Buena Park : Judge Won’t Dismiss Suit Against Jail, City

A federal judge refused Monday to dismiss Buena Park as a defendant in a $55-million lawsuit filed against the city and Orange County Jail officials by a woman who said she suffered a miscarriage in the jail because of inadequate care.

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie ruled in Los Angeles that the suit filed by Michele Rene Holtan after her miscarriage in March, 1986, was legally adequate and should proceed.

Holtan’s attorney, Harry Lerner of the American Civil Liberties Union, said he was pleased by the ruling.

The city’s attorney said Buena Park would continue to defend its actions. “Our contention is that the medical care provide by the city was adequate,” said Martha J. Geisler, a private lawyer representing the city. “She was not in our care at the time of the miscarriage.”

The suit stemmed from Holtan’s arrest by Buena Park police in a drug raid on March 20, 1986. The police took her and a group of friends to the station. She was about to be released without charges when a computer check revealed a warrant for an unpaid speeding ticket, the complaint said.

Holtan, then 15 weeks’ pregnant, was transferred to the county jail and treated when she began to bleed. Although a doctor recommended that she remain lying down, the suit alleges that she was forced to stand up for 15 hours and subsequently miscarried.