Due diligence is a widely employed concept, commonly used in the financial world in relation to financial institutions, or in the business world and pertaining to mergers and acquisitions. Less commonly understood is that, in actuality, this concept permeates any relation between two parties, of which one has a responsibility towards the other.
Legal Information Institute (LII) elegantly captured a definition of this concept as “care or attention to a matter that is sufficient to avoid liability“.1
The same source cited the Securities Act § 11(b)(3) as allowing parties involved in a securities offering to escape fraud liability if they conducted due diligence on the issuer.
Each party should be seen as an entity consisting of many stakeholders.
In a hypothetical example of a prison, in case of litigation in regards to inmate suicide, the “party” that could be found responsible for “wrong doing” and subsequent reparations is not only the correctional institution itself, but anyone employed by the institution at the time and involved with that particular legal situation.
To further narrow down this exemplification, those who could be found responsible in this case are the warden/jailer/sheriff, correctional officers, the medical group contracted for providing medical care, medical professionals who interacted directly with the inmate and any staff member who participated in the handling of the inmate.
If for an institution remedial actions usually are financial in form, for individuals, including medical staff and medical doctors, found guilty while being employed by the correctional facility, these can be monetary or consist of deprivation of liberty or both.2,3
DEFENDING DUE DILIGENCE
From a practical standpoint in an inmate suicide case, establishing “due diligence” defense requires the discharge of duties in regards to the event and the documentation of such with evidence.
The best programs for suicide prevention in place are no guarantee nor do eliminate suicide in prisons, however they can help prevent, reduce or eliminate legal or regulatory liability.
Exercising of due diligence can be viewed as part of a risk management program. There are many approaches to risk management, of which two are critical.
The risk of a suicide occurrence is between 10 and 20% in any correctional facility. With a risk this high, a sound practice would require to avoid specific actions that could increase negative event occurrence, to train personnel on a regular basis to recognize these risks and actions enhancing the risk, to implement, review and update standard operating procedures for old as well as new risk factors.
The second essential approach to risk management, in this case, risk of litigation, is to document all actions taken to prevent or contain event development.
At Daniel Forensic Psychiatric Services, we help institutions mitigate the risk on inmate suicide by providing:
- an educational course on suicide prevention topics LOGIN to access content
- Case-of-the-Month discussions with personalized feedback from Dr. Daniel LOGIN to access content
- documentation of course completion
- initial personal consultation on professional matters regarding suicide in jails and prison topics
- practical tools that can be easily employed by correctional personnel during the course of their job
Dr. Daniel, an expert in the field of suicide prevention in jails and prisons, wrote and published a book on this very topic. This book proved itself of being an essential tool to professionals in the correctional system.
You can get a study copy or a personalized and autographed copy by visiting this page.
Reference list
1. (2020). due diligence. Legal Information Institute (LII), Cornell Law School.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/due_diligence
accessed April 14 2023
2. Spina, M. (2020). County to pay $90,000 in death of inmate denied medicine. The Buffalo News
https://buffalonews.com/news/county-to-pay-90-000-in-death-of-inmate-denied-medicine/article_bd3e8772-9f8a-5893-a4d3-15bdbcb3bd22.html
accessed April 14 2023
3. Shenefelt, M. (2022). Former Weber jail doctor wants suicide watch death lawsuit dismissed. Standard-Examiner.
https://www.standard.net/police-fire/courts/2022/mar/03/former-weber-jail-doctor-wants-suicide-watch-death-lawsuit-dismissed/
accessed April 14 2023
Last changed February 10 2023
