A federal judge allowed claims to proceed last week against some medical and sheriff’s office employees at the El Paso County jail over their alleged failure to ensure a detainee received his cancer medication during four months of incarceration.

Stuart Patrick McLaney was in the county jail between March-July 2023. He has chronic myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer affecting bone marrow, for which he takes daily chemotherapy pills. His lawsuit alleged that immediately after arriving at the jail, he notified sheriff’s employees and medical contractors with Wellpath, LLC about the need to take his medication.

But no one allegedly provided him with his pills during his stay, despite McLaney raising the issue on numerous occasions. He experienced physical pain and a shortened life expectancy as a result, his lawsuit alleged.

McLaney asserted claims of negligence, inadequate medical care, and deliberate indifference to his serious medical needs in violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Two Wellpath employees, two sheriff’s employees, elected Sheriff Joseph Roybal and El Paso County moved to dismiss some or all of McLaney’s claims against them.

In a Feb. 10 order, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang agreed some of McLaney’s allegations were not viable, but others may proceed.

First, McLaney alleged he alerted nurse Donielle Coddington in May 2023 that he was not receiving “my proper meds for my stage two (leukemia). Please help.” Wang concluded that interaction could not support a claim of deliberate indifference, which required that Coddington have known of a serious risk of harm to McLaney and disregarded it.

“There are no facts plausibly establishing that Nurse Coddington knew anything specific about Plaintiff’s condition, what medication Plaintiff was prescribed, how often he needed to take that medication, or how long he had been deprived of the medication,” Wang wrote.

As for nurse Evie Decker, Wang agreed McLaney had stated a claim against her by alleging he put Decker on notice about the progression of his cancer and his need for medication.

Finally, Wang declined to dismiss McLaney’s negligence claims against the Wellpath employees.

“Assuming that Nurse Decker and Nurse Coddington owed Mr. McLaney a duty to protect and/or a duty to provide medical treatment,” she wrote, “Plaintiff has sufficiently alleged, albeit more strongly with respect to Nurse Decker, that the Wellpath Defendants breached that duty by failing to take any action to help Plaintiff receive his critical and life-saving medical treatment.”

As for the sheriff’s employees, Wang dismissed McLaney’s deliberate indifference claim against Roybal, finding no allegations that the sheriff knew of a serious risk to McLaney. She also dismissed the claim against Deputy Sandra Rincon, whose only interaction with McLaney was upon booking, when he allegedly told Rincon he needed his pills.

Wang allowed McLaney’s claim to proceed against Kayla Zakrzewski, then known as Kayla Whigham, who allegedly responded to one of McLaney’s grievances about his lack of medicine and his feelings of increasing sickness by directing him to talk to medical staff.

“Plaintiff alleges facts sufficient to establish that Ms. Whigham, acting as a gatekeeper, knew that Mr. McLaney had stage-two leukemia, had not received his medication for over a month, and was feeling sicker by the day,” Wang wrote, but Whigham did not respond accordingly.

Finally, Wang allowed McLaney’s deliberate indifference claim to proceed against El Paso County itself for its own policies and practices that allegedly led to the violation of his constitutional rights.

The case is McLaney v. El Paso County et al.