County Settles Civil Rights Miscarriage Suit for $10,000

A woman who suffered a miscarriage in the Orange County Jail has dropped her civil rights lawsuit in return for a $10,000 payment from the county.

Michele Rene Holtan had claimed in her federal lawsuit that jail officials failed to provide adequate medical assistance despite her repeated requests.

The county, which denied any wrongdoing, acknowledged no liability in the settlement. The cost is less than pursuing a full-blown defense in court would be, said John L. Oskins Jr., who heads the county’s risk management office.

Holtan was arrested as part of a drug investigation in Buena Park in 1986. When she was first brought to the jail, a nurse ordered her taken instead to the emergency room at Western Medical Center.

Medical Center personnel expressed concern about the fact that Holtan had been bleeding, but sent her back with instructions that she needed rest and should be hospitalized if symptoms persisted. Holtan alleged that after her return to jail she was forced to stand for more than 12 hours before she was taken to a hospital the next day and spontaneously aborted.

Hospital records noted that she was exhibiting symptoms of drug withdrawal, and one portion of the lawsuit alleged that the jail’s failure to treat Holtan for opiate withdrawal posed a “grave threat” to her unborn child.

Holtan’s lawyer, Harry Lerner, said the case presented problems of proof.

“After consultation with several experts, we concluded that while Ms. Holtan’s treatment was atrocious, we could not prove it had caused the abortion,” Lerner said.

In contrast, Oskins said the case was “completely defensible,” but added that the settlement saved taxpayers money in the long run.

According to records of the case, no evidence of a fetal heartbeat or viable fetal development was found in the Western Medical examination or one at UCI Medical Center, where Holtan was last taken.