorneys explained.

Last week, Wang sided with the defendants in finding that some forms of compensation for Maes’ death, primarily those for Lieberenz’s own pain and suffering, would not be appropriate. However, Wang did not feel prior court precedent limited the types of damages Maes’ estate could collect as severely as the defendants had hoped.

Specifically, she believed the federal appeals court with jurisdiction over Colorado had implicitly authorized the payment of “hedonic damages,” meaning those related to the loss of a victim’s “enjoyment of life.” In Maes’ case, the estimate ranges from $20 million to $1.1 billion.

Lieberenz, as the representative of her son’s estate, brought the lawsuit against four employees who were present in the Saguache County jail the night of Maes’ suicide. She also named Sheriff Dan Warwick and the county board as defendants, arguing they knew about the allegedly inadequate funding and staffing that enabled her son to expire unnoticed for eight hours.

On the night of Nov. 16, 2019, according to the lawsuit, Deputy Elke Wells responded to a call in Crestone of Maes being heavily intoxicated. She learned he had a warrant for failing to appear in court on a traffic violation. Wells took Maes to the jail around 9:15 p.m., where he stayed in a holding cell to sober up.

The lawsuit claimed there were witnesses at the time of Maes’ arrest who understood him to be suicidal. Shortly before 10 p.m., Maes began banging his head on the wall of his cell. Wells and other jail staff, including Miguel Macias, Shelby Shields and Kenneth Wilson, learned about Maes’ self-harm.

“I’m trying to kill myself right now,” Maes reportedly said.

“You’re trying to kill yourself?” one of the employees responded. They left, but Maes resumed hitting his head, prompting Macias to return.

“Don’t do that, man,” Macias told Maes repeatedly. Eventually, Macias struck up a conversation with Maes in an attempt to get Maes to stop. Macias promised to bring Maes some juice in exchange for a cessation to the head banging.

“You break my promise, you’re gonna have to f–in’ deal with a f–in’ dead person,” Maes said, as Macias agreed to retrieve juice for him.

Reportedly, after Macias left, he, Wells and Shields decided to call a mental health provider, but there was no answer. They allegedly made no further attempts to get help. At 10:06 p.m., Macias returned to Maes’ cell with juice and crackers. He briefly talked with Maes about the logistics of his arrest and his $250 cash bond.

“Just sleep it off, man, you know? Just sober up a little, and, uh, lemme know if you need anything,” Macias told him.

“Should’ve stayed home,” Maes said, before bidding Macias goodnight.

The lawsuit alleged the deputies should have done a suicide check on Maes 15 minutes later, at 10:23 p.m. Instead, they were “socializing in the booking area” while Maes wrapped a curtain around his neck. Surveillance footage, screenshots of which appeared in the lawsuit, showed Maes placing his neck in the noose at 10:22 p.m.

Macias recorded himself checking the cell block at 11 and 11:59 p.m., although the lawsuit alleges Macias did not actually look at Maes. It was only at 7 a.m. the next morning that another deputy found Maes dead, aged 27.

The lawsuit’s claims against the Saguache County defendants ranged from deliberate indifference to Maes’ welfare by the jail employees to inadequate staffing and training by the sheriff. Lieberenz accused the county itself of the negligent operation of its jail.

The defendants filed motions for summary judgment, which would allow a judge to resolve the case in their favor if the key undisputed facts led to only one outcome under the law. However, Macias’ motion zoomed in on the types of damages Lieberenz and Maes’ estate were asking for – in particular, the large dollar figures attached to Lieberenz’s own suffering and that of her deceased son.

“Despite having less than $5,000 in economic damages,” his lawyers wrote, referring to $3,400 in funeral expenses, “Plaintiffs seek to recover non-economic damages in a combined total amount of $101,437,920.00 on the low end, to $2,917,040,320.00 on the high end.”

The other defendants joined Macias in asking Wang to toss any claims for damages from Lieberenz herself. They also sought to narrow the amount of money Maes’ estate could ask for on his behalf, based on a 32-year-old decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

In Berry v. City of Muskogee, involving a prisoner who was murdered by other inmates at an Oklahoma detention facility, the 10th Circuit in 1990 interpreted that “appropriate” damages “would include medical and burial expenses, pain and suffering before death, loss of earnings” and the loss of companionship to the victim’s surviving family.

The 10th Circuit did not use the phrase “hedonic damages,” referring to the loss of the victim’s enjoyment of life, so the Saguache County defendants believed the Berry decision dictated exactly what Maes’ estate could ask for in monetary damages.

Although Wang agreed with the defendants that Lieberenz’s own damages could not be part of the case, she disagreed the Berry case closed the door on the plaintiffs’ highest-dollar claims.

“While the Tenth Circuit has not explicitly addressed the availability of hedonic damages – that is, those related to the loss of enjoyment of life,” she wrote in a Nov. 30 order, courts “have interpreted Berry as permitting recovery of such damages.”

Consequently, Wang decided Maes’ estate could still seek money for funeral expenses, his emotional distress, his physical pain and suffering, his loss of life and his loss of enjoyment of life – the latter of which came with the demand of up to $1.1 billion. The plaintiffs calculated the figure by estimating Maes’ anticipated lifespan was worth $1 “per second lost.”

The judge has set the parties’ final conference before the trial for mid-January.

The case is Lieberenz et al. v. Board of County Commissioners et al.