A $16 million settlement has been reached between San Diego County and the family of a 22-year-old man who died in the San Diego Central Jail, with the family's attorneys saying a major factor in the case's resolution was the county's failure to preserve 55 hours of surveillance footage capturing the area outside the man's jail cell.
The settlement — believed to be the largest known wrongful death settlement in San Diego County history — resolves a lawsuit filed by the family of William Hayden Schuck, who died in March 2022, one month after the California State Auditor released a scathing report regarding the high rate of in-custody deaths at San Diego County jails.
Attorneys representing the Schuck family say numerous deficiencies highlighted in the report, such as inadequate safety checks of jail cells and delays in providing medical treatment, played direct roles in Schuck's death from dehydration and drug toxicity.
During a Wednesday news conference announcing the settlement, the attorneys also said the deletion of the video footage likely played a role in the county settling the case. Attorneys argued in court filings that the footage could have confirmed whether or not jail staff conducted safety checks of Schuck's cell during a period when his health rapidly declined.
Timothy Scott, one of those attorneys, said a San Diego federal judge sanctioned the county and ruled that if the case had gone to trial, jurors would be instructed that they could be allowed to assume whatever was contained in the footage would have reflected badly on the county.
"I do think that faced with that kind of jury instruction at trial, it did make the county more willing to settle," Scott said.
(PHOTO: ABC 10)