A wrongful death lawsuit has been filed in the fatal July 2023 shooting at Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland, Ore., The Oregonian reported.
The $35 million lawsuit, filed Nov. 12 in Multnomah County Circuit Court, names the hospital and its parent organization, Portland-based Legacy Health, as defendants.
It alleges that the defendants' inadequate policies, refusal to enforce policies and lack of communication caused the death of 44-year-old Bobby Smallwood.
Police shot PoniaX Kane Calles after he shot Mr. Smallwood, a security guard at the hospital; Mr. Smallwood died after being transferred to another facility. A second hospital employee was injured, treated at Good Samaritan and released to go home. Officers located Mr. Calles in a vehicle in Gresham, Ore., and Mr. Calles died after an officer-involved shooting.
Mr. Smallwood's family alleges that after Mr. Calles accompanied his partner to Good Samaritan on July 19, 2023, for the birth of their child, he "was immediately hostile toward hospital staff when they attempted to administer healthcare procedures" to his partner.
In the following days, Mr. Calles continued to exhibit aggressive behavior toward staff, and a hospital security guard located two firearms with ammunition in his partner's hospital room, all of which "should have resulted in immediate exclusion" from Good Samaritan based on the defendants' workplace violence policy, according to the lawsuit.
"Despite holding the Hospital out as a facility with zero tolerance for weapons, Defendant Legacy Good Samaritan took woefully inadequate measures to ensure that the Hospital was free of weapons," the lawsuit states.
Legacy Health declined to comment about the lawsuit, citing pending litigation.
Legacy Health increased security measures at its hospitals after the fatal shooting of Mr. Smallwood. This included installing metal detectors with bag search at every system hospital, installing bullet-slow film on hospital main entrances and emergency departments and on glass in internal entrances.
Additionally, "we have begun to develop a second phase of actions, and that work will continue over the next several months," Kathryn Correia, then-president and CEO of Legacy Health, said at the time. "This includes assessing the safety needs at our medical office buildings and our community-based clinics and reviewing locations that may need additional safety measures, including badge access controls, panic alarms and security cameras."
According to the lawsuit, on the day of the shooting, the defendants failed to warn Mr. Smallwood that Mr. Calles was carrying a firearm "at any time after 10:50 a.m.," and at 11:05 a.m., Mr. "Smallwood radioed hospital staff that he was escorting [Mr.] Calles out of the hospital."
Hospital staff pursued Mr. Smallwood and Mr. Calles, preventing them from leaving the facility, the lawsuit states. Mr. Calles was stopped by hospital staff and, moments later, turned and shot Mr. Smallwood. The lawsuit also states that hospital staff did not call a "Code Silver" until after the shooting.