Family Blames Inmate Death on Ignored Order : Justice: Instead of hospitalizing him, deputies strapped a man to a jail cot where he died of a blood clot in his lung.

A lawyer for the widow and children of a North Hollywood man who died in jail told a San Fernando Superior Court jury that Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies ignored a court order to take him to a hospital for medical treatment and instead strapped him to a cot for 40 hours.

A county lawyer responded that deputies did not know about the order because a court clerk had misplaced it.

Stanley Malinovitz, 38, died from a blood clot in his lung on Jan. 28, 1984, five days after he was arrested for elbowing an elderly woman to the ground in a shopping mall.

His wife and two children, now 14 and 10, are suing the county for unspecified damages. Opening arguments in the San Fernando Superior Court civil trial concluded Wednesday.

Attorney Allan F. Grossman said Malinovitz’s death could have been prevented by appropriate medical care in custody. During those five days, Grossman said, Malinovitz, a family man with no prior criminal record, displayed erratic behavior that should have alerted deputies that something was wrong.

But Deputy County Counselor Philip S. Miller said Malinovitz would have died even if deputies had taken him to a hospital, because doctors there would not have properly diagnosed his disease. He argued that Malinovitz’s strange behavior stemmed from mental illness and was not a symptom of the blood clot that killed him.

“The examiner probably would not have found the clots, because Mr. Malinovitz could not describe any symptoms,” Miller said. “Mr. Malinovitz died from a disease he did not even know he had. It is an asymptomatic, silent killer.”

However, Grossman said Malinovitz had a history of blood clots, which he said can cause confusion and erratic behavior.

Two days before Malinovitz’s death, San Fernando Municipal Court Commissioner Charles L. Peven postponed Malinovitz’s scheduled arraignment and ordered sheriff’s deputies to take him to County-USC Medical Center after deputies found him lying naked and dazed in the court’s holding cell.

But deputies returned him to the Men’s Central Jail downtown, Grossman said, where they fastened him to an iron cot, strapping his wrists and ankles, for 40 hours.

Leather restraints are a “therapeutic device” used to control and calm inmates with mental problems and a propensity to violence, Miller said. Deputies placed Malinovitz in restraints because he shoved another prisoner, he said.

Miller said the jail administrators never received the order that Malinovitz go to the hospital, because a court clerk kept it on his desk instead of sending it to the jail.

“‘That court order did not leave here with Mr. Malinovitz,” he said.

However, after Malinovitz’s court appearance, Sue, his wife of 17 years, went to the hospital to await his arrival, Grossman said. From the hospital, she called the jail repeatedly, asking where her husband was and why the court order was ignored, Grossman said. Her calls went unheeded, he said.

“The bottom line is that he was in need of immediate medical care. The county was ordered to get it for him, and they didn’t do it,” Grossman said.