Jury awards $1.5 million to family of man who died of diabetes complications in Philly jail

The family of a man who died in a Philadelphia jail of complications from diabetes has been awarded more than $1.5 million in damages by a jury.

Louis Jung Jr., 50, of South Philly, died of diabetic ketoacidosis caused by severe lack of insulin in 2023 at the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Holmesburg. Jung's three sons filed a lawsuit in federal court in 2024 against the city, the Philadelphia Department of Prisons and the company that provides health care at the city's jails, for wrongful death and medical neglect.

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The lawsuit alleged that the jail failed to monitor Jung's blood glucose levels, administer insulin and send him to the hospital when his blood glucose levels became dangerously high. Late Monday, a jury awarded Jung's family more than $1.5 million in compensatory damages and $170,000 in punitive damages for violations of Jung's constitutional right to necessary medical care, Jung's lawyers said.

"For the Jung family, yesterday's verdict was about accountability, about ensuring that Mr. Jung's memory and the injustice that happened to him is remembered," Rupalee Rashatwar, a staff attorney at the Abolitionist Law Center, a public interest law firm in Philadelphia that represented the family, said Tuesday.

A city spokesperson said in an email that officials were reviewing the verdict and had no additional comments at this time.

In 2020, a class-action lawsuit was brought against the city and the prisons department by 10 people who alleged inhumane conditions and other civil rights violations while incarcerated.

As part of a 2022 agreement prompted by that lawsuit, a federal monitor was appointed to oversee the prisons department and address a job vacancy rate among corrections officers of more than 40%, among other specific improvements.

A judge found the city in contempt of court in 2024 for violating the 2022 agreement and ordered it to prioritize filling staff vacancies and pay $25 million into a fund to be used for improvements at the jails.