Death in Custody Worksheet

Purpose#

For a family or estate: the facts and public records about a death in custody, who may act for the decedent, and the records to request and preserve, without any conclusion about cause or fault.

The six-way records key#

Mark every document with one letter:

• H — you have it lawfully now.
• R — a defined request pathway exists only if this specific requester has authority. The decedent’s clinical records require applicable HIPAA and California law; the public death writing under Gov. Code §12525 has different disclosure/redaction rules. Employee personnel or EDD rights do not automatically entitle a family to another person’s records.
• D — obtainable only through discovery or subpoena once a case is filed (Roadmap 038).
• P — potentially protected by privilege or privacy (including medical and family confidentiality, qualified peer-review protection, attorney-client or work product material); a privilege label is a hold for review, not automatic withholding or automatic access.
• K — must be preserved by someone else but need not be produced to you voluntarily (Roadmap 007).
• X — you must not access, copy or remove it (employer systems, patient charts, jail management systems, peer-review files).

Decedent and family#

Public records about the death#

Medical and custody records#

Use Worksheet 109. A decedent’s legally authorized personal representative may have record-access rights under 45 C.F.R. §164.502(g)(4) and applicable California law; do not infer from kinship, possible heirship, or the existence of an estate that every person may receive the full chart.

Entities and persons#

Use Worksheet 101 for each entity and person involved, including bankruptcy status.

Instructions and cautions#

California Government Code §911.2 generally provides a six-month claim-presentation period for specified death/personal-injury state claims against a covered public entity, with accrual, presentation, late-claim and statutory-exception questions requiring immediate case-specific legal analysis. This is not a single deadline for all suits against individuals, nonpublic contractors, federal §1983 actions or family claims. The source-A reference to Roadmap 096.1 remains HELD because competing namespace and authoritative-body reconciliation are incomplete. Consult counsel promptly without calculating a filing deadline from this worksheet. This worksheet does not say who caused the death. It records who the decedent was, who may act, and what the records show.

Distinguish death-related document functions#

Records created after a death can serve very different purposes: an official death certificate, a medical-examiner record, a facility incident report, clinical notes, an agency notification, an investigative report or a family's communication with the institution. None automatically resolves cause of death, legal causation or fault. Use separate fields for the date the death occurred, the date it was pronounced, the date of notification and the date any report was finalized. These dates may be different and should not be merged.

A preliminary determination can change after toxicology, pathology review or additional investigation. If a document is amended, preserve both versions and the stated reason, if available. When a report summarizes interviews, distinguish the investigator's account from testimony actually given under oath. A public report about a death is evidence of what that report states; it is not automatically a judicial finding that every underlying assertion is true.

Respect the family's and other patients' privacy. This public worksheet should not include graphic details, private medical descriptions, names of unrelated incarcerated people, or sensitive family contact information. A person compiling records for an estate may have to establish their lawful representative status, but this worksheet does not determine legal standing or entitlements. It also does not authorize obtaining records through a staff member's access or by circumventing facility systems.

Different mechanisms address different aspects of an incident. A coroner or medical examiner may determine medical cause and manner within statutory jurisdiction; a correctional agency may examine procedures; licensing boards may review professional conduct; a court may decide disputed legal questions. California Gov. Code §12525 reporting, federal DCRA submissions, and coroner inquiry have distinct purposes, reporting actors and public-access limitations. The existence of one process does not replace the others. Record each process and its actual public disposition without treating an investigation as a finding of liability.

What this worksheet does not do#

It does not tell you whether you have a claim, whom to name, where to file, or when. Those are questions for the Roadmaps and for counsel. It records facts so that those questions can be answered accurately.

Expanded worksheet#

A. Define the occurrence without prematurely deciding its legal character

Complete one row for each source-documented event and preserve the source's original timestamp/time zone. Do not transform a notation of "found unresponsive" into a verified time of collapse, or a hospital pronouncement into proof of where injury occurred.

