FORT WORTH, Texas — An hour and half before a mentally disabled woman gave birth in a Tarrant County infirmary jail cell to a baby that later died, the then-medical director got an email that she was having abdominal cramps. He did not act on it, according to federal court records.
That email came to light late last year. It’s now resulted in a federal judge’s ruling putting Shaw back in legal jeopardy for the events that led to the death of the Chasity Congious’s baby, Zenorah.
“Dr. Shaw offered Congious no new treatment options when presented with information about her abdominal pain indicating labor,” U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor wrote in a ruling issued earlier this week. “Instead, Dr. Shaw ‘turned a deaf ear’ by electing to do nothing and instead keeping Congious confined to her cell without any monitoring or addressing the pain.”
The jail’s medical director is an employee of the John Peter Smith Hospital, which provides medical services in the jail.
Congious, now 26, was six months pregnant when booked into jail in 2020. After she’d been in jail for several months on an assault case probation violation, Congious went into labor inside an infirmary cell.
Jailers and medical staff sitting a few feet away didn’t hear her cries. She gave birth alone, the umbilical cord wrapped around the baby’s neck, cutting off oxygen to the baby’s brain.
The baby lived 10 days. Chasity’s family filed a lawsuit in February 2022. In May 2023, O’Connor dismissed the lawsuit against Dr. Shaw and others. Tarrant County was the sole remaining defendant.
“At the time, the Court based its decision on the lack of plausible facts that Dr. Shaw knew Congious was in pain the morning she gave birth and, notwithstanding that knowledge, refused her medical care,” O’Connor wrote.
But in December 2023, Congious’ attorneys received an email through discovery from the county.
The email was sent at 7:29 a.m. on May 17, 2020 and was a daily report documenting the status of prisoners in the infirmary. It was sent to about two dozen people, including Dr. Shaw.
It said she had “Refused Breakfast. C/O ABD Cramps” – meaning she was complaining about abdominal cramps. At 9:07 a.m., a jailer checked on Congious and found that she had given birth alone inside that cell.
Dr. David Gutman, a medical expert hired by Congious’ attorney, concluded that the “cramps were uterine contractions from Ms. Congious being in labor.”
“It is my opinion, within a reasonable degree of medical certainty that had” Congious “received appropriate and standard obstetrical medical treatment, she would not have suffered as she did and the outcomes” for her baby “would have been different,” Gutman wrote.
Dr. Melanie Carter, an obstetrician who examined Congious, had earlier told Shaw that labor should be induced because she “did not respond to questions, would not be able to express her symptoms, and may not recognize when she went into labor,” the judge wrote.
Instead, he left her in solitary confinement and did not transfer her to a medical facility, the ruling said.
“Given that Dr. Shaw also knew Congious was largely nonverbal, cognitively delayed, and psychologically fragile such that she may not recognize what a contraction is or when labor starts, this new evidence, taken as true, reveals that Dr. Shaw either ‘refused to treat' Congious, 'intentionally treated [her] incorrectly' or engaged in a manner tantamount to a 'wanton disregard for [her] serious medical needs,'” O’Connor wrote.
In court filings, Shaw’s attorney’s had argued that the email simply added more information to details the judge had already considered.
The judge did not agree.
“Based on these new facts, Dr. Shaw’s failure to take any action to treat Congious provides material information not previously known to the Court that would have changed the result of the motion-to-dismiss stage,” the judge wrote.
Jarrett Adams, Congious’ attorney, told WFAA that if Shaw had acted on the email, then Congious’ baby would be alive today.
“Anybody with a pulse and a heart knows when a pregnant woman says her stomach is hurting you pull her and check it out,” Adams told WFAA. “That is nothing more than medical negligence. I have never in my life seem so much lack of empathy.”
Adams had previously told WFAA that he put more onus for what happened to Congious and her baby on the jail’s medical staff than on the jail itself.
“Dr. Shaw got full notice that she would not be able to communicate her labor pains,” Adams said.
Adams said he is now looking forward to doing discovery, as well as depositions, to find out what else JPS medical officials working at the jail knew and when they knew it.
Jordan Parker, an attorney presenting Dr. Adams, said in an email, “The firm does not comment upon pending litigation.”
Chasity’s mother told WFAA in an interview Chasity’s mental state dramatically deteriorated since the events that occurred in the county jail. She spent weeks in a county-run mental health unit.
Her mother says she can no longer be left alone. She says Chasity suffers from frequent hallucinations and manic outbursts.
In May, Tarrant County commissioners voted unanimously to settle the lawsuit with Congious’ family for $1.2 million.
Email: teiserer@wfaa.com
