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A jury awarded a $16.8 million judgment to a California prison doctor who alleged her employer did not respond appropriately to a threat she received from an incarcerated person, fired her when she raised concerns about her safety, and then defamed her by allowing rumors to spread among staff.

The verdict, reached last week, caps Dr. Beth Fischgrund’s six-year effort to contest her dismissal from Salinas Valley State Prison, where she worked as a contract psychologist beginning in September 2017.

The jury’s decision “was one of the most surreal experiences of my life,” Fischgrund told CalMatters. “I felt like I finally did get validation. It’s been six and a half years. I felt a lot of the time, ‘Was I going crazy? Was this my fault?’ And to hear each person go up and confirm everything I felt, it was one of the most rewarding experiences of my life.”

A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation declined to comment on the case and would not say whether the state plans to appeal.

The case centered on a high-security yard at the prison in Monterey County. The unit housed incarcerated people who were considered unsafe to live with the general population because of the nature of their offenses, as well as some who had diagnoses for severe mental illnesses.

Fischgrund said she wanted to work in a prison because she has a passion for “underserved populations, populations that no one wants to work with.” She joined through a hiring agency, which the state uses because it has a longstanding shortage of prison psychologists and it is under a court order to improve mental health care.

Fischgrund’s complaint, filed in Sacramento Superior Court, alleged one inmate became overly familiar with her, commenting on her appearance and referring to her with an unprofessional nickname. The complaint said another doctor seemed to encourage that overfamiliarity.

Inmate Allegedly Talked About Cutting Doctor’s Head Off

The inmate in July 2019 reportedly told another prison psychologist he wanted to cut off Fischgrund’s head, which led clinical staff to alert Fischgrund.

The doctors talked with Fischgrund about the threat before communicating with correctional staff, who could have removed the inmate or taken steps to protect Fischgrund, according to the complaint.

That day, Fischgrund sent messages to the prison’s chief of mental health expressing concerns about her safety and asking about procedures to protect staff. She pressed senior doctors for help and answers for several days, the complaint said.

According to the complaint, the inmate spent a little more than a week in solitary confinement before returning to the yard where Fischgrund worked. He reportedly called her name from his cell, which shocked Fischgrund because she believed he was going to be separated from her.

Three days later, Fischgrund sent a message to the corrections department’s headquarters about her safety and about policies to protect staff. The inmate was able to approach her in the prison’s yard that day, as well, the complaint said.

Fired After Filing a Complaint

The complaint said she was told the corrections department determined the inmate’s threat was “not credible,” and that he would not be removed from the yard where Fischgrund worked. She was told she could leave that site.

She was fired two days after sending the message to headquarters, the complaint said.

Afterward, Fischgrund said she learned no state prison would hire her as a contract psychologist. She also found that Salinas Valley State Prison placed pictures of her around the institution with her height, weight and date of birth, which were meant to keep her off the premises. She said the flyers stoked rumors about her personal life.

“This is a catastrophic loss for the state of California because they just completely failed to do anything to manage this risk,” said her attorney, Lawrance Bohm of Bohm Law Group. “All Dr. Fischgrund did was try to help the state government do better by these inmates and instead of applauding a whistleblower they fired her and crushed her reputation to dust, causing extreme emotional damage that was recognized by the jury.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.