Layleen Polanco: unmonitored in a Rikers cell
A transgender woman with epilepsy was placed in a restrictive housing cell at Rikers Island. In June 2019 she died there after going unmonitored. Fourteen months later the City of New York settled with her family for $5.9 million.
A public record, not a client of this firm. Everything on this page comes from the court file, the government announcement or the reporting cited at the end. Usher Law Group did not represent anyone in this matter, we publish no results of our own, and nothing here predicts the outcome of any other case.
Layleen Polanco had epilepsy. The jail knew it. She was held at Rikers Island in a restrictive housing cell, the kind of unit where a person is locked in alone for most of the day, and in June 2019 she died in that cell after going unmonitored. That is what the public record says, and it is enough.
The rule for a person with a known seizure disorder in an isolation cell is not complicated. Someone has to look. The claim her family brought was that no one did, for long enough that it killed her. In August 2020 the City of New York settled for $5.9 million.
The case sits at the meeting point of three things the law treats separately: a medical condition the jail was told about, a decision to isolate her, and the monitoring that isolation requires. New York's HALT Act, in effect since March 31, 2022, now bars segregated confinement for people with disabilities altogether and caps it for everyone else. Rikers remains under the Nunez consent judgment, with a court-appointed Remediation Manager since 2025.
What the law calls it
A person awaiting trial is protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and in the Second Circuit the test for medical care and conditions is objective: did the jail know or should it have known of a serious risk, and did it fail to act reasonably (Darnell v. Pineiro, 849 F.3d 17 (2d Cir. 2017)). The older rule for convicted prisoners, deliberate indifference to serious medical needs under the Eighth Amendment, comes from Estelle v. Gamble, 429 U.S. 97 (1976), and it excludes ordinary negligence. Either way, a known condition and a cell no one checks is the core of the claim.
The City answers under Monell for its policies on who is placed in restrictive housing and how those units are monitored, and the individual officers answer for what they did and did not do on their tours. The state-law wrongful death claim runs alongside, with a 90-day notice of claim.
What it cost
Family of Layleen Polanco
A transgender woman with epilepsy died in a Rikers Island restrictive housing cell in June 2019 after going unmonitored.
Source: NBC News. A public record of someone else's case, not a result of this firm and not a prediction.
What it means for you
If a family member with a medical or psychiatric condition is in a New York jail, the single most useful thing you can do is put the condition in writing to the facility and keep a copy. A jail that has been told cannot later say it did not know, and "knew or should have known" is the standard. Our denial of medical care page explains what a medical claim needs, and solitary confinement lists the people the HALT Act says may never be isolated.
If the worst has already happened, the state claim against the City needs a notice of claim within 90 days of the death, and the federal claim under Section 1983 has three years. Our death in custody page explains the records to demand at once, including the medical file, the housing decisions and the tour logs, and wrongful death explains who may bring the claim.
The pages this story points to
Death in custody
The records to demand immediately and the claims a family can bring.
Read →Denial of medical care
Known conditions, ignored requests, and the objective Second Circuit standard.
Read →Solitary confinement
Who may never be isolated under the HALT Act, and the 15-day cap for everyone else.
Read →Sources. NBC News, "Family settles lawsuit over death of trans woman in NYC jail" (August 2020); N.Y. Correction Law 137(6); Nunez v. City of New York, No. 11-cv-5845 (S.D.N.Y.).
Common questions
What does "restrictive housing" mean?
A unit where a person is held apart from the general jail population, with more time locked in a cell. New York's HALT Act now bars segregated confinement for people with disabilities and caps it for everyone else at 15 consecutive days.
Is a jail liable every time someone dies in a cell?
No. The claim requires that the jail knew or should have known of a serious risk and failed to act reasonably (Darnell v. Pineiro in the Second Circuit). A known medical condition and a cell no one checks is the kind of fact pattern that meets that standard; an unforeseeable event is not.
Tell us what happened.
One conversation with an attorney, in your language. We tell you which claims the facts support, which deadline runs first for the agency involved, what evidence to preserve this week, and whether a pending criminal case changes the timing. If it is not a case we can take, we say so and tell you where to go.
(718) 484-7510If a criminal charge is still open, talk to your defense lawyer before you describe the arrest to anyone, including us. English, Russian and Spanish in-house; an interpreter for any other language. Contingency fee, confirmed in writing before we begin.