A privately held company founded in 2003 and owned by two private equity funds, Correct Care Solutions has annual revenues estimated at $1.2 billion. It turned over its litigation history of 1,395 cases “only after significant resistance and pursuit in court,” said Darold Killmer, a Denver-based civil rights lawyer who has represented multiple clients who have sued Correct Care Solutions.



“The list shows that the company’s incessant push for profits at the expense of providing necessary medical care has foreseeably led to corner-cutting, resulting in deaths and untreated injuries of countless people,” he added. Killmer, who described the company as “an extraordinarily secretive firm,” obtained the list during discovery for an upcoming case in federal court in Wyoming. “CCS has for years resisted allowing anyone to see such a compilation, but their tactics of evasion and avoidance were not tolerated” by the judge in the case, Kilmer said.

Correct Care Solutions is using secrecy to try to shield itself from scrutiny and financial responsibility for the medical problems it has caused, according to Kilmer. “Such cynical and intentional conduct is designed specifically to eliminate the possibility that the public or government regulators will detect this massive pattern of misconduct,” he said. “And so far, they’ve largely gotten away with it.”

The complaints allege a range of charges, including wrongful death, malpractice and inadequate medical care. Many were filed by inmates without attorneys, but the list includes a number of high-profile cases involving inmate deaths and some in which plaintiffs obtained large settlements from Correct Care Solutions, interviews and court records show. Killmer and other Colorado attorneys said the 1,395 figure is an undercount, and they have cases of their own, and know of others, that were not included on the list Correct Care Solutions turned over. The list also contains only cases filed in federal courts, not with state courts.

A lawsuit is a formal claim made in court; most do not proceed to trial and either lead to settlements, are dismissed or are dropped.

The list also contains only civil allegations made against the firm, not criminal charges brought by government authorities against its employees. Earlier this month, Michigan law enforcement announced the arrest of a prison doctor employed by Correct Care Solutions who allegedly had inappropriate sexual conduct with female inmates. The company fired the doctor last month.

“As one of the nation’s largest providers of correctional health care, a certain amount of litigation is to be expected,” Correct Care Solutions wrote in a March 2018 document to Lancaster County, Neb., where it was bidding for a medical contract for the local jail. “Nevertheless, we believe our litigation history reflects relatively modest losses for a business of our size and scope, and is indicative of the high quality services we provide.”

Correct Care Solutions claimed that more than 750 lawsuits “were dismissed without payment to the plaintiff” and that it had settled an average of fewer than eight cases per year, “with an average of approximately $20,000 paid on closed cases.” According to the statement, “each settled lawsuit is subject to legally binding bilateral confidentiality agreements and cannot be disclosed.”