Use distinct clock fields for incident, chart entry, signature, upload, correction, report receipt and export. If a CCTV overlay, dispatch database and medical EHR disagree, record the difference before converting time zones. List clocks requiring synchronization and the method used; do not quietly "fix" contradictory timestamps.

B. Four distinct outcome questions

A death certificate records certified vital information and medical certification; an autopsy can address pathology and mechanism; a coroner/medical examiner determination may describe cause and manner; a court decides claims under applicable evidentiary rules and burdens. These functions overlap but are not interchangeable. A report of "natural," "accident," "suicide," "undetermined," or "homicide" does not by itself decide constitutional liability, medical negligence, immunity, comparative fault, or damages. Preserve preliminary and amended versions and the basis for each change.

C. Distinguish reporting systems instead of merging them into a single "death report"

California Government Code §12525 requires the law-enforcement agency or correctional agency in charge to report in writing to the Attorney General within 10 days after an in-custody death. As amended by AB 3092 effective January 1, 2025, subdivision (b) requires an update within 10 days after changed or newly available information regarding death, including manner and means. Subdivision (c) classifies the specified writings as public records subject to California Public Records Act procedures and confidentiality protection, expressly not opening otherwise confidential medical information simply because it accompanied the report. Confirm the version applicable to the death date; a requested copy may be redacted or withheld as law permits. Do not imply that a reporting error independently proves actionable medical negligence or a private federal claim. Source: Gov. Code §12525 (2025 reproduced statute, amended Stats. 2024, ch. 69).

Federal Death in Custody Reporting Act (DCRA), 34 U.S.C. §60105, involves state quarterly submissions to the U.S. Attorney General concerning specified deaths during detention, arrest, transport or incarceration, including contract settings. DOJ's Bureau of Justice Assistance describes state administering agencies collecting from local entities. This is an institutional reporting pathway, not an automatic family's discovery right, federal merits determination, or standalone private damages action. Maintain separate fields for the local California §12525 report, amendments, statewide federal DCRA collection, and source records used in either program.

California Government Code §27491 assigns the county coroner an inquiry role in statutory categories including certain deaths in prison or under sentence, suspicious deaths and unexpected deaths. Coroner inquiry and its scope are not identical to an independent civil-rights investigation. Investigate the actual coroner jurisdiction, office structure and record holder for a death at a particular time and location; avoid presuming every jail death has a uniform autopsy or inquest procedure.

Prospective provision, not yet operative on October 19, 2026: Government Code §27491.56, enacted in 2025 (AB 1108, FACTS Act of 2025), specifies new arrangements for determining circumstances, manner and cause in certain in-custody deaths in counties with combined sheriff-coroner offices. Although the enactment became effective January 1, 2026, subdivision (g) states that the section is operative January 1, 2027. Do not describe this future independent-examination system as already governing a 2026 death. Check any subsequent amendment and local implementation before a later publication.

D. Heirs, personal representative, successor, HIPAA representative: four separate categories

California wrongful death: Code of Civil Procedure §377.60 lists the persons who may assert the wrongful-death cause of action or whose interests may be asserted by the decedent's personal representative, with specific additional statutory classes and qualifications. Do not automatically label every relative an eligible plaintiff. Verify the complete statutory class, dependent status where relevant, and potential omitted heirs. Record adverse family position without broadcasting private relationships.

California survival: Code of Civil Procedure §377.30 permits certain surviving causes of action to be brought by the decedent's personal representative or, if none, successor in interest, subject to the governing conditions. §377.32 may require an appropriate declaration with facts supporting successor status and an attached certified death certificate. A wrongful-death heir is not automatically the representative or successor for every survival action. A family contact is not automatically the custodian of the decedent's clinical records.

