A Colorado Springs family suing Wellpath, El Paso County’s former jail health care provider, over the death of a 48-year-old family member who accused the company of gamesmanship through the courts to delay payment until the company had protection through bankruptcy filings.

Cristo Canett went to St. Francis Hospital to seek help for pain he was feeling in his shoulder in 2022, but instead he was arrested on a warrant, which the complaint filed by his family says was lodged accidentally. According to the lawsuit, Canett was arrested for leaving Community Corrections without approval, but his family states the warrant was filed by Community Corrections in error and that Canett had approval to go to the hospital.

Despite officers being told of the mistake directly by Community Corrections staff, Canett was arrested.

The next day, Canett died in the El Paso County jail from a perforated ulcer, causing him to bleed to death in his cell. According to the complaint he was never examined by any Wellpath staff members before his death, despite being arrested at the hospital. Canett was one of more than 20 people to die in the jail over four years while Wellpath was the health care provider for the jail, from 2020 to 2023.

During court proceedings, attorneys for Canett’s family alleged Wellpath withheld documents from the plaintiff, switched out attorneys right before evidence deadlines, and more.

“Here, Wellpath’s goal appears to have been to delay the conclusion of the case to avoid financial responsibility,” the motion for sanctions filed by Canett’s family’s attorneys said. “The discovery process cannot become a playground for one party to experiment with procedural gamesmanship to push off merits-adjudication into the distant future. Such damaging bad faith conduct appears to be the norm for this particular defendant around the country.”

Wellpath did not respond to The Gazette’s requests for comment.

The family attorneys alleged in a motion filed days before Wellpath declared bankruptcy that the company acted in bad faith to get its case delayed, all to avoid having to pay out the full sum it would owe the Canett family and others at the end of litigation.

Court documents obtained by The Gazette allege Wellpath’s misconduct in court extends beyond Canett’s case.

According to a transcript from a joint hearing regarding the disclosure of documents relating to the death of Canett and Daniel Murray — another man who died in custody at the jail — Wellpath fired an attorney for disclosing documents to the plaintiffs.

“I’m very concerned with Wellpath’s approach generally in discovery, not just in this case, but in others,” Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell said, according to the transcript. “I can tell you I think my colleagues are, too. I don’t think this is just my own concerns, and I can see from cases around the country that other courts are concerned, so you might want to relay that to your client. There’s a lot of concern around their approach in these litigations.”

Just over a month later, Wellpath filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“We’re going to go through the bankruptcy process, and I’m not expecting to get more than pennies on the dollar in compensation for the death of a young girl,” Andrew McNulty, an attorney representing the family of Dezaree Archuleta, an 18-year-old girl who committed suicide in the jail, told The Gazette.

McNulty said there is a “very, very slim chance Wellpath reorganizes in some way where our debts are not discharged in the bankruptcy.”

According to the most recent amended version of Wellpath’s bankruptcy reorganization plan, all unsecured claims — including pending lawsuits like Canett’s and Archuleta’s — will receive a portion of a legal trust established by Wellpath. The total amount in the legal trust is currently expected to be just $5 million.

“It’s a travesty,” Rachel Kennedy, one of the attorneys representing Canett’s family, said of Wellpath’s decision to file for bankruptcy. “It’s no secret that Wellpath’s bankruptcy was in large part driven by the burden of litigation arising from its mistreatment of the people in its care, and the fact that it may completely evade any sort of recognition of the harm that they caused, any sort of financial recognition of that harm, is devastating.”