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Iowa to pay $2.5M to settle lawsuit filed after woman’s leap

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September 5th, 2018 by Ric Hanson

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa will pay $2.5 million to settle a lawsuit involving a woman who leaped from the top of a five-story parking ramp. The lawsuit was filed by Kathleen Haptonstall and her husband, William, in 2016. The Des Moines Register reports that she died last year of complications from injuries suffered when she jumped Sept. 24, 2014, from a ramp at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics in Iowa City. She was a psychiatric patient there at the time.

The lawsuit alleged among other things that the hospital didn’t communicate changes in her behavior and failed to adequately review medical records before taking her from a locked psychiatric unit. The lawsuit also says staffers failed to follow procedures that could have prevented the incident. The Iowa Appeal Board approved the settlement Tuesday.