$3.25 Million Settlement Announced in Michigan Mistaken DOA Case
The city of Southfield, Michigan, has agreed to a $3.25 million settlement with the family of Timesha Beauchamp, resolving litigation arising from an August 23, 2020, emergency response in which she was mistakenly pronounced dead by fire and EMS personnel, yet later found alive at a funeral home.
Beauchamp, 20 years old and living with cerebral palsy, was found struggling to breathe at her home. The Southfield Fire Department was dispatched after a 911 call. According to court filings, the EMS crew attempted resuscitation before consulting a physician by phone, and the physician pronounced Beauchamp deceased without physically evaluating her at the scene.
Beauchamp was placed in a body bag and transported to a funeral home hours later. At the funeral home, staff unzipped the body bag and found her gasping for air and with her eyes open. She was rushed to a hospital but did not fully recover, dying approximately two months after the incident.
Four firefighters were disciplined by the Michigan Department of Health. Here is our previous coverage of that proceeding, including an interview with the firefighters’ attorney. The Beauchamp family filed a $50 million federal lawsuit alleging civil rights violations. Here is our earlier coverage of the suit’s filing.
The family contended they told firefighters that Beauchamp had a pulse and they saw signs of life, but that their concerns were not acted upon, constituting deliberate indifference. The complaint was later amended to add negligence counts. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed the civil rights counts. Here is coverage of that decision.
In announcing the settlement, Southfield officials stated that “no resolution can undo what happened” and referenced the “extraordinarily difficult circumstances” during the COVID-19 pandemic. Attorneys for the family stated that medical experts believe Beauchamp might have survived if she had been transported to a hospital without delay. In remarks reported by counsel, she “was put in a situation she never should have been in.”
The settlement resolves the civil claims more than five years after the initial incident and follows procedural delays and litigation over immunity defenses. More on the story.
