SAN DIEGO (CN) - A federal judge in San Diego refused to toss a lawsuit against the County of San Diego claiming a woman with a history of mental illness died in jail after refusing medication and food.

U.S. District Judge William Hayes found that the woman's mother successfully claimed that the county and its employees were deliberately indifferent to 32-year-old Roselee Bartolacci's medical condition, which ultimately led to her death at the Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility.

According to the mother, Roseann Bartolacci, San Diego County Sheriff's deputies were informed on April 6, 2023, that her daughter was suffering from an acute psychotic episode and needed immediate psychiatric care. Despite this, the deputies and other county officials failed to communicate Roselee Bartolacci's medical condition upon her screening into jail, Hayes wrote in the ruling. 

The mother says that the county and other defendants failed to monitor her daughter's weight loss, failed to provide her with the appropriate nutrition, ignored obvious signs of distress and failed to contact the San Diego Regional Center, a service provider for developmental disabilities, where she was a patient. 

Roselee Bartolacci's condition worsened while in police custody until she was found cold and unresponsive in her cell 48 days after her arrest. 

The mother says that the county denied her daughter's Fourteenth Amendment right to medical care and violated the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

"At this stage of the proceedings, plaintiff sufficiently alleges that Roselee had a serious medical need to which the screening defendants were deliberately indifferent," Hayes, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote.

The judge said in the ruling published Tuesday that the lawsuit successfully claimed that the defendants who screened Roselee Bartolacci admitted her into custody without taking reasonable steps to care for her mental health, despite knowing that she was in the midst of a serious crisis and despite jail policy that ensures inmates such as Roselee Bartolacci receive psychiatric care. The plaintiff successfully claimed that those failures likely led to her declining health and ultimately to her death, he wrote. 

According to the mother, who was her daughter's caregiver, Roselee Bartolacci received multiple diagnoses as a young child and functioned at the level of an 8-year-old. She required constant care from her mother, including medication and psychiatric care, Roseann Bartolacci says. 

"With Roseann's love and support, and with the assistance of the San Diego Regional Center, Roselee was able to lead a happy and healthy life, one that was extraordinary for someone born with her disadvantages," the mother says in the complaint. "That changed when Roselee was taken into the custody of the San Diego Sheriff's Department."

Roseann said that at some point in early 2023 her daughter's medicine was no longer effective and she began to have aggressive outbursts and experience paranoia. Her daughter struggled with changes to her medication, and on April 6 that year, she hit her mother with a hammer. 

Roseann Bartolacci called authorities and requested a psychiatric emergency response clinician who could assist law enforcement. She also said that her daughter needed to be taken to a hospital, not a jail. 

Roselee Bartolacci was taken to Las Colinas where she quickly deteriorated, her mother said. 

"She refused psychiatric medications, food, and liquids," the mother said in her complaint. "She was unable to take care of herself and languished in an isolation cell that was dirty and full of trash. Medical staff did not intervene or enter Roselee's cell to assess her medical needs."

Roselee Bartolacci was transferred back and forth between the Women's Psychiatric Stabilization Unit and the Alvarado Hospital Medical Center for different psychiatric and medical conditions, including kidney failure and malnutrition. 

"On May 25, 2023, medical staff noted that Roselee refused medications, food and liquid for 48 hours," Roseann Bartolacci says. "Still, medical staff failed to intervene and made no serious effort to assess her condition, render emergency medical care or have her sent to a facility that could care for her."

She died in her cell on May 28, 2023. 

Roseann Bartolacci filed a lawsuit in July of 2024. The defendants include San Diego County, the sheriff's deputies responsible for Roselee Bartolacci and the medical officials at the jail, along with the jail healthcare providers, Naphcare Correctional Health and Correctional Healthcare Providers.

Source: Courthouse News Service