Clinical privacy: The HIPAA Privacy Rule generally protects a decedent's identifiable health information for 50 years after death. A legally authorized personal representative may exercise specified rights under 45 C.F.R. §164.502(g)(4). The Rule also permits certain limited disclosures to family or others involved in the decedent's care or payment, subject to applicable conditions; that does not give every relative full record access. Follow California's applicable decedent-record authorizations and exceptions as well as HIPAA. A qualifying disclosure to a coroner does not automatically make the records public. See HHS guidance Health Information of Deceased Individuals and Personal Representatives.

No-records shortcut: Death does not authorize unauthorized entry into jail EHR, pharmacy, peer review, coroner, personnel or litigation systems. Legal standing in a lawsuit, lawful authority to receive clinical information, and eligibility to obtain a public record must each be analyzed independently.

E. Claim routes and opposing theories: no automatic liability from the death

Fourteenth Amendment caution: Gordon I, 888 F.3d 1118 (9th Cir. 2018), rejected a purely subjective standard for pretrial detainee medical-care claims, but still required objectively unreasonable conduct sufficiently serious to exceed negligence and causal injury. Read the adverse follow-up Gordon II, 6 F.4th 961 (9th Cir. 2021): the court affirmed rejection of the county's Monell theory on that record, including absence of comparable events and inadequate proof from later policy changes; it also affirmed immunity for some individuals while allowing the claim against another nurse to proceed. The same death therefore does not establish equivalent liability for every actor or organization.

Medical chronology and causation: In Sandoval v. County of San Diego, 985 F.3d 657 (9th Cir. 2021), the court found evidence on which a factfinder could find failures to respond to obvious medical distress and delay in calling paramedics objectively unreasonable, considering the facts in the summary-judgment posture. This is a fact-specific comparator, not a rule that every serious outcome proves recklessness. Separately analyze whether earlier intervention was feasible and would more likely than not (where that standard applies) have changed the outcome; document counterfactual assumptions and contrary expert evidence.

Public-entity and public-employee distinctions: Gov. Code §844.6(a) generally provides broad public-entity immunity for prisoner injury, subject to enumerated statutory exceptions; subdivision (d) distinguishes individual employee malpractice and public entity indemnification obligations. §845.6 provides a constrained exception where an employee knows or has reason to know of an immediate need for care yet fails to take reasonable action to summon medical care. The exception should not be misrepresented as a general guarantee of correct ongoing treatment. California immunity analysis must be specific to defendants and legal theories; state immunities do not automatically dispose of distinct federal §1983 claims.

F. Filing dates and damages: a material 2026 distinction

Do not apply one six-month deadline to everything. Under Gov. Code §911.2, a claim involving death or injury within the California Government Claims Act generally must be presented to the appropriate public entity within six months of accrual, subject to statutory scope, presentation requirements, late-claim mechanisms, exceptions, and case-specific accrual. This is a state-law public-entity claim-presentation rule, not a universal deadline for direct claims against private contractors or for federal §1983 suits. A separate complaint filing deadline and limitations/tolling analysis may apply. This worksheet records legally documented dates only and never computes a final date; Roadmap 008 and actual authenticated forum matrix controls require independent counsel review.

Current version of CCP §377.34 as viewed in the 2025 statutory reproduction: For qualifying state-law survival actions, damages for predeath pain/suffering/disfigurement under subdivision (b) were available for actions filed from January 1, 2022 through December 31, 2025, or actions granted the specified trial preference before 2022. For a newly filed action on or after January 1, 2026, do not assert that the subdivision (b) temporary window remains generally open. Subdivision (a) otherwise limits damages to specified predeath loss/damage, penalties, and permitted punitive damages. This is not the same as the separate heirs' wrongful-death damages. Federal §1983 survival may require an independent federal inconsistency analysis under Chaudhry v. City of Los Angeles, 751 F.3d 1096 (9th Cir. 2014), and Hernandez v. County of Alameda (9th Cir. Oct. 17, 2024). These federal decisions do not authorize a blanket statement that all state survival actions filed in 2026 recover pain and suffering.

