Logansport State Hospital responds to wrongful death lawsuit from family
Logansport State Hospital’s legal team recently denied knowing when a former patient was placed under surveillance, control or supervision.
Travis Lunsford’s estate filed a lawsuit against State Hospital in Cass County 2nd Superior Court on Aug. 8 after the former patient died from injuries sustained at the hospital.
Lunsford was allegedly beaten by another patient at the State Hospital, John Loran, in early February. Lunsford died about 10 days later at Fort Wayne’s Parkview Hospital.
Loran was arrested a short time later. His criminal case is still ongoing as he is being evaluated to determine whether he can stand trial and what state of mind he was in when the alleged crime was committed.
The complaint filed by Lunsford’s estate alleges that State Hospital should have known Loran was violent and failed to properly protect Lunsford.
The site’s attorney provided details of the alleged assault among the claims, writing that none of the State Hospital employees came to Lunsford’s aid and noting that after attacking Lunsford, Loran continued to attack a second unidentified hospital resident.
The estate claims hospital, medical, funeral and burial expenses; loss of earnings, wages and income for Lunsford; reasonable attorneys’ fees; The loss of care, love and affection from Lunsford; and emotional losses.
Responding to the complaint on October 1, State Hospital lawyers wrote that the plaintiff “may have acted carelessly and negligently in terms of his own safety and health.”
The defense also argued that the alleged injuries or damages were the “proximate result of the risk voluntarily assumed and/or assumed” by the property, that the property could not mitigate its damages, and that the State Hospital should be immune from this claim.
The defense also rejected 16 of the 37 allegations made in the initial complaint, claiming there was insufficient information to address them.
Among those allegations, the defense said it had no knowledge of whether the incident occurred in Cass County and whether Lunsford was hospitalized in late 1998 or early 1999.
The defense also wrote in its response that it did not have sufficient information about the attack or Loran’s history of violence, but denied that any attack was foreseeable.
The defense also rejected claims that the State Hospital breached its duties and that Lunsford’s injuries could have been caused by negligence.
Fiscal attorney Andrew Miller said in a phone interview with the Pharos-Tribune that some information, such as why Loran was taken to State Hospital, should be in the hospital records.
A message left for State Hospital’s defense attorney was not returned by Tuesday, the Pharos-Tribune’s press deadline.
Both sides requested a jury trial.