G. Evidence custody and retention: request preservation, do not assume production

For every item, mark H lawfully held; R may be requested after specific entitlement verification; D appropriate discovery/subpoena; P privilege/confidentiality concerns; K preservation request to holder; or X no unauthorized access. P and K are not automatic permissions to view. Record who physically controls the native data; CFMG, Wellpath, the County, a hospital, EMS, an independent coroner and cloud vendors must not be collapsed into one repository or employer. Cloud processing, custodianship, legal control, and clinical decision authority can differ.

Preservation caution: Routine retention periods, intentional destruction, failure to suspend deletion after a triggering preservation duty, and absence of an item are materially different facts. A later missing video or overwritten log cannot automatically be labeled spoliation. For electronically stored information, Fed. R. Civ. P. 37(e) has specific requirements concerning duty, failure to take reasonable steps, loss, availability of replacement, prejudice, and intent for the most serious sanctions; forum law and actual time of duty matter. Request preservation of native metadata and hashes from lawful holders, never copy systems without authorization. Encryption/hashes authenticate a byte sequence, not whether the recorded medical judgment or underlying statement is true.

H. Alternative-cause and contradiction register: strongest potential defenses

The purpose is to expose weaknesses rather than generate allegations. Enter only independently documented propositions and applicable source; keep a primary/secondary/advocacy grading.

Adversarial standards: In a wrongful-death inquiry, defense counsel may argue absence of standing, untimely or defective government claim, unavailable damages category, constitutional standard not met, qualified immunity, §844.6/§845.6 immunity, independent alternative medical cause, contributory or intervening factors, lack of notice, no institutional policy/custom, and wrongful attribution among employer, county and MSO. Do not convert any of these possibilities into an established defense without applying its precise elements. Conversely, allegations about entity labels, integration, policy deficiencies or cost pressure do not eliminate the need to prove actual role, time-specific decision, breach and causal effect.

I. Status and entity precision: CFMG, Wellpath and county roles are not synonyms

Record separately (i) county contract entity as of the death, (ii) the physician professional corporation and actual treating clinician if authenticated, (iii) parent and management-service provider, (iv) custody agency, (v) hospital/EMS, (vi) coroners, and (vii) successor/emergent restructuring entities at the event date. Public-facing use of a brand, shared claims counsel, corporate affiliation, or an administrative payroll label does not alone establish clinical decision power or legal liability. Do not assume that a bankruptcy stay automatically protects a separate nondebtor, or that a post-restructuring name accurately identifies the historical care provider.

J. Privacy, privilege, de-identification and communications controls

A patient or decedent narrative remains identifiable through combinations of location, unusual time, age, charge, manner of death, employment role or public news, even when names are removed. Source-classify private evidence before using it in public prose. Medical and mortality reviews may contain material subject to California Evidence Code §1157, patient/privacy law, attorney-client privilege or work product protections; the applicability of each protection is specific to the record, preparer, and purpose. Do not infer that a public report waives private medical confidentiality, or that a county source becomes public merely because it is mentioned by a journalist. No source-path, personal case identifier, actual patient number, family address, or privileged communication belongs in a public-source publication instruction.

For lawyers and parties, preserve lawful contact restrictions, including rules concerning represented organizations; witnesses can be requested or interviewed only through lawful, noncoercive means. Note voluntariness, exact source of knowledge and potential conflicts. Keep private linkage IDs out of public notes. Human counsel and clinical reviewers must independently approve the disclosure and treatment of any clinical-causation passage. An automated pattern scan for SSNs and emails is only a screening control, not contextual privacy clearance.

K. Neutral review completion checks (all still require evidence)

Related roadmaps#

Source-A references only: 008 (date-source tracker), 109 (medical/custody record holder), 101 (historical entity ID), 111 (this worksheet), 112 (damages), 119 (causation timeline), 120 (claim/notice source tracker), 122 (heir/successor records), 129.1 (state death pleading model), and death-related portions of 051–099. 096.1 and other source-B counterparts are HELD; no asserted same-body mapping until competing manuscripts are authenticated.